As someone who has recently returned to grad school, I must admit that I do take my laptop to class and try to use it appropriately. I will confess to veering off task a couple of times, but I have managed to get back on track quickly. I can see how the laptop could turn into a real distraction if I allowed it to be.
Anyway, it seems that the faculty at Princeton are having some problems with their students’ having laptops in class.
Technology may well turn out to be the new taboo on campus, as professors increasingly worry about laptops in lecture and other pitfalls of the 21st century.
Faculty members and technology experts debated the role of computers on campus yesterday, during the first Council of the Princeton University Community (CPUC) meeting of the new semester. CPUC and the Office and of Information Technology (OIT) have joined forces to form a Strategic Planning Initiative, which will attempt to address the various uses and misuses of technology in Princeton academics.
Nevertheless, the University recognizes the benefits of laptop access in lecture accompanying its various distractions. Leydon noted that laptops cannot be outlawed from the classroom but must be regulated in some way. “Students learn in many different ways, and we must learn to accommodate that,” she said. “We are certainly not, at this point, looking at a ban on laptop use.”
“The consensus seems to be that it has many deserving functions,” she added, “and our most likely path, if we are to take one at all, is to adopt something similar to an Honor Code in several years’ time — something to put onto course syllabi to remind students to refrain from using laptops during lecture for purposes beyond research of class material.”
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