I began banning laptops in the classroom after the spring semester of 2007. Too many students with laptops were distracting others around them, including one group viewing a soccer tournament during a lecture. The complaints about this ban never cease, with some students imploring me to make an exception in their case since, as one student in the article (linked below) argues, it's what she's accustomed to.
The Washington Post explains this growing trend of banning laptops in the classroom.
A generation ago, academia embraced the laptop as the most welcome classroom innovation since the ballpoint pen. But during the past decade, it has evolved into a powerful distraction. Wireless Internet connections tempt students away from note-typing to e-mail, blogs, YouTube videos, sports scores, even online gaming -- all the diversions of a home computer beamed into the classroom to compete with the professor for the student's attention.
"This is like putting on every student's desk, when you walk into class, five different magazines, several television shows, some shopping opportunities and a phone, and saying, 'Look, if your mind wanders, feel free to pick any of these up and go with it,' " Cole said.
I don't know what infuriates me more about this . . .
One recent semester, [an associate professor of humanities at UC Boulder, Diane E.] Siebert [sic] tracked the grades of 17 student laptop addicts. At the end of the term, their average grade was 71 percent, "almost the same as the average for the students who didn't come at all."
. . . the fact that the laptops are so distracting or that a student in a humanities class at UC Boulder can still earn a passing grade even if they "didn't come at all."
The next obstacle to overcome is text messaging during class.
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