Laptops in the classroom

(Cross posted from CACM)

Do you ever find yourself checking your email during a boring meeting? Do you drift off on a wave of rss feeds when you should be listening to your colleagues? Do you pretend to be taking studious notes during seminars while actually reading slashdot? In fact, should' t your full attention be somewhere else right now?

I find it increasingly tempting to do lots of things at once, or at least take micro breaks from activities to check mail or news. I do think it's rude during meetings so I try to stop myself. My students don't tend to have such scruples. They use their laptops openly in class, and they're not all conscientiously following along with my slides, I suspect. In fact, in a recent study published in AJET (http://www.ascilite.org.au/ajet/ajet26/lauricella.html), 70% of students spent half their time sending email during class (instant messaging, or playing games or other non academic activities were also popular). They did also take notes and other learning tasks, but they weren't exactly dedicated to staying on task. If you're interested in surveying your own class to find out what they really do behind their screens, the authors provide a reliable validated questionnaire tool about laptop usage in education.

Of course, there have always been distractions during class- as the margins of my Maths 101 notes demonstrate with their elaborate doodles. It's just that laptops make it so easy and seductive to drop your attention out of the lecture while still feeling that you are achieving something. ("I simply must update Facebook now. Otherwise people will not know I am in a boring lecture".)

Unsurprisingly, laptop usage in class has been associated with poorer learning outcomes, poorer self perception of learning and students report feeling distracted by their own screen as well as their neighbours' (Fried 200810.1016/j.compedu.2006.09.006 ). Many educators get frustrated by this ( see h http://doi.acm.org/10.1145/1151030.1151049 in CACM for example) and there is debate about whether laptops should be banned, or whether the lecturer should have a big red button to switch off wireless (or electrocute all students) when they can't stand it anymore.

Bear in mind,though,the studies I mention above were conducted in lecture style classes and the students were not given guidance on how to effectively use their laptops to help them learn rather than arrange their social lives. It is possible to design active classes around laptop use ( if you can make sure that students who don't own a laptop can borrow one) thereby making the technology work in your favour. For example, my students learn to do literature searches in class, or try out code snippets or critique the design of web pages. And yes, some of them still get distracted from these activities and wander off to Farmville. But at least I have given them the opportunity to integrate their technology with their learning in a meaningful way. They are adult learners after all. It's their decision how best to spend their brain cells in my class and my job to give them a compelling reason to spend them on computer science rather than solitaire.

   







   







Comments

[Computer support service]

I believe the benefits of their use outweigh their potential to distract.

[Kenneth McLaughlin]

Reading your blog on this topic I decided to follow your links and I also searched for the term "The Sesame Street Syndrome". Top of the list in google was this posting in response to the ACM article. I thought you might find it of interest.

[Kenneth McLaughlin]

Whoops I embedded HTML code and it has been stripped out!

Reading your blog on this topic I decided to follow your links and I also searched for the term "The Sesame Street Syndrome" - http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20100413103727AAF3Rb0 Top of the list in google was this http://mfeldstein.com/the_sesame_street_syndrome - in response to the ACM article. I thought you might find it of interest.

Hope this works this time!?!

[Judy]

Thanks for pointing me to this. I must say I agree with the article. Why are non-interactive ectures the default?

[Johnathan]

I used a laptop in lectures through out my time at university and so did most of my class mates. There were some people who were distracted by it but most did there work. Its getting far more accessible to to get laptops these days, i ended up buying a refurbished laptop for about £150 from http://www.cheaplaptopcompany.co.uk - inexpensive and did the job