Re: [Phys-l] laptops banned from class.

[Hugh Haskell <hhaskell@mindspring.com>]

> Professor June Entman says her main concern is that students are so busy
> keyboarding they can't think and analyze what she's telling them.

Well, if that's the case, there is a simple solution, that is not 
available with a classroom full of desktops. All she has to do is 
have everyone close their computer lids when she wants them to pay 
attention to her, and then when she gives them something to do that 
requires that they use their computers, then just open them up again.

This may be a problem enforcing if she is lecturing to a class of 
several hundred, but in that case her school needs to radically 
change the way they teach. Huge lecture classes, at least in science 
are rapidly going out of style--it's hard to conduct an interactive 
class when you are looking at a sea of faces, none of whose names you 
even know.

If you can control when the students get to look at their computers 
and when they look at you, the computers can have a real value in 
class.

On the other hand, I remember a lot of classes in which I was so busy 
writing notes I had no opportunity to think about what the professor 
was saying. So I don't think her problem is anything new, the only 
thing new is the technology--computers vs. pencils.

Hugh
--

Hugh Haskell
<mailto:haskell@ncssm.edu>
<mailto:hhaskell@mindspring.com>

(919) 467-7610

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