Professors Banning Laptops In the Lecture Hall

Professors at some school are banning laptops to help get kids to pay attention.

Back to Pencil and Paper

Wide Web of diversions gets laptops evicted from lecture halls [Washington Post]

A generation ago, academia embraced the laptop as the most welcome classroom innovation since the ballpoint pen. But during the past decade, it has evolved into a powerful distraction. Wireless Internet connections tempt students away from note-typing to e-mail, blogs, YouTube videos, sports scores, even online gaming — all the diversions of a home computer beamed into the classroom to compete with the professor for the student’s attention.

Part of me wants to say, “Make your lectures more interesting, and kids will pay attention,”  but I know that isn’t the whole story. I’ve noticed many students at Tech have a tendency to be distracted in class, but it would be impossible to force them to pay attention to something they clearly have no interest in. I feel that as long as they are paying customers, let them do whatever they want while they are in class. It only becomes a problem when it distracts other students.