Emerging Technologies Consulting

Just a month ago, I pointed to two discussions around the idea of banning laptops in the classroom, and this week Tim Burke references Margaret Soltan’s pulling out a quote from an interview with Douglas Grooothuis, author of The Soul in Cyberspace.  How’s that for a tangled web.  So here’s my thought.  Laptops, netbooks, mobile devices, they’re here to stay.  Students are going to use them, sometimes effectively, sometimes not.  Did we, do we police their handwritten notetaking?  Do we ask if they’re jotting down the key points or drawing a cartoon version of us?  In junior high and high school, maybe.  In college, no.  My general feeling is that students are grownups and while I think we can do things in our classrooms to model best practices for using electronic devices, as many suggest, for example having students look up information, I think it’s up to the students themselves to learn how best to engage with the class or to find classes that work for them.  And I don’t have a problem with wandering around a room so that students are inclined to keep their laptop screen clean.  And yes, I’ve seen students with Facebook up.  I don’t call them on it.  Instead I ask them a hard question related to the discussion.  If they’ve been paying attention, they’ll be able to answer it.  More than 9 times out of 10, they can.  For a student perspective on this, read Shannon Hauser’s comment.

I think we should ignore the naysayers.  It’s their perogative to ban laptops if they want.  They can’t tell the rest of us what to do.