laptops and Internet access in class
Matthew Bernius wrote: Next year I will be banning cell phone, ipods, etc. in my undergraduate classes. [snipped] This ban extends to myself as well (unless unavoidable, I'm going to rely on lecturing and white boards -- no more ppt). As Alex suggested, my biggest issue with laptops is the distraction that they cause to other students. Beyond that (and outside of lab activities), I am increasingly coming to the belief that they present a barrier to students developing certain skills that will, down the road, better allow those students to use those same devices. And, at least for a school like RIT, that prides > itself on preparing it's students for the workplace, basic > technology etiquette needs to be stressed. The sad fact is that a lot of the technology behavior I've seen isn't appropriate for the workplace.
I'm wondering whether Matt might expand on ideas introduced in this posting. In particular, suggestions that techology usage in classrooms doesn't translate into workplace settings. Choosing not to use the technology, as the instructor, is a contradictory practice as workplace educators are highly dependent on a variety of information and communication technologies in promotion of learning among employees in a variety of work settings. Employees also use ICTs to complete work tasks in automated work environments. What are some of the student technology usage practices that are not allowed in work settings? --------------------------------------- Gail D. Taylor, M.Ed. University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign Human Resource Education Ph.D. Student Educational Psychology Teaching Assistant Library & Information Science Research Assistant "Technology enables man to gain control over everything except technology." -- Unknown
Brabazon, T. 2002. Digital hemlock: Internet education and the poisoning of teaching. Sydney: University of New South Wales Press. Despite her polemical title Tara Brabazon had some very cogent points about the nature of today's classroom, the necessity for lectures (she plays loud rock music as an 'opener') and "death by powerpoint." Further, what I find with my students illustrates the points made by many writing instructors - such as Natalie Goldberg, "Writing down the Bones" - that writing exercises muscles in the hand that promote intelligent connections in the brain. I would argue that this is even more necessary for handwriting vs. keyboard but I find both modes very useful. Hence the useful taking of notes vs. "highlighter hypnosis" and everything pre-typed and pre-digested in ppt. Likewise, memorization of facts and figures exercises connectivity in the brain. Leaning on google to provide all facts at the very moment they are needed is not the same as the days when people memorized large bits of verse and text (Homer, the Vedas, etc.) I've just noted how mathematicians and physicists need to memorize a great deal of information to then build up their analysis to another level. Three years of Latin in high school helped me with learning other languages, and memorizing speeches from Julius Ceasar and Shakespeare I think helped my memory generally. Just a few musings. Many digital advocates skim over basic biological facts, including that people are bipedal hominids. For handwriting, that means old behaviors are still useful for 'biologically historical reasons' that don't necessarily match with the goals of modern technology. Cheers, Denise Denise N. Rall, PhD Southern Cross University, Lismore NSW 2480 AUSTRALIA Tues: Room T2.17, +61 (0)2 6620 3577 Mobile 0438 233 344 http://www.scu.edu.au/schools/rsm/staff/pages/drall/ Virtual member, Cybermetrics Group, University of Wolverhampton, UK http://cybermetrics.wlv.ac.uk/index.html ____________________________________________________________________________________Got a little couch potato? Check out fun summer activities for kids. http://search.yahoo.com/search?fr=oni_on_mail&p=summer+activities+for+kids&c...
I actually use this topic as an in-class discussion. The class is CS 4001 Computers, Society an Professionalism, our required ethics (and argumentation) class. Our text (Writing Arguments by Ramage et al) has a nice chapter on evidence. We talk this through as a way of exploring what would be proper evidence for the pros and cons on both sides. And how best to present that evidence. When I announce what today's discussion topic will be, the expressions on the faces of the students with laptops open is absolutely priceless! What I think is important (and this is the top-level point of the class as a whole) is not giving the students a particular answer, but making sure they *ask the question*, and find the answer that works for them. (Is this helping me? Is this distracting me? Am I here because I have to be, or because there's something I want to get out of it? Etc.) -- Amy Amy Bruckman Associate Professor College of Computing Georgia Institute of Technology Atlanta, GA 30332-0760 Tel: 404-894-9222 Fax: 404-894-3146 Email: asb@cc.gatech.edu Web: http://www.cc.gatech.edu/~asb/
A bit more on the topic from Theresa Anderson's and my conference presentation http://www.iml.uts.edu.au/learnteach/events/forum06/sukovic.html I won't elaborate now on issues of combining f2f and online teaching, combining creative and academic work, and addressing needs of academic and professional education because you can find some details at the address above. This discussion links nicely with questions about academic traditions. My apologies for sending the previous message twice. The first didn't come through, so I cut it and sent it again later, but now they are both available. Cheers, Suzana At 12:33 PM 22/05/2007, you wrote:
I actually use this topic as an in-class discussion. The class is CS 4001 Computers, Society an Professionalism, our required ethics (and argumentation) class. Our text (Writing Arguments by Ramage et al) has a nice chapter on evidence. We talk this through as a way of exploring what would be proper evidence for the pros and cons on both sides. And how best to present that evidence.
When I announce what today's discussion topic will be, the expressions on the faces of the students with laptops open is absolutely priceless!
What I think is important (and this is the top-level point of the class as a whole) is not giving the students a particular answer, but making sure they *ask the question*, and find the answer that works for them. (Is this helping me? Is this distracting me? Am I here because I have to be, or because there's something I want to get out of it? Etc.)
-- Amy
Amy Bruckman Associate Professor College of Computing Georgia Institute of Technology Atlanta, GA 30332-0760
Tel: 404-894-9222 Fax: 404-894-3146 Email: asb@cc.gatech.edu Web: http://www.cc.gatech.edu/~asb/ _______________________________________________ The air-l@listserv.aoir.org mailing list is provided by the Association of Internet Researchers http://aoir.org Subscribe, change options or unsubscribe at: http://listserv.aoir.org/listinfo.cgi/air-l-aoir.org
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Suzana
participants (4)
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'Gail Taylor -
Amy S. Bruckman -
Denise N. Rall -
Suzana Sukovic