<p>I asked my daughter this question just last week. I read several articles recently indicating that increasing numbers of college students are using their laptops or tablets in class for things other than taking notes. Some are viewing their Facebook accounts, watching YouTube, or sending IMs to friends. Other students are texting on their cell phones during class.</p>
<p>I find this to be unacceptable. In my opinion, it shows a lack of respect for the instructor, as well as other students in the class who may find it distracting. I also strongly believe that when students are engaged in this type of behavior, they are not able to fully concentrate on learning. If movie patrons are asked to turn off their cell phones during the show, why aren't students asked to do this during class?</p>
<p>College is a time where students are expected to develop a level of maturity and not have their hands held during class.</p>
<p>If the laptop or phone isn’t making distracting noise, I say let them continue. They are adults, they have the right to, just like they have more freedom to not show up to class. Obviously, this is a bad habit, but let it continue. Then when they get their grade they’ll learn something.</p>
<p>Professors can disallow computers and cell phones from their lectures if they choose to. If someone goes to class to be on Facebook or Youtube then I think they should sit in the back row or not go at all. </p>
<p>I think computers are fine for note-taking. </p>
<p>In one class during a presentation, students in one corner of the room were talking and being disruptive during my presentation. Since the professor didn’t do **** I told them if they wanted to talk go outside as they were interrupting my presentation.</p>
<p>This isn’t a new phenomenon. You can’t make everyone pay attention, especially in large lecture classes. If they’re bored, they’re bored, and they’re going to find something else to do, whether that’s Facebook or doodling in the margins of their notes. Not paying attention in class is not a new invention; it did not appear with the advent of the computer.</p>
<p>As long as they’re not distracting anyone else with their computer, I say let them use it. For some people in some classes, it’ll probably cost them their grade. For some, not paying attention won’t affect them at all because some people don’t learn in class. I’ve had several classes where the majority of material was to be learned outside of class. It’s not rare. And lots of students prefer to learn on their time; class often becomes a secondary source of learning.</p>
<p>You may consider it disrespectful, but I would much rather someone be on Facebook or using Stumble Upon or browsing forums than whispering and chuckling with their neighbors or doing other much more distracting things (as I became well acquainted with in high school, where laptops were not allowed in class.)</p>
<p>I’m almost always at the front row so I don’t get distracted by them, but I can see why folks find them distracting.</p>
<p>Thankfully most of my professors have strict electronics policies and my lectures are much smaller than lower-level classes, so the addicts who can’t drop their technology for an hour (and this is coming from a big tech geek… some of these folks make WoW addicts look sane) aren’t really a problem.</p>
<p>Most of the people in my classes are on their labtops, either taking notes or browsing social network sites. I don’t use my labtop unless it’s required, but I’m really not bothered by others doing so.</p>
<p>Not paying attention in class isn’t a new phenomena and I don’t get why people are acting like this is something that started with laptops or smart phones.
College students are adults, too, and should be treated as such if you expect them to act like adults. And that means giving them freedom that any other adult has. </p>
<p>I go on Tumblr in class and Facebook on my phone. What I do at my area of the table isn’t bothersome and it is a lot quieter than those that giggle and whisper in class like they’re in middle school. I was on the internet a lot of the time during one class in particular over the course of the semester and got an A in the class. Like someone mentioned above, not everyone is going to pay attention 100% of the time and not everyone needs to.</p>
<p>When I teach I don’t allow them. I tell my students unless you can type +65 wpm then your computer won’t help you. Also my class is typically not lecture. Some “old school” professors have similar rules. Some don’t. Some students can multitask and some can’t. I liken it to the real world where your boss will likely not want you not paying attention. Good practice now. :)</p>
<p>One of my professors said that the reason he allows them is because he personally observed someone take an entire transcript of the lecture while multitasking between facebook, messaging, email, etc. He has no idea how it was done, but it’s why we all have the opportunity to use them. However, if they do become distracting OR we use our phones, he’ll give us a warning. Second time we have to put on a funny hat, do the YMCA, while he records it and puts it on our private class page. Seems reasonable lol. </p>
<p>I use laptops and I multitask. I also sit on the edge or in the back. I keep my laptop on the lowest brightness setting and don’t sit there and laugh. If you’re still distracted by my laptop then frankly, that’s you’re problem, not mine. I still engage with profs and other students.</p>
<p>80-90, depending on the keyboard and how much effort I actually put into typing fast. Could I use a laptop in your class?</p>
<p>Also I have dyspraxia, which is a motor skills impairment and basically means my handwriting sucks. If I ever need to, I could go through the disability office. </p>
<p>I also don’t take many notes anyway, I’m an auditory learner. I had high school teachers who HATED this.</p>
<p>I went to grad school with a guy who had that so I am familiar. when dealing with a disability all bets come off, esp in learning styles. I would think any professor would have no problem accommodating something like that. I know my college offers free software for all students to be able to use that do speech to text and text to speech.</p>
<p>At my old school, I never used them because my classes were much more interactive. However, now my classes are much more straight lecture and in the classes that I use my laptop (primarily for distracting myself) I sit in the back on the very end so that I could not be bothering anyone else. I have done perfectly fine thus far and I find that I learn so much more from just reading the book on my own.</p>
<p>If I can’t hear anything, it doesn’t distract me. Everytime I hear a professor say “It distracts the other students,” I’m thinking that’s a load of baloney. Especially in classes where I’m required to attend, but it’s the easiest class in the world and I can make an A if I never went to class still. I get really ****ed off in those classes, so I bring my laptop and do whatever I want during the time the teacher is speaking nonsense (And don’t say, you’re the one who took his class you should pay attention. 90% of the classes I take, I’m required to. Ridiculous, man). Honestly, you probably haven’t been in a college classroom in decades. You have no experience on how “distracting” cell phones and laptops are in classrooms except from articles. Trust me, they’re not.</p>
<p>Even if the students are doing 100% classwork on thier laptops, I would find it extremely distracting.</p>
<p>Twice I’ve been in business meetings where someone was taking notes during the meeting on their laptop. You can’t imagine how loud the clicking of a keyboard is in a conference room while one is trying to listen to a speaker.</p>
<p>I politely (but firmly) told them to stop typing.</p>
<p>Who is paying the teacher’s salary? If they don’t like it, make the lectures engrossing so we have no desire to peruse facebook. Although personally if I have a test coming in another class I’ll study for that. One of my lectures is so boring and redundant as far as just rehashing the readings that even the grad student TA I can see checking her email and crap. </p>
<p>What’s hilarious is this same prof will point out that computers distract the other students, when like 3/4 of the class is using a laptop and the prof doesn’t even bother with a mic. She has one, just never uses it. She also took a poll on Ctools and like 75% (huge surprise) voted that “PCs are useful in class.” So yeah we have no respect for her, because frankly she has yet to earn it.</p>
<p>@GolfFather That’s fine, but you’re not in class right now. The students who are in class have been engulfed in technology since they were born. They are a generation who is used to the sound of typing. They don’t care if someone is texting cause they’ll probably do it occasionally. It just annoys me when people who aren’t in school talk about how annoying something is. And for the one percent of the students who are actually annoyed by it, stick to online learning.</p>
<p>Golf, that would be incredibly rude in a classroom, and frankly fairly rude in any environment. Something better would be telling them that it’s distracting and seeing if they would quiet down. They may not know how loud it is. In a classroom, you have no idea why these students are typing. There may be learning disabilities that you know nothing about. </p>
<p>I have a blind boss. How do you think he takes notes? And while yes, it’s fairly obvious when someone’s blind, you still have NO idea why they’re taking notes like that- especially in a classroom.</p>
<p>My classes are around 30 to 40 students in my math class. Usually if we’re not programming or building models people look like idiots trying to take math notes. There was only one person who took notes with a laptop in my first physics course and it was because he had one of those cool laptops you could flip the screen around and use as a tablet. I don’t mind the sound of typing in any social science class because I’m not usually paying attention. I learn better mostly from the book in those classes rather than the professor. It is a bit weird when everyone in the class doesn’t have a laptop and they are hitting the keys so loudly that it makes it hard to understand the lecturer. This happened in one of my honors history courses.</p>
when dealing with a disability all bets come off, esp in learning styles. I would think any professor would have no problem accommodating something like that. I know my college offers free software for all students to be able to use that do speech to text and text to speech.</p>