I thought this was pretty interesting:
There was a discussion in my department recently about a policy restricting the use of laptop computers; Lord only knows what some of my colleagues would think of adding Twitter to a class discussion. But I have to say I found this pretty persuasive, and it rings home with me. I was at a conference not too long ago where there was a very active and very interesting “back channel” discussion going on about panels on Twitter. It might not be that interesting to folks who weren’t there, but for people who were there, it was very cool.
Restricting laptop use is a horrible idea. Many students NEED to type their notes; especially in upper level classes. I don’t know anyone anymore who doesn’t type faster than they write.
I also know that my grades went up as soon as I got a laptop — not having to worry about spelling, being able to look up unfamiliar words instantly, being able to read my notes later. Restricting laptop use would just make students feel even more like they were still in high school.
I don’t restrict laptops in my classes, but I do say that they cannot be used for anything other than class work, such as note taking. Using the laptop to look something up that is covered in the assigned books is not acceptable: the books are assigned because the expert teaching the class judges them to be good and reliable. Internet sources are rarely so vetted.
Actually, one of the things I ask students to do with laptops in my classes all the time is to look stuff up, even on (gasp!) Wikipedia, which is probably about as (in)accurate as any other general information resource.
This may be a disciplinary difference Steve, but I generally don’t ask my students to “look stuff up.” I try to use class time to discuss assigned readings, which are in books that good students will have read and have with them. Of course, lots of good info is on the internet — but mostly it’s not information that I want to devote class time to. Few of the big issues in my field, history, can be meaningfully addressed with a quick search of the internet. But if you want to know, say, the birthdate of Franklin Roosevelt, the internet is perfect and quick. If you want to know why FDR is important, better to read what the history prof has assigned rather than getting something from an internet search. My classes aren’t oriented, in other words, toward “general information resource(s)” but are instead based on primary historical documents and carefully researched and written historical scholarship.
BTW, I should point out (as is clear in the video about Twitter) that this was a history class and the main function for twitter was to further the classroom discussion. So I dunno, I think it might work for you yet, Mark.
Yes, Steve, I saw it was a history class, a large lecture class. Seems clearly to be used effectively by this professor. Please note that I haven’t spoken out against Twitter, I’ve just said (in response to Penny) that laptops are often negatives in class, in that they are tempting distractions from the actual work of the class (searching the web, doing emails, etc). Inappropriate use of laptops often produces complaints from other students, as they are distracting, just like any TV screen in one’s line of vision. They are superb tools for note taking, for good typists.
With Twitter, there appears to be many of the positive potential classroom functions of “clickers” for large classes: both permit a certain kind of feedback and allow people to “ask” simple questions without using their vocal cords. Those are both very worthwhile (although public speaking is also a worthwhile pedagogical activity). But can Twitter be used to ask or answer a complex question about history? Those are the questions that students who’ve done their preparation are most concerned with. I don’t think 140 characters max. allows for a lot of nuance, and my profession is all about nuance: What precisely changed? When, and where, and why, and with what consequences for whom?
No doubt Twitter is a good tool. So is conversation. I prefer teaching smaller classes, which I think are on average much more engaging for students than large classes, and I use a method in many of my classes that consistently produces extraordinarily high levels of participation and high levels of engagement. It’s called “Reacting to the Past”.
I’ll also say this: The professor at Dallas who’s in this video using Twitter seems quite engaging, and she’s clearly made Twitter work. She’s a great teacher, it seems. Perhaps the main thing going on here is her superior teaching, rather than any particular technology.
I totally disagree with Penny. I am one of the proponents in the English Department of a policy restricting laptop usage in the classroom. I actually instituted the ban for the first time during the Spring 2009 semester in both a 100-level class and a 400-level class, and the results were staggeringly positive. In fact, I had two of the best classes I’ve taught in five or six years. Dozens of students–no exaggeration–thanked me at the end of the semester for doing so. They either identified themselves as folks who had gotten in the habit of playing with their computers during class time or as individuals who were distracted by (even angry at) students who chose to “facebook” during class time instead of participate in the classroom discussion. Both of my spring semester courses thought that the vibe in the class had been noticeably transformed because of the policy.
The reason I decided to restrict the usage of electronic devices is because things had gotten way out of hand. In a course of 40 students during the winter semester, for example, I’d estimate that ten or eleven students–practically every single class!–were tuning me out and focusing almost entirely on their email and facebook accounts. That said, there may be one or two students every once in a while who, as Penny puts it, “NEED” a computer to take notes, but I think that it’s possible to overstate even that number. If a student comes to me with special needs, then there’s no question that I’d allow a computer (as everybody ought to). But until someone convinces me otherwise, I’m going “all Luddite, all the time” on my students and they seem to be very happy–in some cases even despite themselves.
Joe
I’d like to add to my previous comment. I think that for many classes, laptops can be a great tool. But not all classes. It’s been a few years since I took an English class, and I never took one at EMU, but I don’t remember ever needing a laptop. I know that I need mine for notes in lectures where there are a lot of notes — my middle eastern politics class jumps to mind first and foremost.
I do think, however, that if a student doesn’t want to participate, it should be his/her decision. He/she should also be prepared to live with the consequences of that decision. In my time at EMU, I found that a lot of instructors were very forgiving of many things that really shouldn’t even be crossing student’s minds when they are at the university level. Why are all the instructors so afraid of failing a student? I’ve had an NA on my transcript for 4 years now. I still received my degree even though I’m short that class. I don’t even know what an NA means. And at this point, does it matter?
Maybe I’m just cynical that I *had* to go to Eastern, I don’t know. I loved most of my classes, don’t get me wrong, but there were a lot of students who seemed to really not be ready for college. And that IS distracting to all the students.
My point is that the students are adults and should be treated as such. Having laptop bans, blocking websites, having to tell students that they shouldn’t be on facebook during class? these are all things that happen in high school; maybe freshman year. By a 400 level class, I would expect that any student would be interested in the subject (presumably it’s in their major) and *want* to be in class.
I really like the way the instructor used Twitter, btw. Great idea, especially for this generation.
FEH! I heard some report on NPR (Nice Polite Republicans) about how the current generation is different. Due to all the “multi-tasking” they’ve done, they can read textbooks, IM, twit (stet), listen to music, watch TV, pirate music and video, converse with three other people in the room, eat, drink, and be merry. Their brains, said the Person of Current and Conventional Wisdom, have EVOLVED!
What was absent from the report was how well they did these things. I would venture these activities were all performed with cursory attention to detail and all pretty much within the limbic and lizard brains.
One shouldn’t confuse atrophy with evolution.
I don’t blame the students. They’ve managed to live down to the expectations set before them within the K-12 (and home schooling) systems.
Math is hard! Science is hard! Why can’t we just read the Bible and stories about how Adam and Eve lived with dinosaurs? And where’s my $75K sysadmin gig?
I used to (lovingly) yell at my math students for taking notes without my permission. I wanted them to SEE a logical process that consisted of a series of simple steps performed in an exact order to get the correct answer.
If they were taking notes, they were missing the most important point(s). Later, we’d go over everything. We’d dissect the process and tease out the gumption traps struggling math students invariably put in front of themselves.
We’d discover what caused the stuckness that prevented learning.
It required the students to take responsibility for their own learning. It required them to be active participants in the teaching-learning enterprise. It required them to interact with others in the class.
Yes. Lost arts. Pedantry is the new pedagogy while andragogy languishes in plain view.
A laptop in a classroom is to learning as the full body cast is to ballet.
There’s a conversation going on about this general topic on a mailing list I’m on, and this seemed like a pretty good quote from one of my colleagues to share:
This strikes me as very true– it’s not the technology per se but the context as much as anything else that defines abuse vs. just use. And since I teach either online or in a computer lab, using laptops and twitter and the like make a lot of sense to me.
The other thing I think is interesting about the example in the movie is in a kind of interesting way, Rankin is sort of problematizing students’ uses of distracting technology. My guess is that before she started using Twitter in her classes, students were doing other stuff with technology (or not) to goof off. In getting them to use Twitter, she’s giving them a reason to use their cell phones/laptops for the purposes of class, and, oddly enough, taking away those pieces of technology as a distraction.
I think we’re mostly on the same page, Penny. I agree, of course, that you should expect people to act like adults by the time they get to college. Most do. Some, however, do not. I really had no problem with laptops in my classes until other students started complaining. The tapping of keys (when it was obvious to everyone that these folks were not taking notes), distracting images on screens within full view of others, and the tuning out all started to affect the classroom experience — not just for me but more responsible students who were taking their studies seriously. I’ve often likened the disruptive laptop user to someone who holds up a newspaper and begins reading it during a lecture. Sure, that student is missing out and is wasting the opportunity to learn. However, that newspaper and that student’s blatant disregard for classroom decorum would surely be noticed by others and affect the classroom experience for most there, right? The way I see it, an instructor might ignore the newspaper (and its reader) or ask the student to put away the newspaper and to not bring it to class again. I’ve decided to do the latter.
What’s forgotten, too, is that students are really not paying the full price of what it costs to attend a class at EMU. I’m not sure of the current figure, but as recently as 1998, Michigan taxpayers were subsidizing over 60% of the actual cost of a college class. So like the argument against attendance policies (ie students pay for their classes so they shouldn’t be forced to attend–they’re adults and will suffer the consequences), I see the laptop policy as working in part to protect the public interest. Poll taxpayers and ask them if they’re cool with leaving it up to college students whether or not to facebook during class given that the public is contributing so much to every college student’s education. I can guess the results. As an instructor, I have lots of responsibilities in the classroom. Providing an environment most conducive to learning — for everybody — is chief among them. It might not be necessary for all teachers, but the laptop policy I’ve put in place, I think, is entirely consistent with my charge as instructor at a publicly supported institution of higher learning.
Students who are truly engaged in the learning process, while in class, do NOTHING that is not directly related to the purposes of the class. Nothing whatsoever. No multi-tasking on “tasks” that are not part of the curriculum for the class. No side discussions. No reading of Facebook or newspapers. No eating of lunch, no flirting, nothing but participating in class and listening.
Yeah, I know: that’s old fashioned! It makes being in class hard work. Yes, learning can be hard. So’s studying. So is virtually everything in life that’s worth achieving. Twitter might be too easy to be good for learning….
Less engaged students…they do lots of non-learning things in class, all the time. But bad practices don’t warrant acceptance of bad practices. (And yes, lots of instructors spend class time in pedagogically dull and ineffective ways: that’s another topic.)
The point of having face to face class meetings is to provide learning activities that engage students. Engaged students learn more. This has been proven a thousand times over. We faculty members need to find better ways to engage students, all of the ones in our classes. Students have to d their part, to be sure, and their part is the bigger part, but the classes need to be structured so as to promote learning.
Failing students, Penny, is rarely a successful motivator to get students engaged in the material we’d like them to learn. The threat of failing, the possibility of failing, yeah, those can be motivators, but only to a limited extent.
So faculty need to structure our classes and courses to successfully engage students. Twitter can be part of that, as can countless kinds of tools. But we should not accept excuses from students who are un-engaged — the kid who tells me he doesn’t need to take notes because he learns from “hearing” not from note taking, but who then demonstrates a complete lack of comprehension of what the last hour has been devoted to discussing, and the student who didn’t read the assignment, but did “Google” a word related to the assignment, are students who are cheating themselves of an education.
And instructors should be in the face of such students, calling them out on their choices that amount to cheating themselves of an education. We have standards and academic credits are not earned by “seat time.”
The key to learning is student engagement, and producing that is a shared responsibility between instructors and students. All the issues touched on in this post are relevant to all of higher education, not just EMU.