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E-PrinceCorrection appended
Many students tempted to view a friend’s latest facebook.com profile photo or check their e-mail must now wait until after lecture, as more professors are cracking down on in-class laptop use.Some professors, who expressed frustration ...
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The opinions expressed here are those of the individual commenters and do not necessarily represent the views of The Daily Princetonian Publishing Company, Inc. We do not take responsibility for the opinions, facts, or claims presented by individual commenters, and reserve the right to moderate or delete inappropriate comments.
Hear, hear. Laptops are absolutely not necessary, either for large lectures or small seminars. Having your hand "hurt" a little bit at the end of lecture is a slightly ridiculous argument to make. I know it's anecdotal, but I've never had a professor in four years who talked so fast that I couldn't keep up in writing my notes. Laptops tend to be distracting not only to the person using them but to the people around them: in my large lecture last semester, a lot of people would use Facebook, e-mail, news websites, online games, etc. I'd estimate that about half of the laptop users were off-task (i.e., not taking notes). People around them couldn't help noticing, and it was detrimental to me, anyway, to see that. It felt a little dispiriting, actually, because our professor was a fantastic lecturer.
While I generally don't like top-down initiative like these out-and-out bans on laptops, I think it might be nice to get rid of them at least in small classes. In my seminar of 9 people this semester, at least 6 regularly use a laptop, and it's hard to focus on talking to them when their eyes are always focused downward. It's just too much temptation...one person was giving a presentation one day, and during it I saw another person using perezhilton.com....I mean, COME ON. That's just disrespectful.
It sounds like the problem is not the use of laptops but of the internet. My son, a high school senior, uses a laptop to take notes in most of his classes. He has been touch typing since fifth grade when a laptop program was instituted in his middle school, he is left-handed and has nearly illegible handwriting even before the smear. My son's high school blocks internet use in the classroom, so checking facebook, etc. is not an issue. I would have thought Princeton students would have grown out of what I perceive to be highly adolescent behavior. With the growing use of iphones and the like, eliminating laptops from the classroom will not extinguish internet use in the classroom. Let the laptops stay and remove the disruptive students from class.
complaining that your hand hurts is more than slightly ridiculous, by the way. generations of Princetonians before you survived without laptops, took notes by hand in notebooks, largely without the benefit of notes being provided beforehand. the whining of the present generation, especially at a place like Princeton, is beyond ridiculous.
remove disruptive students from class? prospective mom, you are so far out, do us a favor and don't comment on a matter that is beyond your experience or grasp. i wonder about your son and doubt his touch typing abilities will help him get in, but i am even more concerned about his mom who feels the need to read and comment on this website when she has no current connection to the University. laptops may be distracting and disrespectful, but they hardly make for disruptive students, alone. i can just imagine what the Prince and campus be like in the unfortunate event your son gets in ...
Professors shouldn't act like parents. Instead of banning laptops, why don't you try:
1) Making lectures interesting enough so that students aren't apt to be distracted by facebook/e-mail/etc?
2) Making grades in your classes somehow dependent on paying attention to lecture (maybe a class participation component for smaller classes, or exams based directly on the lecture material for larger classes)?
And students who are distracted by others' laptops - why not just try sitting in a seat where you can't see anyone else's laptop? (Don't tell me such seat don't exist - I'm sure there are plenty of front-row seats in all of your classes.)
This way, students who want to use laptops for notes can do so, students who don't want to use laptops for notes don't have to, and those who use laptops just to browse facebook/e-mail are punished for doing so. Everybody wins!
The source of this problem is two-fold: lectures and dull teachers. Lectures are a colossal waste of time. A professor paraphrases textbooks. Students paraphrase the professor. Then they regurgitate that digest: the result is what cows produce; CUD. This is not active and participatory learning, it's just memorizing BS, repeating it to please the prof, and then promptly forgetting it. Ask yourself what you remember about lectures a year or two ago. So much for the Princeton experience.
@ humblealum: you are not humble at all, and I wish you wouldn't attach any alum label to your condescension, poor grammar, and "far out" assertions about her son.
Lecture standards really vary; in the sciences/social sciences, I've sat through amazing performances, and also ones that made me cringe or yawn. Weird fact: the worst lectures here seem to be in English: condescending, self-important, disorganized. Why? I thought these would be the most inspiring of all, but not so.
I would like to point out that the poster who thought having one's hand hurt is a "ridiculous" argument to make did not think his/her own argument that it is hard to avoid staring at someone else's computer screen equally or more ridiculous.
I take much, much better notes on my laptop than I ever did on a notebook. It also allows me to make something out of the less well-organized lectures by going back and filling in after a long digression. I am sure generations of Princetonians who never had a chance to use a laptop in class would find this prospect very thrilling.
i bring a laptop to lecture bc i fall asleep otherwise. better that i hear half of what the prof says than none.