My profs. policy: No Laptops

[Nik]

If he posts his lectures online, wtf you need notes for?

Not everybody learns the same way. Some are hands-on learners, some are audible learners, some are visual learners, etc. If he's going to bark out his notes from the front of the class, the only people who are going to truly benefit are the audible learners. The best thing for, say, a visual learner to do would be to follow along online in the instructor's notes as he progresses through the lesson.

Not allowing laptops at a college is just stupid. If everyone but audible learners aren't going to get anything from him babbling at the front of the class, why are they even in the classroom to begin with?

 

[irishScott]

Front/back with 4 slides to a page takes ~70 pages to print your 550 slides. If you stick with black and white I don't see how that cost can be prohibitive. Besides, your laptop cost could have paid for ink/paper for 10 years of college

Depending on the colors in the presentation it actually might be more cost-efficient to use color. Just passing through...

 

[mb]

I can't imagine taking notes for things like Calculus.



Tube8's new design sucks though.

lol I'm at work I was just trying to think of a random site off the top of my head.

 

[EarthwormJim]

My professor allows laptops in his class.

To combat people looking at porn or facebook or anything not dealing with the class, he gives extra credit to the first person who spots this inappropriate behavior.

 

[JeffreyLebowski]

Now I'm glad I never got into the high-tech gizmo crap. It's no big deal to me if the prof bans laptops.

My brain doesn't disappear if I don't have a laptop on me. Have pencil and paper, will travel.

This. If you are reliant on technology to take notes your core learning abilities were not developed.
By taking hand written notes and transcribing them later you are forced to go over the material again. By having them all typed out and searchable, you are only finding the info pertinent to questions asked. You are not reviewing the whole lecture.
I work in IT and I love gizmos and computers as much as the next guy, but when it comes to education I think way to many people are dependant on computers. It's great when you need to do something like learn HTML or some other actual computer related skill, but you don't need it for history class or math, or Literature.

 

[surfsatwerk]

My professor allows laptops in his class.

To combat people looking at porn or facebook or anything not dealing with the class, he gives extra credit to the first person who spots this inappropriate behavior.

Training the next generation to rat out their peers, god bless America!

 

[lord_emperor]

I give it two more generations until no one can write by hand with any proficiency.

I write approximately the same as I did in grade two, it's like some military cipher to anyone but myself.

 

[vshah]

so glad i went to a techy school

 

[UglyCasanova]

I think that it is an excellent policy. Laptops and cell phones should be banned and the professors should be banned from doing lectures from Power Points as well. Neither one are conducive to the learning environment.

For those arguing that it is the student paying for the class, well yes they are along with all of the other students in the class room and more than likely all taxpayers in the state. It is the school's responsibility to provide a learning environment that is fair to all students. You may use the laptop for notes but others will of course be browsing the web etc. That would be fine except for the fact that it is distracting to everyone sitting behind them. Should the student be allowed to listen to their ipod and thus everyone around them can hear the music blaring from their little earbuds? Of course not because it is both rude and distracting. Same thing with browsing the web in class.

 

[dabuddha]

You'll learn better taking notes the old fashioned way. Are the lectures posted prior to class? Print those out and take notes on them.

In my day...

This.

freaking punk kids...

 

[Hacp]

I can't imagine taking notes for things like Calculus.



Tube8's new design sucks though.

Tablet would be the perfect tool to take notes for calculus.

 

[sourceninja]

I'd bring a camcorder. Set it up on a tripod and go to sleep, take my notes at home.

 

[Blackjack200]

Training the next generation to rat out their peers, god bless America!

Not only that, but it seems to me to just cause another layer of distraction. Mike jumps up and yells out that Joe is looking at facebook. Joe quickly closes or multitasks away and denies it, and gets pissed at Mike.

Just get rid of them. If the professor is teaching the class in a way that makes taking written notes impossible, that is the problem, not the laptop ban.

Laptops are not an appropriate way to take notes at this point in our society. I work in a job where we have meeting and sometimes the speaker will talk very quickly and lay out things that we need to know. I'm a fast typer but it would be inappropriate for me to bring a laptop into the conference room and hammer away on a laptop to try to keep up. So I relearned cursive. Now the notes that I take in meetings look really professional and I have another skill.

Also, how in the world can printing 500 pages be cost prohibitive? It's a pain, yes, but what does a ream of paper cost? $2, $3? And ink is like $30 and should last thousands of pages. My chemistry text retailed for $230.

 

[Whisper]

I allowed laptops when I taught, although I'm fairly positive that the majority of students who brought them spent at least some class time on Facebook, Ebay, Gmail, etc.

I do know a few colleagues who'd seriously considered disallowing them due to the distraction caused by random internet browsing.

Retention does seem to improve when information is hand-written, although my guess on the mechanism is that because writing by hand takes longer (and can be more painful), students are essentially forced to summarize. And research has definitely shown that summarizing and re-wording information improves later retrieval.

Personally, I see nothing wrong with a professor deciding not to allow laptops in his/her class. If you aren't able to take adequate notes by hand, then you likely need to re-examine your note-taking strategies.

 

[alevasseur14]

Since I went back to school a year and a half ago, about half of my professors don't allow laptops. I didn't have a laptop when I was in school previously.

If i were a professor, I would too. I know when I'm on my laptop, I rarely pay much attention. Even though I have a laptop with me all the time, I usually just leave it in my bag.

My suggestion? Stop being a baby and take notes the old fashioned way. You're not going to change the professors mind and there will only be more.

 

[TheVrolok]

http://www.wimp.com/oldtypewriter/

Awesome.


I've been in numerous classes where profs didn't allow laptops. I don't have a program with it. I know quite a few people that find the constant clicking of keyboard fairly annoying and distracting. Would you want someone sitting next to you tapping his pencil or clicking his pen twice every second for the entire lecture?

 

[GodlessAstronomer]

People who take laptops into lectures can kindly self-murder, thanks. Especially the pretentious wanks trying to take notes on their lappy in maths classes.

 

[Turin39789]

bitch bitch bitch bitch bitch

 

[ghost recon88]

Well he's at it, tell him to ban North Face clothing and boots with fur along the top

 

[Hacp]

People who take laptops into lectures can kindly self-murder, thanks. Especially the pretentious wanks trying to take notes on their lappy in maths classes.

Whats wrong with taking notes during math class? Especially if you have a tablet PC? You set your recorder on your laptop on and can follow your professors train of though while taking notes.

 

[alevasseur14]

People who take laptops into lectures can kindly self-murder, thanks. Especially the pretentious wanks trying to take notes on their lappy in maths classes.

So, you're suggesting murder over a person having a laptop in class? Jeebus, when did you become so cynical?

 

[HybridSquirrel]

Front/back with 4 slides to a page takes ~70 pages to print your 550 slides. If you stick with black and white I don't see how that cost can be prohibitive. Besides, your laptop cost could have paid for ink/paper for 10 years of college

they arent slides, they are actual outlines typed on paper, front and back printing will still take up 250 pages. and my laptop was a gift. so it didnt cost me anything.

the teacher also says he doesnt care if you show up to class, and if "everyone" spends their time on facebook...they aren't learning anything in class, and are essentially not "there" so why does it matter if we have laptops. since "everyone" who has one is essentially absent, which he doesnt care about?

 

[TheVrolok]

Whats wrong with taking notes during math class? Especially if you have a tablet PC? You set your recorder on your laptop on and can follow your professors train of though while taking notes.

.. You could spend a few hundred on a tablet PC ... or just use paper and a pencil/pen? What is so wrong with paper? Is a digital version going to somehow make you learn better? I highly doubt that.

 

[Red Squirrel]

Wow that sucks. YHou know what though, don't bother taking notes. I can't recall a single time in College where I had to refer back to notes I took. I always referred to the material given in class. But yeah taking notes by hand sucks. You could try to play the smartass and bring a netbook instead, but those are basically just smaller laptops so his policy probably involves those too.

You could always just voice record him too, but that might be against certain policies as well, I don't know.

 

[Red Squirrel]

.. You could spend a few hundred on a tablet PC ... or just use paper and a pencil/pen? What is so wrong with paper? Is a digital version going to somehow make you learn better? I highly doubt that.

Digital is cleaner, and in most cases faster to produce, assuming a full size keyboard and not some crappy phone "keyboard". Takes me like 20 minutes just to type an email address on my phone, can't imagine taking notes on one!