[Air-l] laptops and Internet access in class

[Alex Halavais]

I was shocked when I found out they had removed wireless access in
some of the largest lecture halls at my previous university, at the
request of some professors. I have a few responses.

First, I recognize that email and the internet can be distracting.
That said, bored students will always find a way to distract
themselves. I sat behind two students at RIT during a talk. One was
doodling, the other was simultaneously taking notes in a word
processor, IMing, playing World of Warcraft, and editing the design of
a website. I was surprised not only that she had a laptop that could
handle all of this at once, but that she seemed more engaged in the
talk than her doodling companion.

The experience also highlighted how difficult it was to sit BEHIND
someone who has graphical content on their laptop. I consider myself a
fairly animated speaker, but I apparently resemble an animated
character popular with undergrads these days, and it was distracting
for students to see that animation on screens several rows ahead. That
is, I have a feeling laptops are far more distracting to others in the
room then they are to the users.

But turning off access really seems like throwing out the baby with
the bathwater. I had a similar experience to Steve's, with a hearing
impaired student assisted by her peers when the ASL translator was
unable to come. (In fact, this was for a course on cyberporn, and I
have to say that the ASL translator was far more distracting than Wifi
could ever be. Each time I would use a term that was even slightly
risque, she would blush uncontrollably and attempt to figure out how
to translate it. I could watch the eyes of every student in the class
shift from me to her as soon as I uttered such a term.) In some
classes, I announce a place (IRC, AIM, or the dreaded Blackboard)
where students can chat freely in a backchannel. I've also
experimented, with mixed results, with projecting that chat so that I
and the other non-connected students can follow the backchannel
discussion (i.e., a "frontchannel").

Especially in smaller courses, Wikipedia has become a kind of
off-board textbook. I feel confident in having students get into small
groups and explain how a certain idea applied in, say, the Haymarket
Riot, knowing that if students have no idea of what it is--a common
occurrence--they can look it up quickly. That kind of on-the-fly,
interest-driven information seeking, I think, can be a very effective
way of learning in a classroom. Many of my students have a browser up
to check ideas as I am lecturing, and frequently they will stop me if
I get a date or fact wrong. I can see how that would be unnerving for
some, but I love it. Others have edited blog posts or wiki entries
based on the content of the course while we are in class. I have yet
to try collaborative editing of shared notes, but I look forward to
trying it.

If you don't plan on changing your style of lecture (assuming you are
lecturing), I can see why the laptops would appear to be a problem,
particularly in large classrooms. To be honest, the larger problem for
me are classes where not everyone has a laptop, and you have to deal
with uneven distribution of the technology. That limits how much
experimenting with hybrid teaching is possible.

Finally, especially in a law school, you would think that a narrowly
tailored policy would be the norm. In large classes, I generally
request that the laptop users sit in the back so as not to distract
their classmates, and to make sure that all audio is off. When I have
guest lecturers, I ask that they do not use their laptops, since I
recognize that many such guests--depending on their industry and
background--may register the tapping of keyboards as disrespect. I am
shocked that an admonition alone from the faculty member to not use a
laptop is not seen as enough, but I suppose a "wifi kill switch" that
knocked out power to local wifi routers would at least be preferable
to forcing all of the faculty, on the basis of largely anecdotal
evidence, to precipitously eschew today's most common tool of
communication and exchange of knowledge.

- Alex


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// Alexander C. Halavais
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