Ever since college administrators across the nation made the push to blanket their campuses with wireless internet access, the controversy surrounding laptops in the classroom has raged.
In an article in Wednesday's Chronicle of Higher Education, several professors from across the country testified that a complete ban on laptops in classrooms stimulates discussion and limits distractions. But the professors overlook many of the positive aspects that come from having an endless pool of information at your fingertips in the classroom. How many times has a professor, mid-lecture, stumbled over an obscure historical date or a court case resolution and been kindly corrected by a laptop-wielding student? Don't such occurrences actually improve the quality of the lecture and, in turn, the students' education?
The technology that students can bring to the classroom has other uses beyond enriching lectures and lessons. By bringing their laptops to class, students can swap and compare notes much more simply and efficiently, which also makes learning easier.
Regardless of how annoying the social-networking addicts or iPhoto surfers are, we should not sacrifice all of the benefits of this technology because of a few irresponsible students who abuse it. There are ways to ease the tension between the technologically-inclined and those who prefer more traditional forms of note-taking. A professor could ask all of the students with laptops to sit in the back of the classroom, where their screens would not cause such a disturbance to those around them. Or, if professors are concerned about low levels of class participation, they could simply ask students to close their laptops once the note-taking segment of class is over and they want to facilitate a discussion.
Students will always find ways to occupy themselves in less-than-engaging classroom situations, be it with text messaging, doodling in their margins or the Sudoku puzzle in this very paper, and no professorial decree is going to change that.
Ostensibly, the students sitting in UT's classrooms are adults who will soon have to learn how to ignore the siren song of a Facebook notification and focus on tasks at hand, whether it is to pass a class or to become a productive asset to a future employer. While we do appreciate the paternal/maternal instinct of anti-laptop professors, the students at UT should be beyond the age of hand-holding and be able to hold their own in a college classroom without a teacher saying "let me see your eyes, boys and girls."
