63 Comments

1. Holme:

As a (Danish) student of political science I have some idea of what happens on the other side of the monitors and I have to say that mostly people really are writing notes and listening. Sure there are some who can not stay away from their IM, especially if it’s the new boy-/girlfriend who is writing. But in general most people use their laptop for writing notes and occasionally checking mails or the like, which probably is not a problem since few people can stay concentrated on difficult material for 45-60 minutes straight. It might even be good to switch attention to something else for a few minutes and then switch back again.
It might be different here in Denmark, but I don’t think you have reason to worry. Most university students have an interest in learning. If you were teaching high school students it would be a very different case – trust me

Furthermore, it is not that easy to watch YouTube or the like if you are not wearing earplugs and that would look strange at a lecture.

Apr 21, 2008 - 1:23 am 2. Mary Jackson:

I’m not sure I like Powerpoint. I think it forcres material into bite-sized snippets.

To be honest, I’m glad these gadgets – and the internet – was not around when I was at university. It made me use my brain more. These days I don’t bother to remember anything – I can just Google it.

Apr 21, 2008 - 6:14 am 3. Brian:

Students have too many educational options! One could try to boot them out and they would say “fine I’ll just go somewhere else.” But, that would not be good “business” for the university.

Too bad. Scarcity creates value. If the University was not selling knowledge with so many competitors, the prof would have a little more power to use to raise the bar.

The discipline the prof. pines for is in fact the goal she should work towards. I wish she wouldn’t capitulate.

Apr 21, 2008 - 6:42 am 4. JJ:

Email / the web / IM are addictive – if they are available, they will be used. Better if the classroom did not have wireless connectivity, so these things cannot be used. As a student, I take pad of paper and leave the laptop at home, because that *forces* me to pay attention…

Apr 21, 2008 - 7:57 am 5. Curly Smith:

The blame, if that’s the right word, doesn’t belong with technology but with the professors. I recall my salad days when classmates asked the professors whether they approved of students using calculators for exams. They all said “Yes!! Because we can now give more comprehensive exams to really test whether or not the students understand the material.” In prior years there would have only been 1 problem per test because of all the math required to solve it, we had the pleasure of 3 to 5 problems per test.

Laptops are just a tool. The problem that faces professors, and the one that seems to be lurking in the shadows of this article, is how to use the technology to improve the students ability to think rather than merely encapsulating the material to sound bites of “what to think”. The problem with using PowerPoint is that you have to really understand the material before you can build meaningful slides. If all the students see are the “key takeaways” then they may well not understand why they’re the “key takeaways”; consequently, exams would have to be restructured with more emphasis given to the underlying material. However, that’s a good bit of work if you’ve already built the outlines and the exams over the past 20 years.

Apr 21, 2008 - 8:12 am 6. Editor B:

As a college student AND dedicated member of the millennial generation, all I can say is – I COULDN’T DISAGREE MORE! You are being completely ignorant of how technology and the cultural has evolved at extraordinary rate for my generation. Hell, even as I write this I’m on a laptop in an Adolescent Development class, listening to a lecture. Yes – She is reiterating the media feedback loop and it’s effects of female sexuality/projections of female body image….

My point:

My generation – the millennials – is a group hardwired for multitasking. We can check our e-mail, watch youtube, write blog posts, check facebook, listen to your lecture of Madison, prepare a studyguide for the up coming exam, and IM about what band we’re going to see while drinking a pitcher of beer (and probably talking about your lecture on Madison) later in the evening. It sounds as if you are more bitter about how college culture has evolved and are taking your frustrations out on your hardworking, seemingly apathetic yet truly engaged students.

It’s a generational thing. The other day I did a video seminar and my professor said she couldn’t concentrate on the professor because there was such a flurry of instant messaging from other participants in the conference. I completely understood all of the seminar lecture material PLUS I was able to enhance my insight by the thoughtful, profound discourse of instant messaging accompanying seminar.

To call our generation stupid or disregard our capacity for being engaged just because we’re amazing multitasking is absurd. More and more professors, teachers, administrators, etc, are doing it everyday, simply because they do not understand the pace we’re working at. Read more at The College Voter, a national political website by college students, for college students:

http://www.thecollegevoter.com

Be sure to see the feature where we call David Brooks out for being completely ignorant of our generation’s potential.

Apr 21, 2008 - 8:45 am 7. atlas crunk:

For a news organization — PJs, believe it or not — that frequently decries anonymous sourcing, it’s a little hypocritical to run a piece without a real byline, no?

Apr 21, 2008 - 8:49 am 8. David:

In my physics course one student is on a laptop, and I know she is taking notes as she posts them for the rest of the class which includes all my ummms.

In my astronomy course 3 students with laptops. Two are definately goofing off. The third is on the internet looking for pictures of each of the object I am talking about. If she gets better pictures than I have she shows them to the rest of the class, which is fine with me.

Apr 21, 2008 - 9:47 am 9. pat mills:

The test for a professor with a multitasking audience is to ask someone in the class to repeat a important line immediately after it has been delivered. What you’ll find is that the vast majority of people will not know what is was or will only get the broad gist of it. To paraphrase Woody Allen if it was a line from War and Peace they’ll know it was about Russia.
What Editor B will find out about being hardwired for multitasking is that you catch nothing but trivia eventually. Serious people focus.

Apr 21, 2008 - 9:55 am 10. vicsmith:

There are many problems with multitasking. It can damage your physical and mental health.

Apr 21, 2008 - 10:02 am 11. David Prince:

“And don’t give me “the modern students are visual learners” nonsense. When they eventually have to get a job, they aren’t going to get a Powerpoint presentation at the job interview.”

Your attitude is typical of my professors. I process auditory very slowly, and I am bipolar. Plenty of finals were my funeral since I was likely to have a manic or depressive episode. But I adapted by finding professors that were lenient towards attendance and willing to work with me. My GPA was a 2.04 but on the ETS exit field test I scored in the 93rd percentile thanks to the few compassionate professors that recognized I needed help. And, as a matter of fact, my current job does not require my attendance. It turns out that employers can make allowances for handicaps. So, when you provide alternate methods of instruction for students, you are doing any impaired student a favor, and they might not want to disclose to you their disability.

Now, you seem to think that you are really smart and prepared. Yet you have this problem that you can’t solve. You’ve whined that you can’t tell if students are IMing or emailing or whether they are paying any attention to your lectures at all.

Get a remote control mouse and lecture from the back of the room.

Free yourself from the podium and walk amongst your students.

Apr 21, 2008 - 10:03 am 12. Paper&Pen:

Editor B,

I actually think research show *all* people are terrible at multi-tasking- regardless of what generation they were born in. I agree that a laptop allows for cleaner notes, removes the need to carry extra folders, planner and stuff and that digital readers instead of text books would be great, but I don’t think computers in the class room have caused better grades and that the internet is really all that helpful in the class.

And before you cite me for being old and out of touch, I was born in ’81. I have grown up with as much technology as you have.

Apr 21, 2008 - 10:03 am 13. ern:

Editor B above is typically arrogant for his generation. That is to say, my generation as well. Not all millennials are keyed for multitasking. Many are simply distracted. Calling it multitasking is just an excuse for some not to pay attention. I’ve had too many fellow classmates ask for my notes, even when they’re sitting right next to me with their computers, typing away, during class. They’re too busy with IM and email.

That’s not to say the new technology is all bad. Many of us use it to our advantage.

But this attitude, calling the author “ignorant” and “bitter” is ridiculous. Obviously the author understands perfectly well what’s going on and has concerns. The author didn’t call these students “stupid,” for instance, and nothing in the article could reasonably be interpreted that way. Of course, Editor B admits to *being in a lecture at the time*. Reading comprehension, anyone? So much for multitasking.

Apr 21, 2008 - 10:09 am 14. Laptop U: Where No One Looks at the Professor « Kings of War:

[...] Laptop U: Where No One Looks at the Professor Pajamas Media » Blog Archive » Laptop U: Where No One Looks at the Professor [...]

Apr 21, 2008 - 10:09 am 15. Marc:

I think the challenge is to integrate the technology into the class. There are abilities to send the lecture to those with laptops while in class. You could challenge the students to look something up while in class. Basically, like those who stated before me, get the kids to use the technology. Providing a power-point is not enough, engage them with a task. I think this may be indicative of the pervasiveness of internet learning in the graduate environment. We may see that in undergraduate classes sooner, rather than later. Just my two cents.

Apr 21, 2008 - 10:13 am 16. Zane:

It’s the future. The biggest fear in education unions today is that they will be replaced. By something better.

Apr 21, 2008 - 10:16 am 17. EMAs:

” When they eventually have to get a job, they aren’t going to get a Powerpoint presentation at the job interview.”

No- but they will probably use it a lot at work- and should mention it at their interview.

Apr 21, 2008 - 10:18 am 18. Another Prof:

A couple of misconceptions on both sides of this discussion. The first is that listening = understanding is false. Powerpoint is a tool to allow for illustrations to points presented in a lecture… it shouldn’t be used as a tool to present a lecture outline. If the lecture is designed to teach then the powerpoints will serve to illustrate your points.

Second (and this is pointed to Editor B), just because you think you can multitask doesn’t mean you can. I don’t know how many students have come to me not understanding their performance in my class even though they spent a “great deal” of time studying. Whenever we sit down to see what it is that they are doing, it always turns out that they are memorizing factoids believing that they are learning “how things work.” Education isn’t about buzzwords or key points… it’s about understanding and being able to critically analyze information (using the key points) to come to a reasonable answer. It doesn’t matter what the subject matter is, it always boils down to critical analysis.

And here is the crux of the matter… humans have a memory system structure that uses associations… we don’t do well with details. In fact very few individuals actually have photographic memory which deals specifically with details. Our long term memory stores information based on the amount of repitition involved and by using cues (visual, auditory, etc.) To illustrate this point I often ask students if they are capable of driving from campus to the airport without consulting a map. Most say yes. I then ask them if they can give me directions of the same… none can. It’s the visual cues while driving that help us know if we are traveling in the direction we desire.

The same is true for lecture material. If a student is presented an outline, their brains aren’t stimulated and thus do not absorb the material. If the powerpoint is used to create visual cues, then those cues will be used to remind the student of the points being presented. How a student takes notes (either by typing or handwriting) is inconsequential, but a student cruising myspace and missing the lecture (and the cues) will always see their understanding of the material reflected in their grade. Often times the student believes they are capable of dividing their attention between 2 or more items of interest, but often not the least interesting of these will get less attention. Usually the student has to spend time outside of class reteaching themselves the subject that was presented… they just think this process is called studying.

I should make this clear, learning facts is not education… no one passes my class by memorizing my presentations. I require thinkers… students need to understand the material and be able to figure out the results even when all the facts haven’t been presented.

Apr 21, 2008 - 10:19 am 19. William Oliver:

I am a 53-year-old who just finished one of those Executive Masters in Public Administration things that are all the rage nowadays. Eighteen years ago, I got a Masters in Computer Science, got my MD 26 years ago, and my BS 31 years ago. So, I’ve been there as a student all along the way.

I was glued to my laptop during lectures this last time, where I was not for the other degrees. It was not, actually, for taking notes because I have an idiosyncratic way of integrating mnemonics into my notes.

Instead, I used the laptop to look up data related to the lecture as it was going on. For instance, in one lecture on risk management, the speaker referred to a Supreme Court finding, but quoted a small snippet of the opinion. I quickly looked up the opinion and read the context as the lecture continued.

I didn’t consider that to be inconsiderate. Instead, to me, it meant that I was being *more* interactive with the lecture than sitting there writing down notes alone would have allowed.

Did I also read an email or two? Certainly — at my level it’s impossible to be completely incommunicado. However, that was a small part of what I was doing.

Apr 21, 2008 - 10:29 am 20. chad:

As an on again off again student for the last 20 plus years I agree with a lot of this article, but I have found that if the instructor is truly engaging the laptops close.

Apr 21, 2008 - 10:34 am 21. Daily Pundit » Multitasking the New Millennium:

[...] Pajamas Media » Blog Archive » Laptop U: Where No One Looks at the Professor Forget about students passing notes. Today, lecturing to a classroom of college students means competing with Facebook, YouTube, and Instant Messenger. [...]

Apr 21, 2008 - 10:47 am 22. a professor:

I’m puzzled why you’re so worried about it. I have a few in each class that use laptops, and the issue is no different from the occasional students who doze off or are obviously studying for another class. I don’t take it personally. If they listen and work hard, they do well, and if they want to surf, I’m sure their grade will reflect it.

As for lecture format, I do not, and will not, use powerpoint. It’s no better than watching television – way too passive a learning mode. Of course the students clamor for it – they want to have a set of concrete notes that they can rely on, and if you do the work, all the better for them. The problem is that then your class is not value-added. They could stay home and read the powerpoint notes handily provided for them.

Instead, I provide general outlines, then actively fill them in with the students in class. They thus have their nice set of notes, and I thus have students who stay awake. I refuse to provide filled-in outlines, ever. I also do a lot of in-class exercises and problems that aren’t in the outlines. Overall, students like the structure of the outlines, and agree that powerpoint is too passive. The key here is to be value-added: if you make it too easy for them to stay home and just read your notes, they’ll think you have no value. They have no idea how hard it is to produce a great set of notes.

Apr 21, 2008 - 10:52 am 23. SFC B:

I spent a few years as a recruiter for the Army, and I’ve spent the rest of my time in the Army training the young men and women of the “millennial” generation. Despite the whining to the contrary, there is nothing special about how this generation receives and processes information. And they are not immune to the distractions which have plagued students since the first classroom. Computers simply represent a different delivery system for those distractions. Anonymous Professor, I doubt your students are any more or less engaged in your lectures than they were prior to the proliferation of laptops and wireless. They’re simply more noticable because you can now hear the clicking as they type, and see the glow of their screens, where before they just tuned you out, whispered with their neighbor, or simply napped.

The claim that “I can multi-task because I can IM, email, and check friends on Facebook while I do something else” has nothing to do with actually managing multiple tasks in the real world. All it means is you know how to hit ALT-TAB.

Apr 21, 2008 - 10:54 am 24. bk:

I have been opposed to laptops in classrooms for years, even before working in academia. Years ago, while working in consulting, I was leading my office’s local training for new hire analysts and was doing a module on Excel. The fresh out of college kids with their new laptops were typing away fast and furious. I stopped and said to them, “there is no reason for you to be typing that much in Excel, close your IM.” We all had a good laugh, but to this day, having left for graduate school years ago, I will IM with them while they are on the client site billing their hours away. It’s not quite as funny when it is someone else’s money.

Now I TA for a political science class and have the opportunity to sit in the back of the classroom and see what the laptops are displaying–75% of them have Facebook, some internet flash game, wikipedia, IM, or some combination thereof open at all times. The other 25% only part of the time. Sure there is a Word file open in the background with a few lines on it, but really what is the point? Staring off into space or thinking about the last party is less distracting than all the things they have going on that actually require attention. I agree with the poster above that the internet availability makes things worse. But that only goes so far, last semester there was even a student who would watch DVDs of CSI with the closed captioning turned on.

I will never allow laptops in my class room and the professor I TA for has decided that after this semester he will do the same.

Apr 21, 2008 - 10:55 am 25. Brian Wohlgemuth:

As a fresh MBA and technogeek, I’d like to chime in on this as well.

During lectures, I would have my e-mail open, textedit for notes, one window of Camino googling what the prof was talking about, another for my current projects, and finally my project itself and the school’s website to upload notes for my team.

The older students could not multi-task well. They were much better at taking notes and such on the class at hand. They could literally not handle “checking e-mail” and listening to the prof at the same time. When a prof would say something, I would look it up, and if I found they were wrong (which did happen a few times) I would discreetly let them know.

I don’t think my profs minded, since I pulled off a 3.9 GPA. Of course, some people goofed off, and it was their funeral for not graduating.

Apr 21, 2008 - 11:02 am 26. superduckz:

Why not look at that tired old and long forgotten measuring stick. Grades. Isn’t the proof in the pudding?

In all of this you never really mentioned how the students are scoring on their tests or how classes are grading out over time? How are they doing compared to the pre-WIFI years (assuming you’ve been teaching that long).

You said it yourself, “your funeral”. If they are screwing around shouldn’t their grades be suffering? Shouldn’t it be obvious (by midterms at least) if they are not paying attention? At least it’s a quantifiable measure.

shrug.. 2 cents..

Apr 21, 2008 - 11:04 am 27. Jason:

Personally, the short skirt would have at least held my attention over my computer screen for a while.

Apr 21, 2008 - 11:07 am 28. Jeremy G.:

I’m a college student, and I think a lot of the concerns professors have about laptops in the classroom are overblown. Here’s why:

1) You’re underestimating the neatness/organization factor. Not all professors give well thought out, organized lectures. Also, many students have a difficult time writing neat, organized notes during class, especially when the professor is trying to cover a lot of material in a short amount of time. Using a laptop makes it a lot easier for students to go back and reorganize their lecture notes to make better sense of the material covered in class. This is especially true for students like myself who suffer from dyslexia, ADHD, or some other learning disability. In other words, a laptop can mean the difference for some students between having point-by-point details of the material or chicken scratch for notes when it comes time to review for an exam.

2) Most students who use laptops to take notes can type faster than they can write by hand. Less time mechanically jotting down notes = more productive listening and interaction with professor and classmates.

3) Another advantage of being able to use a laptop in class is the ability to look up information pertinent to the lecture. For example, I’ve accessed the University library’s website to look up a journal article mentioned during class, a general history website to find an important date I didn’t catch, or online dictionaries to find the definition of a term the professor used that I didn’t understand. As a result, I ask better questions during class and interrupt the professor less over minor details.

4) Before it became common to carry laptops to class, a lot of students would spend an hour or two per class when they got home typing up lecture notes. I did this throughout high school and the first two years of college. Having a laptop in class allows students to skip that step and be more productive with their study time.

5) Students were coming up with ways to goof off in class long before laptop computers were invented.

6) My experience has been that complaints about laptops in the classroom are generally more about the ego of the complainer or discomfort with technology or change than concern about students making proper use of class time. Like you said, “it’s their funeral” if they goof off during class.

7) Most of the concerns expressed by professors are internet concerns not laptop concerns. If students visiting Facebook and IMing during class are really such big problems then limit internet access in the classroom (which is controlled by the university) instead of banning laptops. Have the IT department limit wireless access to hotspots away from classrooms and provide hardwired ethernet connections for professors to use in class.

Apr 21, 2008 - 11:26 am 29. charles good:

Lectures are popular at the university level because they are efficient when using planning time,they are flexible and can be applied to any content area and they are simple to implement. But they tend to put students in a passive mode which is inconsistent with nearly everything known about information processing and human learning. Effective learning requires active learners for information processing and encoding information into the long term memory.

Research in educational and instructional psychology suggests that one of the best ways to overcome the weaknesses of the lecture is to use the lecture-recitation approach. Lectures are conducted in three sequential steps. The professor begins by presenting information. After a brief presentation, she pauses and asks the students a series of clarifying questions to monitor comprehension such as, “What does this information suggest to us?” The professor then presents additional information followed by another period of comprehension monitoring which extends the students understanding taking into account both previous presentations. These questions go beyond comprehension monitoring and promote integration by having the students descibe cause and effect relationships which the professor has not offered.

Lecture-recitations require careful planning and encourage student involvement and, when properly conceived, can promote meaningful learning. I know they can be effective because, as a retired professor of educational psychology, I have used this method as well as many other teaching strategies which are more effective than the lecture.

Apr 21, 2008 - 11:28 am 30. Editor B:

Maybe I came across arrogant and apologize for doing so. However, I stand my ground on this being a generational issue. There simply is not enough accessible research out yet on the generational differences in cognitive learning, particularly with student multitasking. Frankly, the meat and potatoes of my post is about how professors from older generations make claims which turn out to be largely unfounded generalizations. It reminds me of parents in the 1950’s claiming Rock and Roll to be a communist/zombie plot saturating today’s youth. These type of issues boil into my generation being labeled “apathetic, uninterested, disengaged” by older folks in authority positions. I see it quite differently; there is a lot of momentum and energy, it simply not understood by other generations.

Apr 21, 2008 - 12:05 pm 31. Teaching at Laptop U at Joanne Jacobs:

[...] Anonymous teaches political science at Laptop U, where her students are too busy clacking at their keyboards to look at her or her PowerPoint [...]

Apr 21, 2008 - 12:11 pm 32. John:

College is an utter waste of time and money for 90% of students anyway. Unless one is becoming a doctor or a lawyer or an engineer, college is wholly unnecessary.

How much of what you learned in college do you really, I mean *really*, use?

Apr 21, 2008 - 12:40 pm 33. Tom:

“I also genuinely find this topic fascinating, so I’m able to talk passionately about it. ”

This may be the problem, if every lecture you are not passionate about the subject how can the students know when to tune in or tune out. I think that the methods of teaching are so off putting to the modern student that they have a hard time wanting to grab ahold of it.

And is the present classroom style of teaching the most effective way to reach a student now with all of the other tools available. Back in my day it was the only way to reach a student in an economical way, now I am not so sure, especially when all there is is a lecture and not any interchange between the professor and the students.

Apr 21, 2008 - 12:46 pm 34. bob:

Once upon a time I was in grade school and the teacher was, well, teaching and I was sitting at my desk drawing something totally removed from the lesson. Or I had a book inside the textbook and was reading or….I did the same thing that students do today…goof off in class.
Who remembers getting caught passing notes? Do you love me? Check y or n! LOL. I guess today it is facebook or IM instead.
In college my notebook margins would still be filled with doodles, often in a very boring history class and the doodles would be organic molecules I was trying to remember for the organic chem exam that week.
Or I would be writing a long poem to my girlfriend or…I’d be paying attention and writing.
So what is all the fuss about? People haven’t changed, just the technology for crying out loud or is the col? LOL

Apr 21, 2008 - 12:48 pm 35. RJ:

“Frankly, the meat and potatoes of my post is about how professors from older generations make claims which turn out to be largely unfounded generalizations. It reminds me of parents in the 1950’s claiming Rock and Roll to be a communist/zombie plot saturating today’s youth.”

Still arrogant.

Apr 21, 2008 - 1:03 pm 36. ParatrooperJJ:

You are probably a lot more boring than you think. I bet you would get more attention if you went commando under your short skirt though.

Apr 21, 2008 - 1:57 pm 37. Another Prof:

To Editor B:

1. There is nothing new under the sun. Every older generation says that about the newer generation.

2. I’m a youngish professor. In fact I serve on a future technology committee to determine what technologies can and should be adopted to improve learning in the classroom. We have tons of studies that we are using to understand how and what we should be doing to assist the students.

3. As a professor who uses many forms of new technologies, I can tell you that there is nothing new or special in terms of learning from your generation. There have been no great leaps in brain evolution over the last 4 decades. You process information the exact same way as your grandparents, you just use nifty gizmos to make it prettier AND you have 10x the distractions.

To John:

It’s obvious you never learned what the purpose of college is. You apparently think it’s to learn a skill. It’s not. That is what trade school is for. College is there to learn and show that you are trainable. Everything you will need to know for your future job will likely be taught on the job. But they aren’t going to hire you unless you can prove that you are trainable.

Apr 21, 2008 - 2:18 pm 38. Grizzled Prof:

As one that has been on the delivery side for twenty some years, I think this piece misses the point. PowerPoint is a tool. If you are putting outlines and definitions on PowerPoint slides and showing them to the class, no wonder they engage themselves otherwise! Try engaging the class instead. Assume they’ve read the assigned material ahead of time. Hold them to it. Don’t use class time to mimic an audio book. Use class time to have students work with the material.

Apr 21, 2008 - 2:53 pm 39. anon prof:

Real simple solution. My policy is that a laptop may not be used in class unless I give explicit directions to bring it to class that day. I give a power point and remind them about pencils and pens. Case closed. They may not pay attention to me but at least they are not paying attention to the laptop.

John said, “College is an utter waste of time and money for 90% of students anyway. Unless one is becoming a doctor or a lawyer or an engineer, college is wholly unnecessary.How much of what you learned in college do you really, I mean *really*, use?”

John, you are correct. That’s one of the many reasons they don’t pay attention to me.

Apr 21, 2008 - 3:09 pm 40. nash:

I believe that powerpoint presentations are for lazy professors. Very few students can reasonably keep up with the lecture and take useful notes at the same time while a professor is lecturing from a powerpoint slides.

Apr 21, 2008 - 5:58 pm 41. Editor B:

It’s interesting to see how many more professors are on here then students.

Apr 21, 2008 - 6:07 pm 42. Editor B:

^ *than

Apr 21, 2008 - 6:07 pm 43. Amy:

Eh. Some do IM and Myspace and also take notes. I’m one of them. Honestly I don’t think it’s any of the prof’s business what I’m doing… I love having my laptop, because I can type faster than I can write… the one exception I make is for foreign language classes… I can write in Arabic faster than I can type in it, at least for right now.

Honestly, the days where I was forced to sit in class with a pen and paper and studiously take notes, I didn’t fare so well. I fidgeted. I nibbled on my pen. I stared at the clock. Or I would try to listen and scribble notes and end up missing something while I was trying to take notes… Eventually, I would doodle the entire time and just listen to the lecture. I found that when my hands were busy doing something else and I had two things to think about, I actually took in more. I doodled my way through AP European History and got a 4 on the exam.

So, I got my laptop and went to college lectures. I would take notes on the things that I knew weren’t in the textbooks, and I would use google to look up definitions and words that I didn’t know. Sometimes professors would post their powerpoints on their websites and I would download it and click through with the professor, adding my notes in powerpoint. I would also use Myspace and chat with my friends. I’ve never had a problem passing a class, and I find it works better for me than just staring at the professor and paying attention. Maybe it’s just the way I learn… I don’t know. It’s not visual. But if they put up a youtube video or something I do watch it… I pay attention… better attention than when I try to give my undivided attention. I don’t know why that is… but for me it just is.

Apr 21, 2008 - 6:47 pm 44. hanmeng:

I thought the article was titled
Lapdance U: Where No One Looks at the Professor.
Because of the internet, my own attention span

Apr 21, 2008 - 6:47 pm 45. Graham Smith:

finally, grizzled prof. above said what was needed: the technology has set professors free from needing to lecture — laptops mean access to information is instantaneous, whether it is the professor’s slide presentation or through the internet. The point is that class time to have value needs to engage the students in the consideration and reflection of what that information means, in what contexts and to whom — in other words teaching and not just lecturing (which often means letting the student’s realize just how smart the professor considers him/herself).
Irrespective of class size and topic, there are far more effective means to engage students and affect real learning, than lecturing.

Apr 21, 2008 - 6:54 pm 46. barqui:

what I do is ask just about all students questions the entire time. I also give minimal material for the web site. if they want my knowledge they have to listen. btw this is in medical school. i am not very popular and i am losing a lot of sleep:)

Apr 21, 2008 - 7:30 pm 47. Rabblais:

My daughter is finishing college in a few weeks. When I ask her about notes, she stares at me and says, “The professors aren’t interested in the subjects, they just talk about their opinions all day.”

Considering that her International Communications teacher has focused solely on the 2008 Presidential election in all assignments and tests and her “Sociology of Food” Professor (please don’t even ask. She’s a senior and thought this would be fun until she was asked to describe how Veblen and Durkheim’s views are reflected in food) focuses on how America destroys the world.
The professor on drug policies thinks that FARC is more moral than the American government.
She asks me, why should I write down what is of absolutely no value?
My money has been well-spent. She has learned something from college

Apr 21, 2008 - 7:50 pm 48. Fat Man:

Why are professors still giving lectures? Lectures can be recorded and posted on a web site or distributed on a set of DVDs. On video, teachers can add CGI and other material to amplify the lesson. Live lectures do not add value to the education process. The only reason for the students to be in the same room at the same time as the teacher is for them to interact. The issue for Prof. Anonymous is how is she going to interact with her students?

Apr 21, 2008 - 11:02 pm 49. Tom Werner:

Prof. Anonymous, you describe the challenge of teaching to today’s college students vividly and eloquently. I felt like I was there in the classroom, hearing the clackety-clack.

I think you make a good point that the traditional college-teaching paradigm, in which the undergraduate professor’s job is to distill and comment on the material in a thick, dense textbook, is dead.

(Perhaps similar to the very early days of television news, when news producers realized that newspeople couldn’t just read the news on the air the way they had done on radio. That couldn’t hold people’s attention on television, even though it did on radio.)

In my very humble opinion (because I’m not a professor and it’s easier said than done), you need to redesign the course to make it more like a graduate course.

The students should have to create something new rather than take notes on your spoken lecture.

You are boiling down a chapter for young people who boil down information all day long.

They should be producing the 30-40 PowerPoint slides, not you.

For example, the students could have to pick a modern-day issue and describe what Madison would say about it, and who today is taking a Madisonian stance on that issue and who isn’t.

Let their surfing and typing be all about them having to distill the concepts of the course into original products.

Across all disciplines the standard undergraduate course is a text and readings, PowerPoint-based lectures, and some term papers or tests. I think you describe well that we’re seeing the demise of that design.

Apr 22, 2008 - 3:08 pm 50. sagman44:

So much back and forth, yet the words “courtesy” and “respect” never make it into the discussion. Sad.

For me, it boils down to this: an insructor who demonstrates respect for her students by carefully preparing a class deserves the courtesy of students’ undivided attention. Yes, “deserves.” Everything else is peripheral.

Apr 22, 2008 - 5:50 pm 51. links for 2008-04-23 | Crucial Thought:

[...] Pajamas Media » Blog Archive » Laptop U: Where No One Looks at the Professor This is one heck of a post regarding students using laptops in college classes. [...]

Apr 23, 2008 - 3:36 am 52. Dave’s Whiteboard » Blog Archive » Duly noted at higher ed:

[...] embarrassing how often I rely on Stephen Downes to highlight things of interest. Today he links to an apparent rant by “Professor Anonymous,” all aflutter because college students use laptops in class [...]

Apr 23, 2008 - 6:01 am 53. Kevin:

One thing that I’m not seeing here, is my biggest beef about laptops as the “in” thing at university.
Universities requiring students to get their preferred brand of tablet or laptop PCs is probably one of the worst ideas recently being hoisted on campuses. Not only do they divert attention from the professor (when used by disrespectful students), they create an excuse to drop the university computing infrastructure budgets, passing not only the technology costs to the student but at some school “decommissioning” static landline computer labs (many of which have more power than these portable toys). This is both disrespectful and counterproductive to student and faculty alike who are now being told since their main tool must now be a WinXP (or god help you vista) tablet or laptop PC, every problem looks like a blue screen of death. Moreover, at some schools this is marginalizing Linux/Unix (that includes Macs), which some academic programs need for their students development. Also these platforms shoulder the high performance research computing on campus that in-turn brings in research overhead that gets diverted to… wireless infrastructure and cost offsets for those darned windows laptops.

Apr 23, 2008 - 6:56 am 54. A Teacher:

I agree with Marc “I think the challenge is to integrate the technology into the class….Providing a power-point is not enough, engage them with a task”.

Engage the student’s in your presentation – don’t just talk at them. Create a chat (monitored by a TA) to backchannel what you are presenting – believe me – the students will participate and feel good that they were able to voice their opinions about what you were presenting. Create polls, write on collaborative documents, start a bulletin board … Engage them!

They have all that technology right at their fingertips … why are you spending hours preparing the information – let them do it. They will and find resources you may not even be aware of.

Kids today are different. Watch http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dGCJ46vyR9o

Apr 23, 2008 - 3:11 pm 55. Matt:

This post is a little off topic, but there is little incentive for students to listen in class because of grade inflation. College is a commodity. If you are going to get an “A” anyway, what is the point in listening. There is probably a strong correlation between the difficulty of a class, the willingness of the professor to give bad grades, and the attention paid in class. For whatever reason, most college classes, outside the hard sciences, are really easy to pass with high marks. The way colleges are set up, students that actually want an education have to look for it themselves.

Apr 23, 2008 - 7:37 pm 56. Gozer the Carpathian:

Hear hear Kevin! The only windblows machines I have here at work (a NASA facility BTW) are the ones used for emails and web use. ALL of the ones doing the real work are UNIX and LINUX machines. (Though I do sneak my personal Mac in)
Schools shouldn’t be foisting computer choices onto the students, especially since all types of computers can do the same basic stuff the schools need. (I.e. Word Processing)

As to the topic at hand I never had a laptop in school. Oh sure I’ve grown up with computers but Laptops were too bulky, expensive, and slow when I was in College to bother with. Let me have my Quake II machine in the dorm anytime. (Shows how old I am. )

In the end the teachers in College were all the same. Yammer on and on about whatever all class time long. I learned diddly during the class because I was basically forced to read and learn it my own way anyway. Luckily I figured that out part way through the year and stopped going to the really boring lectures. (More sleep!)

What really matters though is not whether they have laptops in the classroom or not, but whether they’re LEARNING anything or not. Isn’t that what’s school is all about? LEARNING?

Apr 23, 2008 - 10:09 pm 57. Anon:

What is happening to students today? I can’t believe they could ignore the short skirt!

Apr 24, 2008 - 1:34 pm 58. links for 2008-04-26 » Moving at the Speed of Creativity:

[...] Pajamas Media » Laptop U: Where No One Looks at the Professor Great post about the challenges of trying to maintain a lecture-based approach to univeristy learning in a 1:1 environment (Thanks Christian Long) (tags: 1:1 1to1 laptop laptoplearning university colleges) [...]

Apr 26, 2008 - 1:37 am 59. ilikemilk:

yo i think the students are right

May 5, 2008 - 10:56 am 60. Zingara:

As a student at university, I was put off by the amount of PowerPoint used in class. Whilst I appreciate that many students are ‘visual learners’, and therefore enjoy slide presentations in which notes are presented to them in bitesize, good-looking format, I missed the days of sixth form college when my legendary Sociology teacher, Norm, would give out masses of typewritten pages of notes, then wade through them bit by bit. Admittedly, the class tended to descend into a debate between me and him; the other students getting bored and texting/IMing/etc.; but I found it a brilliant way of learning. My (always handwritten) notes were comprehensive and more than sufficient for revision. I always did (and, now that I’m in the world of academic research, still do) resent the fact that everything must be word processed, even in first draft; it leads inevitably to me typing up Take#3 or #4 of whatever piece I’m writing, instead of submitting the actual first draft, which I have to handwrite if I want to feel at all in touch with the work.
Whoops, bit of a rant there. Sorry!

May 11, 2008 - 9:59 am 61. English Education Professor :: Maybe It’s Time to Let Go of the Professor as Entertainer Metaphor?Pajamas Media » Laptop U: Where No One Looks at the Professor:

[...] Pajamas Media » Laptop U: Where No One Looks at the Professor I’m in the midst of a brilliant lecture. I’m very well prepared for this class. I have thirty or forty Powerpoint slides that boil down the textbook chapter into handy outlines. I have included outside material that I spent hours finding and scanning. I have even inserted a two minute clip from a news show that someone had uploaded to YouTube. I also genuinely find this topic fascinating, so I’m able to talk passionately about it. I’m pacing and making wild arm movements. I’m wearing a short skirt. [...]

May 20, 2008 - 11:16 am 62. mc battles video:

mc battles video mc battles video [link=http://haskovodnes.com/zipimport/files/article1764.html]mc battles video[/link]

Nov 18, 2008 - 5:53 pm 63. Miss82:

When I encounter problems at the bench, I use my computer to learn from other watchmakers. ,

Oct 23, 2009 - 6:24 am