The Fight for Classroom Attention: Professor vs. Laptop

Like a growing number of college students, Michelle Mei brings her laptop to most of her classes at Bentley College, using it instead of a spiral notebook to take notes.

Well, sometimes she takes notes — if whatever the professor is going on about seems important. At other times, she uses the wireless Internet access in the college's classrooms to do some online shopping or chat using instant messenger. "If it's material that I know, most of the time I will surf the Internet a little bit," says Ms. Mei, a junior.

To keep students focused on class, some professors now ban laptops from their classrooms, arguing that the devices are just too much of a temptation. Other professors ask laptop users to sit in the front row, in part so the professors can glance down occasionally to see what is on the students' screens. And a few colleges, Bentley among them, have set up systems that let professors switch off classroom Internet access during some sessions.

Of course, professors also point to moments when having laptops and Internet access has helped illustrate a crucial point in a lecture. The trick, they say, is figuring out how to manage the new technology.

Banning Laptops

An incident at the University of Memphis recently brought national attention to the practice of banning laptops.

June Entman, a law professor at the university, forbade students from bringing their computers to her civil-procedure class this spring, arguing that the devices were literally getting in the way of learning. In an e-mail message she sent to the students explaining the ban, she said that when students in the auditorium had their laptop lids open, she could not make eye contact with them.
Douglas Haneline, a professor of English at Ferris State University, tells his students that they cannot turn on their computers or cellphones in his classes.

"It's a matter of class consideration and of not disrupting the learning environment," he says. "I want to arrange it so there are as few distractions as possible." He says he tries to use humor when explaining his ban on laptops and on cellphones:

Andrew B. Aylesworth, an associate professor of marketing at Bentley, says that even though the college for years has required students to buy laptops, this academic year was the first time he saw a critical mass of students use their machines during classes.

"A couple of them have said, 'I don't have any paper,'" says Mr. Aylesworth. He had them borrow some from classmates.

http://chronicle.com/free/v52/i39/39a02701.htm