The Laptop Debate ... (Part one)

According to the Washington Post, I’m about three years too late…
In a March 2010 article on banning laptops, the newspaper quoted a University Virginia professor who stated that, given the proliferation of other types of interfaces (such as web-enabled cell phones) professors are fighting a losing battle with technology.

This year was my first year banning laptops in my classroom. I had taught my business organizations class last year to a group of 75, my largest class size to date. I am a wanderer in class; instead of standing for the whole period at the front of the room, I walk around the class, trying to change my student’s focus, help them to engage. Now, while I’m not a millennial, I have had the uncommon experience of being a recent graduate of law school. I earned my LL.M. at the University of Texas in 2006, where laptops were common and wireless access prevalent. I know what happens in classrooms nowadays, in fact I participated fully – I chatted on-line (often with students sitting next to me), I surfed the internet and generally distracted myself. So, I have firsthand experience with how easy it is to get sidetracked through technology. Still, I have heard and agree with the arguments that students have been distracting themselves in class for generations and that technology is just the latest tool to facilitate.
But that’s not why I ban them.

I ban it for two reasons: one is based on a concern for my students and the other is based on a premise that I have yet to hear: the down side of instant engagement. The concern for my students came about after students complained to me that, even when they wanted to focus, it was difficult because the internet usage from other students was so prevalent that it kept the whole room preoccupied. The Washington Post article refers to it as the “cone of distraction.” But there’s an easy solution for that – all students who use laptops can sit at the back of class (although if everyone wants to use a laptop then that would thwart the solution). So, while that motivates me, the other reasons stem from something that I have not seen discussed – how the use of technology can thwart thoughtful ruminations.

Allow me to first illustrate with a hypothetical. What if you’re a student in a class, who had deep concerns over the competency of your professor: he’s a new prof who has no “track record” and you’re unsure as to whether what he’s telling you is really accurate or just a collection of platitudes. So, every time he makes a statement about black letter law you “fact check” it, Google it on your laptop to see if what he says pasts muster. Instead of listening to the lecture from a point of view of thoughtful absorption, you are spending your time trying to catch the teacher, not to educate but to condemn. Suddenly, the environment isn’t about learning it’s about condemnation. Now let me be clear – I know that there are a lot of incompetent professors out there, and many of them need to be challenged, but having this instant access to the internet can lead to a sense of false confidence (If I found it on Wikipedia it must be right and my professor must be wrong! True story, two days after I orginally this, one of my students in answering a question did exactly that: he referenced Wikipedia) that can then lead to a situation where confusion is heightened and learning is inhibited. If instead, the material were digested in class first, with questions designed to clarify, then a student might spend that time engaging in real learning.

Which leads me to ancillary point that my colleague, William Rhee, pointed out: namely that the legal system has not yet thrown aside all vestiges of the old ways. A law student needs to learn the basics of note taking and thoughtful discussion for those situations in the legal world where technology is either not accessible or not permissible. What if, you are so accustomed to relying on your computer to type questions that you are completely at a loss on how to behave during an oral argument, standing at the podium with nothing more than some paper and a pen? There will be something lost in client interactions if the only thing a client sees during a meeting is the two slits of eyes above your laptop. I have literally seen two teenagers sitting side by side on a couch not making eye contact or talking, both of them glued to their cell phones, expressionless as they were texting - each other. What does that say about our continued ability to interact with people face to face?

That for me is the real danger; it’s the dark side of what I mentioned in a previous post – using technology to get students to engage. I love technology and love how it gives people a means to access a discussion, a debate, in ways they never could before. I love that all of my seminar students and most of my business organization students have spent some time this semester blogging on issues of Citizens United and grappling with what the case means for them in different contexts. But something happened along the way to engagement: occasionally, the instant feedback of technology leads students to rush to judgment, and substitute thoughtful commentary with thoughtless reactions. It can lead to an inability to learn basic skills of communication (in much the same way that a calculator had a horrible effect on students’ arithmetic).

So, while I embrace technology as a mechanism for teaching my students, I also place limits. And so this year, I banned laptops in my class. There were grumblings at first ( I hear there always are) but the results have been worth it. It has given my students and me a time to slow down, to wrestle together with the questions they have and to think through these issues over the course of a two-hour period. And for me, that’s right on time.