While we’ve been busy the past several weeks making final preparations for our 1:1 Tablet PC deployment, several institutions of higher learning have been curtailing (and in some cases outright banning) laptop use in the classroom. The May 19 issue of Newsweek includes Matthew Phillip’s brief article The Laptop Gets Booted:
“The tech revolution at the nation’s top law and business schools, where students now routinely use laptops and wireless connections in class, has created an insurgent population: professors, who believe they’re losing the fight against wandering minds. In retaliation, at schools such as Harvard, Yale and Columbia, some profs have banned laptops from class altogether. In a more measured approach, the University of Chicago Law School cut its classroom Wi-Fi signal this spring, citing an “epidemic” of Web browsing during lectures, while at UCLA law, profs can activate a “kill switch” to disable Wi-Fi if they sense an attention deficit. The results, they say, are striking. “I’m getting much better eye contact,” says Michigan law professor Richard Friedman, who installed a no-laptop policy in January. “It’s been like renewing an acquaintance with an old friend.” To others, though, the crackdown lets the real culprits off the hook. “If you’re so boring that students are zoning out, you ought to rethink if you should be teaching,” says UCLA law professor Stephen Bainbridge—though he admits that he’s flipped the kill switch in his own classroom more than once. Tetris, anyone?”
For those resistant to utilizing technology into the classroom, this news may seem a validation; it’s hard to argue with the wisdom of the Ivy League…or law school professors. Kevin Yamamoto, professor of law at the South Texas College of Law, recently published Banning Laptops in the Classroom: Is it Worth the Hassles? in the Journal of Legal Education. In his closing remarks he states:
“The argument seems clear: distractions hurt learning and memory, laptops, if not used properly, create distractions, and therefore improper laptop use should be eliminated. Even proper laptop use may interfere with learning since many students are inclined to type the information presented verbatim and therefore fail to learn as much, learn as deep, or utilize the information flexibly.”
While Yamamoto is correct in that “the argument seems clear”, the issue is not proper or improper student use and boredom, but rather proper or improper instructional planning and engagement. There has been considerable research on the impact of laptop programs, and the schools that have seen positive results, regardless of grade level, have one thing in common: they created learning environments that embraced and leveraged the power of ubiquitous computing. Teaching as though the technology didn’t exist, or viewing the personal computer as nothing more than a notetaking device, is an injustice that, while beyond the scope of the legal system, should be fundamentally intolerable to the educational system.
We don’t have a “kill switch” for our network and I don’t believe we need one. We did not make this institutional decision lightly, and our teachers are fully aware of the challenges and opportunities that await. Granted, there will be times when our students’ attention will drift and they may engage in some casual browsing. When this happens, though, instead of reaching for the “off” button, we need to reach for the “on” button that exists within every child’s mind. Technology, and 1:1 computing in particular, can reshape, support and enhance teaching and learning…at least in middle school.