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I was part of a committee that was considering whether our school should
require laptops for all students. (Answer: not next year, but try a
pilot project). As part of this, we did a survey of those on campus who
had had experiences with this elsewhere and we surveyed faculty from
other schools that do require laptops of everyone. We also have some
experience from our own computer equipped classrooms.
To a person, every faculty member I talked to said that students IM'ing,
emailing, gaming, and surfing the net instead of paying attention in
class was the number one problem with the idea. Everyone I talked to
said that you have to be absolutely ruthless. If they have laptops then
they have to be "lids closed". The only exception is when the whole
class is taking part in a computer based activity that you are
supervising.
Wireless is coming and more and more students are bringing laptops, so
this problem will get more severe. On the other hand, one can imagine
some neat active learning projects for which the laptops would be ideal.
Today's students are convinced that they can "multi-task" despite
evidence to the contrary. What have other people tried?
Tim Sullivan
sullivan@kenyon.edu
On Thu, 2004-12-09 at 15:36, jwatsonvax wrote:
We're a wireless internet connection campus. Many students are 'taki=
ng notes' in class. Apparently some 'notes' are so good that several =
students have to get out of their seats and go over and LOOK ! I thi=
nk they have something outer than notes on the screen ! Has anyone h=
ad these problems? Any solutions ??
=20
James Watson
Dept Physics & Astronomy
Ball State University