Monday, January 26, 2009

Laptops prohibited?

Laptops are an essential necessity for any university student to have and I can't think of one student off the top of my head who doesn't own one. Homework assignments, online courses, essays, emails to professors/student peers, etc. What I'm curious to know is why 75% of students, at least in my classes, bring their laptops to university lectures? The average financial cost of a single term university course is around $550, but what are we getting out of that $550? A three hour internet-surfing bonanza or a lesson we'll never forget from a highly educated professor? I'm not condemning laptops in the classroom, they can be very useful, but I wonder what would happen if they were prohibited in the class room. Would students learn more from professors if they didn't have facebook tempting them every minute of every class, or would they learn less because they don't have the powerpoints downloaded to read as the prof reads them out to us anyways. If we went back to professors using chalkboards and students bringing only themselves and some lined paper to a university lecture, would we learn more? Maybe them then we would remember our professors lesson for the day rather than who wrote on our wall at 12:54 pm.