Assistant American studies professor Kip Kosek explains his no-laptop in class policy.
I forbid laptops in most of my seminars and discussion sections, though I do allow them in large lectures. I did not make this rule because I am anti-technology. I agree with Twomey that technology has improved our lives in many ways. Certainly, the courses I teach on American history and culture would be greatly impoverished without online resources. I have no desire to go back to arranging slides in a plastic carousel, as my own professors did, rather than pulling historical images instantly from the Library of Congress Web site or ARTstor.
Excellent pieces, both. The student Op-Ed and professor response should be held up as an example of how civilized, intellectual discourse can be conducted. No personal attacks, snide comments or hollow theatricks. Kudos to all!
Yeah here’s a snide comment for everyone…While I understand this professor’s response, I will abstain from actually saying what I think in an effort to sound respectful. But wow …what a bunch of cr*p! I have only had a B in my four years here at GW and yeah, I take in pride in my awesome gpa while having 2 part time jobs. There is nothing that I hate more that been treated like an elementary school kid …here’s what I ban and what I do not ban and here’s how to act and here’s what to say. Luckily I am a senior, but I will be raising hell if I had to put up with such “enlightened” professors that ban computers. English is not my second language so I have a dictionary on my computer to help me, I type a lot faster, and when I need a clarification, yeah, I research it online. I have a class now that bans computers and I begged and begged to at least get a “trial run” because I cannot function and succeed academically without the help of these online tools – I was flat out refused, not even a glance my way or even an attempt to understand my situation. Professors simply can’t do something for all the class populations – yes there are idiots that misuse and distract, but my computer is essential to me. If I want to not pay attention and distract others, I will find a way whether or not you ban computers. In my class, students talk and I can’t concentrate at all while last night’s drama is being discussed – what I wouldn’t give to have them just surf online and shut up for once. Professor Kosek, you can’t ban computers in your class. I mean you can but students like me, that actually enjoy learning, discussing, and interacting with peers will resent you. I just spent ten minutes writing this because I am appalled – I need to vent because no professor listens on this computer issue. I’m tired of not even being given a chance and clumped in with the idiots that don’t pay attention. Install a rule where once they misuse the privilege, the laptop gets taken away for good. All it takes is a chance …I hope that while you devoted your time to write this article you revise your opinion and try to talk to other professors to consider the students. I’m not going into a discussion of technology …I need a computer for class, instead of writing notes and wrecking my brain as to how to translate words, I want to focus on the lecture and the discussion. Why should I punished for the mistakes of others? And when I try to go to office hours to clarify concepts because I couldn’t other way, the professor conveniently can’t meet with me or is only available for 20 minutes? Get off your high horses and your superficial attempts to control students when in actually the material sucks. I’m pissed.
Although this piece is well written and attempts to address the arguments made by the student, I believe the teacher is assuming that students mainly use their laptops in class for nefarious purposes. In fact, when I was a student at GW, I tended to use my laptop to look up interesting facts about discussions that were being held, especially in most of my engineering classes. Looking around my classes at students on social networks, I resorted to the mentality that it just gave me a leg up in the course. Comparing the use of laptops in class to the use of cell phones to text while driving comes off as generational ignorance. The same comparison could be made about the pilot who overflew his flight path because he was on his laptop in-flight. It really doesn’t compare to the learning environment in a classroom.
Just my $0.02
I appreciated this piece but probably would have been less generous in explaining my own decision to also ban laptops from class. First, I would never have addressed the pro/anti-technology argument at all. Charges of ludditism against any and all who might for a second question the universal value of electronic gizmos of any stripe, are unfair and lazy and should just be ignored. There are many compelling reasons to limit electronic media (to me more for doing so, than not) and Kosek explores just a few, albeit for me, he makes the central one: students need more than anything else to learn how to focus on what’s in front of them and to think through difficult and complex ideas without wandering off into the ether. And to do so in the most unmediated (read present and face-to-face) manner possible. As for Kosek’s observation that electronically induced wandering-mind syndrom is an ageless phenomenon, perhaps, but it is especially acute in the young who have no defenses – cultural, social, or psychological – against it. That our elected leaders are also immature in this regard must be the subject of another post at a later time.
I must say, if that was Julian’s attempt at a rational, “respectful” response to the article, he may want to translate those two words in his computer’s dictionary. Even with his stated reasons for needing his computer, his arguments are unconvincing. He is far from the only ESL student on this campus, and is clearly comfortable enough to use idiomatic language throughout his rant. If he is a senior, he has come through three and half years as a student here, presumably wrote several papers and read several books, and lives in a predominantly English-speaking area. It is hard to imagine that, with this type of experience, he encounters countless translation roadblocks on a daily basis.
On the issue of looking up further information to clarify a discussion in class, he highlights an additional reason that laptops may be inappropriate. Looking up more information should not be a part of class. Jot something down, put a question mark in parentheses, and return to it later. If something in class is so unclear that he needs further information, surely he can do it the old fashion way: look it up after class or raise your hand and ask.
Having said all of that, I don’t have a strong opinion on whether laptops should be banned from class. There are good points on both sides, but the student position could likely find a better spokesperson.
Well, Julian, why do you not get a dictionary? Then you can still look up the words that you need to look up. Oh, wait, that may be too slow for you—a fast food, give-me-my- hamburger-right-now kid of the loser generation. Grow up! Imagine the world WITHOUT the internet. That is the kind of world that I grew up in, and it was a much nicer place. Right now, you sound like that little kid in the middle of the aisle in the local grocery store screaming for something he does not need. This is the real world. There are rules. Abide by them. Be civil. And stop your whining!!!
Students in discussion-based classes should be looking at each other, not their screens. Otherwise it’s not really a discussion class! It’s a stare blankly ahead class.
Whether internet is on or off, students who don’t want to pay attention won’t–with or without a computer. Solitaire, minesweeper, or the school paper’s crossword puzzle.
Susan, you should try abiding by your own rule of “be civil”. Your archaic approach to technology and condescending tone of your post implies that you are just a snide old-woman looking to wave a finger at the nearest “kid of the loser generation”.
The world is in a constant state of evolution; technology is advancing at a blistering pace and the “real world” is moving just as quickly. When my father graduated high school, his parents have him the newest tool to help him succeed in his future career – an electronic calculator. Should his parents have said, “we didn’t have calculators when we were growing up, so here’s a slide-rule”? Obviously, we must adapt to the “real world” as we are living in it. Maintaining your focus on the past and fear of the future will lead us to nothing more than utter failure.
So, madame, we’ll stop whining if you stop nagging.
What a wonderful vindication of the professor’s stand to engage her students and present her reasons for banning laptops in her seminar and discussion environments. The few people to disagree presented less than compelling defenses of internet-infestation and ended up sounding petty and childish. Way ta go, Prof! You nailed it. Constant connection to the internet is indeed compulsive and addictive and needs to be addressed. Thank you.