SIVACRACY.NET

Wired Campus, the daily update from the Chronicle of Higher Education, picked up that thing I posted a few days ago about laptops in class. The reporter accurately summarized my post. But I think my spirit of inquiry was lost in translation. So it sounded like I was angry or alarmed about the use or abuse of laptops in class.

So the comments over on the Chronicle site got a little harsh. For example:

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Ah yes, the banning. We must ban everything we cannot control. Yes, that is how we can stop all this freedom, all this behavior that is at odds with how we used to do things…

— Jeff McNeill May 22, 02:43 PM #
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I don’t think laptops need to be banned from classrooms.

College is where people need to learn to become adults. Professors shouldn’t be holding students’ hands or telling them how they should or shouldn’t learn.

If someone can learn with a laptop, great, if not, they better learn to leave the laptop at home next time.

— Eliot May 22, 02:43 PM #
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Students are not mindless people. If they can multitask, let them. Don’t eliminate Internet access “in the students’ best interest.” They are 18+ years old; they are old enough to make their own decisions.

— Kelly Sutton May 22, 02:46 PM

Here is what I posted in the comments:

Hi. Just to clarify a bit. I was amused, not alarmed, by the Facebook thing. It's not a reason to ban laptops.

And I am not really considering it right now. In fact, I am not teaching this summer at all.

I was merely trying to spark a conversation about the sanctity of the classroom and the role of communication technology within it.

There are plenty of times when I find my students' laptop usage valuable. Sometimes I can't remember a name or date and I ask someone to look it up. Other times, students volunteer perspectives and facts that I had omitted because they had found them in Web discussions or Wikipedia.

However, I must assert that the classroom is an environment in which I have a tremendous amount of legitimate authority. My students are not my customers. I reserve the right to eject someone for sleeping (and have, on several occasions), being rude and disruptive, or for answering mobile phones in class (which happens more than you might think).

So I also reserve the right to require that they do not stare at screens instead of me.

Of course, if I don't deserve their attention, I won't get it anyway -- laptop or not. But technologies have a way of creating temptations and expectations.

I am very interested in this question. Some of my students made a short video about the use of Facebook in class. And I want to learn more about how profs and students use laptops.

So no. I am not out to ban anything. I am out to learn.