Laptops

“There is actually a significant movement within the Law Professor community to ban laptops from classrooms.”

Well isn’t that something. All this time I had been sitting comfortably behind my laptop screen thinking about how wonderful the laptop made my educational experience, and the professor I respect the most is talking smack. The laptop computer makes everything better. Notes are useful because they are legible, mutable and exchangeable. I can take down a lot more information as I type significantly faster than I could ever write and if I get bored there is facebook. That’s the conflict really. With laptops comes the presence of the biggest distraction in the entire world, the internet.

What I found surprising was the fact that this particular professor was anti-laptop. It wouldn’t really surprise me if some of the other faculty took this position but here was a guy that seemed to be on the side of technology. The last time I sat in classrooms regularly we didn’t have laptops or wireless internet in every classroom. It was only 3 or 4 years ago but that’s how fast this technology has taken over. My response to this attack on laptops is twofold….

First, the benefits of the laptop far outweigh the possible drawbacks. In addition to the note-taking issue mentioned above the accessibility of the internet is an invaluable educational tool. I can’t tell you how many times I looked things up in Blacks Dictionary in the middle of class. Second, laptops did not create distracted students. In college I would draw very complex pictures of trees in the margins of my notebook. If you’re not going to pay attention, the presence or absence of a computer will not change your mind. The laptop just makes the options available to the bored student more entertaining. The answer…and professors take note… just make your lectures more entertaining….