March 13

The Laptop Ban: It's Not Just for Classrooms Anymore

By UD

More and more professors — hell, entire departments — are banning laptops from their classrooms. Now the business world’s doing it too, since people in meetings are using their laptops for the same reason, and in the same way, most students are using theirs:

[Meetings] can be quite a pain for many people involved. They can get pretty boring, so the participants start to lose interest. As a result, many people have started bringing their laptops into these meetings, presumably to entertain themselves... [Companies] are starting to crack down on the practice [because] most people are watching YouTube videos and posting comments on Facebook walls...

Along these lines, it’s a good moment to remember Joseph Weizenbaum, an MIT professor who died recently. His New York Times obituary notes that, although an important innovator in computer programming, Weizenbaum grew to regret the effects of screen-dependency:

[Weizenbaum] came to believe that an obsessive reliance on technology was indicative of a moral failing in society. [In one of this books, he wrote a] passionate criticism of systems that substituted automated decision-making for the human mind. [He argued that] computing served as a conservative force in society, by propping up bureaucracies as well as by redefining the world in a reductionist sense, by restricting the potential of human relationships.

Weizenbaum anticipated the lights-out classroom, where kindly PowerPointers shed valium rays over children adrift among their own images. In the tradition of Huxley’s Brave New World, Weizenbaum saw the way in which much of the technology he’d had a hand in would play into our infantile preference to be left alone, to blot out the world, to have nothing asked of us. These impulses are shared among professors, students, and business people, and if the technology’s there to indulge them, many will use it.

The brave new classroom’s anthem.

Comments

If you are a hopeless bore, banning notebooks won’t help you

Keep the meetings/talks on topic, take occasional breaks if the session must be long and by all means use a good presentation application that has carefully constructed content — they you won’t have to worry about being boring. The rationale for banning notebooks says more about the [lack of] skills of the lecturer than it does about the students.

RKV, SBCC, at 8:40 am EDT on March 14, 2008

Oh, yeah, and have something to say

As the previous commenter mentioned, if the meeting isn’t boring people won’t tune out. But there’s another, higher principle.

Ninety percent of meetings have no purpose other than reinforcing the authority of the person who called the assembly. That individual or clique, plus sycophants, then yammer on about nothing, and the rest get the message very clearly: Look, I can interrupt your routine at will! You have to sit still and listen when I talk! I have power!

If the meeting is useful the participants don’t tune out, with or without laptops. If the participants do tune out, by whatever method, the meeting serves no purpose other than power-display, and should be broken up then and there.

Ric Locke, at 9:25 am EDT on March 14, 2008

You’re not there to be entertained...

You’re there to be educated. If you want to be entertained, do it on your own time.

I don’t allow open laptops in my classroom either, because I know they are doing what I would be doing if I were them...checking my e-mail, skyping my friends, downloading music from iTunes, etc.—and not paying attention to that subject matter on which they will soon be examined.

I’m quite the ogre, true...but I can live with that.

Science Teacher, Dr., at 9:50 am EDT on March 14, 2008

There will be slackers who will tune out a disaster drill for an incoming meteor. No, keep your toys at home, the business environment is not the place for them. Do not like the meeting, or have no use for the information? Daydream. Expect to be caught up short later with a question, though.

Oligonicella, at 10:05 am EDT on March 14, 2008

So if it isn’t bothering others, who cares?

I always thought ignoring what you were being taught was its own punishment.

On the flip side, boring meetings taucht me the meaning of ADHD. If the bandwidth gets too low, I find it impossible to resist the urge to start agitating. Everybody is far better off if I bring a laptop.

homeboy, at 11:15 am EDT on March 14, 2008

I don’t get it...

If we were talking about high-school level classes I could understand, but I don’t understand the mandate here- these people are adults. They can make their own decisions on how they apply their time, and face the consequences should they come up short because their attention was elsewhere at a key moment. I think previous commenters hit upon the core issue here- ego and power feeling subsumed because the audience *dare* divide their attention.

nethaqr, at 12:10 pm EDT on March 14, 2008

Agree with the first commenter. If people are getting antsy in your meeting, it’s your problem, not theirs. Classrooms are a completely different issue and the laptop ban makes a lot of sense there.

Stacy, at 12:20 pm EDT on March 14, 2008

Technology in the classroom

Yes, technology can, and does, destroy important knowledge/social skills, and the best of those among us will likely deplore the phenomenon. In one of Plato’s dialogues (sorry, I don’t remember which and am too lazy to look it up—or even Google it!), we find the iconic Socrates bemoaning the advent of writing and the concommitant loss of oral tradition skills like memorizing with understanding.

Of course, only the advent of writing allowed us to read Plato’s complaint. We do better, perhaps, to think about how to use IT in a reconfigured education system—one that may increase the productivity and intellectual authority of some teachers, and perhaps sharply change, or even diminish, the authority of other teachers.

Rod Bell, Adjunct Professor at College of DuPage, at 12:20 pm EDT on March 14, 2008

Laptops can also enhance the value of meetings ...

If there is a real point to the meeting, then having some people with laptops who can quickly look up references and do facts checking will substantially enhance the quality of the meeting.

Carrick, at 12:35 pm EDT on March 14, 2008

TO: AllRE: Utter Stupidity

This has GOT to be one of the most stupid ideas I’ve heard of in all my ‘educational’ and ‘business’ life.

I started using laptops in both venues in ‘92 while attending the US Army Logistics Executive Development Course (LEDC). The instructors were talking so fast that the next day I couldn’t read my own handwritten notes.

So I dropped on the newly released Mac PowerBook 175. Since I could type faster than I could write, it worked out fine. Not only for me, but for my classmates who might have missed a block of instruction.

I’ve been using it—and my follow-on laptop purchases—ever since; in educational, corporate and government venues.

It’s use enhances the business at hand in more ways than one. If someone brings up a question that no one has an answer to and I have access to the web, there’s a good chance I’ll be able to fetch the necessary information to answer the question. So productivity and efficiency are improved.

If some stupid kid wants to blow their grade by surfing thre web instead of paying attention...that’s a personal problem and they’ll pay for it accordingly.

As for some ‘business’ environment...well...if a bozo wants to blow off his boss, that too is a personal problem.

I recall being a corporate meetings for USWest in the late 90s and they’d get around to discussion of something that was totally out of my sphere of influence and/or interest. I’d slide over to my workstation, via Timbuktu, and see if production was progressing well. Or catch up on my e-mail.

Regards,

Chuck(le)[I do not fear computers. I fear the lack of them.]

Chuck Pelto, at 1:05 pm EDT on March 14, 2008

A lot of the comments take the side of the people attending meetings. I can understand the point, that if the meeting is boring or pointless, people will tune out. On the other hand, having been the host of meetings, there is something disconcerting about people focusing on an object in front of them and not you or your presentation materials. I’m not saying that I need my ego scratched, but I do like to have faces to look at to gauge their level of understanding and interest. It’s true, we’re all adults, but we also are creatures of habit, and if we get addicted to checking email, it doesn’t help that the organization enables that by letting us carry our laptops into every meeting.

erik, at 4:05 pm EDT on March 14, 2008

I looked back at the notes I took and kept in college and despaired. The best parts about them were marvelous little pictures I doodled while the professor droned less interestingly than the text for which we paid a fortune. I kept the doodles when I moved and tossed the notes. Many of those doodles grew up to be actual works of art in which I can take some measure of pride, so at least something worth while came out of all that boredom. How I wish I had a laptop with word processor at that time, my academic life would have been so much easier.

bour3, laptops in classrooms and meetings, at 4:05 pm EDT on March 14, 2008

laptop ban

Banning laptops isn’t going to make people pay attention. Rather, it’s going to mask inattention.

I must admit to a strong bias in this case: I am wedded to my laptop, taking incessant notes with it and doing that much more accruately and faster than I can on paper. (I happen to be a fast typist and a very good listener and information processor.)

Then I share my detailed notes with interested colleagues, who have thanked me for doing what they could not have done themselves.

I suppose I could return to the good-old-days of shorthand and the daydreamers could return to an old-fashioned avoidance technology: doodling.

I think a deeper social issue is being missed.

Eric Peterson, at 5:05 pm EDT on March 14, 2008

Laptops are wonderful tools for people who use them responsibly in the classroom.

Those of you who claim that college students are adults need to understand 3 things:

1- Some students have HELICOPTER PARENTS who will bug you about little Johnny and Janie’s grades. If little Johnny and Janie irresponsibly squandered their education by using that sparkly machine they paid the big bucks for, telling them about its mis-use during classtime might get them off your fucking back.

2- Little Johnny and Janie may indeed be adults, but when they websurf and then fail, in my experience, they NEVER take responsibility for the failure. It’s YOUR fault for not making class more interesting! It’s YOUR fault for letting them get away with it! It’s YOUR fault they failed because you’re just a bad teacher! By banning laptops, many of those claims may still exist, but the students are more likely to, you know, take a note or ten during a semester.

3- On many college campuses, the above 2 groups are in a bitter battle against faculty who must struggle with making sometimes dry material interesting AND making willfully ignorant students understand they are on campus to receive an education, not just be awarded a diploma for paying tuition. Factor in the administrators who think education is about making customers happy, and you have antagonism AGAINST educators, who sometimes put in a great deal of effort and then get zinged with tenure, promotion, and contract-renewal denials because of poor course evaluations from classes full of immature, slacker students who CHOSE to post to Facebook during class instead of taking notes and engaging in their education.

These are not universal phenomena on college campuses, but they are sufficiently common that these discussions concerning inappropriate student behavior [i.e. laptop use in classrooms] become warranted and necessary.

The_Myth, at 3:25 am EDT on March 15, 2008

laptops

I very much appreciate all the comments! Keep ‘em coming.

For the most part, they fall on either side of the laptop divide: Some people argue that we’re all adults, and whatever the setting — classroom, meeting room — if we want to fiddle with a laptop while someone’s talking to us, we should be able to.

Others argue that an effort to convey information’s going on, and that laptops are one of many diversionary devices that make communication in real time with real human beings difficult to impossible.

Commenters should keep in mind that laptops are only one thing we’re hauling into these rooms — cell phones, iPods, beepers, etc., etc., are also part of our get-up. This is why people who argue that laptops are just today’s doodle pads are wrong. Things have changed radically.

The thing that’s wrong with the ‘we’re all adults’ argument, at least in the context of universities, is that it’s simply not true. Universities have tons of policies aimed at restricting students’ behavior — policies that tend not to exist in non-university settings.

UD, at 7:40 am EDT on March 15, 2008

This seems to be an issue of inattention.

The vast majority of my chemical engineering coursework was not boring. A few of us diligently studied the textbooks ahead of the lectures — - that’ll make one attentive, because each professor likely has some perspectives or priorities different than the authors’. In a boring lecture, review the class notes of the two prior lectures — it can be a forced study session.

In a company meeting, try to learn what the meeting’s about and take along some pertinent written material, so that one’s attention is diverted onto less irrelevant material. There was indeed one noteworthy incident when an instructor with corporate development("charm school") definitely didn’t like my looking at other materials. A few peers considered her handling of the incident ironic, but yours truly considered it pathetic.

Larry Hathaway, at 9:55 am EDT on March 15, 2008

Late Entry — Ridiculous

The ridiculousness of the anti-laptop argument is obvious.

A) Might as well ban paper and pens — students and meeting attendees use these for other-than-"business” as well.

B) If you (say, “Science Teacher” above) were a skilled educator, you would include the laptops in your class design: “Could you look that up?” “Could you find a site which might explain this better?” “Is their evidence for what you are saying?” “Could you email that to the class?” — the inability to integrate this incredible tool into your teaching suggests that retirement might be a good option.

C) This is an equity issue in education. Students with disabilities and differences need to use tech-based strategies — and frankly, almost all students have some kind of difference (as loath as American educators are to recognise this). So, from screen readers to enlarged type, from finding alternative explanations to taking notes which can later be organised, and on and on, the laptop or smart phone are as essential technologies today as the spiral notebook was to the old folks.

D) I am deeply sorry that so many who run meetings and classrooms are so boring — and what they are discussing seems so irrelevant to those in attendance. But please stop blaming the fact that no one is paying attention to you on technology. If we didn’t have laptops we’d just be staring out the window or daydreaming. At least this way we’re getting something done while you drone on and on.

Ira Socol, Michigan State University, at 12:55 pm EDT on March 15, 2008

To: Late Entry

Won’t be able to read or respond to your comment. Facebook beckons.

UD, at 1:35 pm EDT on March 16, 2008

Why laptops in classrooms?

Perhaps some profs will also want to ban paper because students might doodle?

If the purpose of a lecture is for students to copy a professor’s words, laptops for many are a faster way to copy, and yield notes that are more legible and easier to search later.

Especially with wireless, laptops can support a variety of activities in classrooms: online research in response to an idea or question raised in class; response to surveys whose results can then be posted; peer critique of writing (no illegible handwriting ....)

Isn’t this a no brainer?

Steve Ehrmann, Vice President at The TLT Group, at 7:15 am EDT on March 17, 2008

I find many disturbing undercurrents in these comments and the reality of this issue that should be disturbing us much more than seems to be being discussed.

1. Boring is a passive unengaged state of mind on the part of the person perceiving. It means that person is not summoning up the energy to engage and find something to catch his or her interest or transform and contribute to the meeting or class such that it will not be boring. It is a very entitled, immature and irresponsible state of mind within which to remain and only reflects on the person claiming to be bored.

2. Lack of respect for what minds coming together in a meeting or class can produce when actively engaged. I like computers and find them handy tools, however the problem is how they are used. Unfortunately in classrooms and meetings, some people who wander off and go to music or other sites forget to turn off sound or start moving in such a way they forget others are around to such an extent that they actually become actively disruptive to those trying to pay attention who are interested in a meeting or class. This is disrespectful. The answer is not in the technology but in training about basics of courtesy, responsibility, comportment, ethics, engaged teamwork and communication, etc -good common sense social behaviors that used to come from families and societal upbringing that seem to no longer be passed down and diffused in generations in general.This is what actually needs to be addressed.

Cheri, at 7:05 pm EDT on March 17, 2008

Mis-perceptions?

Possibly many of our post-modern professors and corporate leaders who think that they are collaborating and including their students & subordinates aren’t.

I’ve got to agree at least partially with Ira; if the group is bored, they’re feeling lectured to and not included.

On the other side of the discussion, ppl who don’t do their homework can’t easily be included. People who don’t feel part of the inner circle probably don’t see the value in participating.

Interesting discussion. Any success stories from prof.s or corporate leaders about “bored students or followers” who came back the next day with great insights or new product/service ideas?

Dr. F. Gump, at 9:10 pm EDT on March 18, 2008

My spin

Many would argue that technology carried into the classroom or meeting room is an efficient way to research, take notes etc. However technology in the hands of the mental children is used for just plain rudeness. Everyone in the class or meeting room has a responsibility including the speaker. Being bored, needing to feel entertained, or to get other “work” done is a poor excuse for pulling out the laptop or the Blackberry for play time. At what point does this behavior become acceptable? As much as I don’t like wasting my time, I like self important, mannerless twits less.

If a student wishes to use a laptop in my classroom, I see no problem, right up to the point I observe games, e-mail, or such. I will remind that person they are adults, what they are there for, and that technology for them will be banned at the point that it is a further disruption. No exceptions. It’s funny that when someone feels the need to entertain themselves that they see it as their God given right to be disruptive or waste other’s time. Some may find that principle as arrogant, but I believe we have the responsibility to maintain a certain amount of civility in our classrooms or meetings.

At a recent faculty meeting, we had a few faculty that had their “devices” out doing so called “work.” The speaker was interesting, but some faculty resented having to be there and chose to be rude or “multi-task.” The moral to the story is that being childish is not limited to the so-called un-enlightened.

Bill, at 1:25 pm EDT on March 19, 2008

Just want to make sure someone responds to The_Myth (way up on the page). Telling parents of college students ANYTHING about the students’ academic progress is inappropriate, unnecessary — and ILLEGAL. End of story.

ferpa, at 12:25 pm EDT on March 20, 2008

a. I’ve sat in the back of several classrooms doing observations in recent months. Almost nobody with an open laptop is using it to take notes or follow readings. They’re buying shoes, watching youtube, IMing, e-mailing, on facebook.

b. Because the surfers have a lot going on on their screens — rapid surfing, video watching etc. — it’s a distraction to anyone with the screen in their direct or peripheral vision. Students have complained to me privately about this.

c. You also often get a couple of people clustered around one laptop chatting about what they’re finding.

d. When I do class I don’t just lecture. I do a lot of interactive stuff in which I ask students to do something for a few minutes with a concept or an example. At those moments students who have been tuned out are dead weight — they can’t contribute to the work of a group. You can see this when people go to groups — the students who have been paying attention have to explain to the tuned-out ones what’s been going on for the last ten minutes.

Of course, students can zone out without electronic assistance. But laptops make it a lot easier to withdraw and provide a lot more external stimulus, given wifi. People get drawn into IM conversations etc.

I started banning laptops last year and we get a lot more done.

c, at 8:55 pm EDT on March 24, 2008

To c:

I very much appreciate your real-world description of the effects of laptops in the classroom. I’m pleased to hear that you — like more and more of us — have gone topless.

The clustering phenomenon you talk about, by the way, is increasingly being discussed among professors, one of whom describes, in a large class of hers, ten or so students clustering around a laptop and settling in to watch a film together.

UD, at 6:55 am EDT on March 25, 2008

to repeat

C and UD, sorry, but if either of you really thought about how to teach, this would all change for you.

C: How often do you include the laptops in your interactivity? Do you ask students to look things up? To email those results to others in the class? How often do you ask students to check the data on something you or a student just said? Do you have students share work via Google Docs?

UD: You might discover that if you did any of these very basic things — joining your teaching to the contemporary information technologies your students had better learn to use efficiently — that your students might be clustering around laptops for reasons other than watching films.

Banning laptops means you have lost — it means that your position has been revealed as ridiculous. Next, ban all non-assigned books perhaps. Good teachers learn to integrate their students’ learning styles and learning technologies. Bad teachers do not.

Ira Socol, Michigan State University, at 11:30 am EDT on March 25, 2008

we who are about to die salute you

The future belongs to you!

Please, when exiting, place our ashes neatly on the scrapheap of history.

Thank you.

UD, at 1:30 pm EDT on March 26, 2008

Laptops in Class

I must admit that it has been a while since I was an undergrad, but if even have the comments on this board are true, I see an incredible disrespect to ones peers and professors. In the company I work for, we recently made some staffing cuts. One of those individuals who lost their job was habitually on-line, texting and otherwise not sufficiently engaged in their work. And yes, their manager addressed the issue but in our cube-land environment constant monitoring is not possible. I think it’s all in how you use the tools available to you. You can tell when someone is engaged in the meeting but using their laptop for notes or to access data. You can also tell when they are ignoring the topic at hand and crack-berrying their buddies. If you were invited to the meeting, the topic impacts you or the people you manage. You job is to figure out how you are impacted and what you need to do about it. Not wait to be “entertained” by the individual leading the meeting.In today’s competitive environment where only small percentages of employees receive salary increases each year, you need to demonstrate how you add value to the organization. Daydreaming, YouTubing and IMing are not on the value added list.

Surprised by posts, at 1:30 pm EDT on March 26, 2008

Disinterested students

I wonder about all those students who do not pay attention in class. They are the ones doodling with pen and paper or secretely text messaging to buddies (and boy, would I love to know what they are saying. It sure isn’t “give peace a chance"). Do they all fail because they don;t pay attention? Or do they all pass because what it said in the classroom is already in the text book. So how are these students pass their courses?

Chuck McMellon, Professor at Hofstra, at 11:45 am EDT on May 8, 2008

There are solutions

First off let me just say that banning laptops is absurd. Are you people still riding around on horse and buggy? There are companies that sell software solutions that lockdown students computers. Secure Exam (www.secureexam.com) and Examsoft are two that I know of off hand. Basically they allow you to have a word doc open and go to “allowed” websites. An easy fix for you guys who’s lectures are boring.

Dave Wilson, ALL, at 4:05 pm EDT on May 27, 2008