Don’t panic, they are not outlawed yet. But the trend is there.
In my MBA experience at GWU School of Business I have encountered different policies by different professors on the use of laptops in the classroom. There were two classes (Financial Accounting-1, Judgement and Uncertainty) where the use of the laptop was highly desirable, even though not explicitly required by the professor. The reason for that was that students could use Excel and its add-ons for working on the problems in the classroom. There was one class where laptops were explicitely banned by the professor – Financial Accounting-2.
All other classes had more flexible or tolerant policies. A few of those had a policy that laptops are not generally welcome, but there was no explicit ban or strict enforcement either way. Some of the professors gave students free ride by either not defining any policy on the in-class use of computers, or allowing students to use laptops at their own discretion.
It is interesting to observe the change of the trend in the use of computers by students in the classrooms over the last few years. Some fifteen-twenty years ago there was a euphoria about their presence in the colleges’ classrooms, presumingly as they were supposed to increase productivity and were a sign of innovation. However, with the development of the internet, more and more instructors on universities’ campuses find that the use of computers has become a major contender for students’ attention during the lecture and a enormous source of distraction.
Our professor in Human Capital Management allowed us to have computers only if we use it exclusively for notes-taking. She said she would require the laptops be removed by the students who use it for any other purpose during the class. To support her position she referred to an article -Wide Web of diversions gets laptops evicted from lecture halls- that was published in the Washington Post just a day before our first class. It’s an interesting read and will give you an overview of the upcoming trend on a broader sampling of college campuses, than just my empirical experience from the part-time MBA program at GWSB.
But now, it seems, the new culprit is rising mightily – mobile phones, with their texting and browsing capabilities. This trend has been recognized though, and they are usually covered by the same policies as the laptops. Any new innovative ideas of inconspicuous diversions? 
{ 0 comments }
