The debate about laptops in the classroom is certain to grow as increasing numbers of faculty push back against those pesky little attention-suckers. But Dean Lawrence at George Washington Law says yes to laptops in a recent blog post:
My own view is that having only relatively recently begun to require that students arrive at GW Law with a laptop computer, we should not institute a school-wide ban on laptops in the classroom. For many of our students, the laptop has become almost an extension of their selves. It’s how they take notes, research, write, and communicate; like it or not, those of us who were students in a pre-computer age simply can’t roll back the clock to a time when faculty members enjoyed the sight of rows of rapt faces and suffered at worse some inattentive doodling, note passing and an occasional nodding head....in my classroom, laptops are allowed.
The dean makes an important institutional point: if we choose to require laptops, it's a lot tougher to simultaneously ban them. Law schools are not business schools. Few students are required to create spread sheets or powerpoint presentations. Most students will arrive packing a portable computer, but should it be mandatory? And by mandating laptops, we give students perhaps their most potent equitable argument against classroom bans.
How many law schools currently require students to bring laptops? And is it a good idea?
Until I'm required by an official school policy to ban laptops in my classes, I won't do it. Way too paternalistic for my tastes.
Admittedly, sometimes I have to take away my daughters' iPod Touches and cellphones so that they'll get their homework done. But they're 13 and 15. And they're my children.
Posted by: Eric Muller | March 15, 2010 at 10:23 AM
I am a proud supporter of laptop-in-the-classroom bans teaching at a school that does require students to purchase laptops. I explain the seeming dichotomy as follows: Computers (particularly laptops) have been a boon for everything we in law school (and in law generally), thus it is a good idea for students to have them--they can come to school to study, write, research, etc., but anywhere in the building. The one area of law school in which this is not true is classroom notetaking, largely because of the tendency towards stenography and disengagement that it creates.
Posted by: Howard Wasserman | March 15, 2010 at 01:35 PM