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.
"We try to assess the present state of IT at Princeton and the manners in which we are constrained by its infrastructure," Betty Leydon, who is vice president for information technology, said. "Our objective is to look into the future and go in the right direction."
Currently, the Campus Outreach program is CPUC's main way of examining issues related to technology. Meetings and interviews with staff, students and focus groups — intended to cull the most pressing concerns associated with IT — have so far presented two dilemmas, the panelists said: PowerPoint presentations and laptops in the classroom.
Concerning laptop use, faculty members said one of their worries is that the internet's ocean of resources makes it more difficult for students to decide what information is trustworthy. But for the most part, they said, the chief annoyance is when students use laptops in class for purposes other than academics.
"Laptops can be very beneficial to students who wish to organize at the end of the day, week or semester," former USG academics chair Caitlin Sullivan '07 said. "At the same time, I often see e-mails, [instant] messenger and even videos on their screens [during class]. Those are the two ends of the spectrum."
"Tradeoff," Sullivan said of laptops' benefits and drawbacks, "is the word that comes to mind."
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."
PowerPoint slideshows were another concern addressed during the meeting. Though they are the standard format for many Princeton lectures, doubts surfaced yesterday regarding their merit as a method of instruction.
"Princeton prides itself on its precepts and lectures," history professor Graham Burnett '93 said. "Those very precepts and lectures are now under siege ... [PowerPoint] induces a very static and ultimately boring presentation."
Slideshows posted on Blackboard, suspected to be a widespread excuse for truancy, are PowerPoint's second pitfall, the panelists said.
"I post presentations online so that my students are not scribbling furiously in class," computer science professor Brian Kernighan GS '69 said, "but that can also inspire [students] to stay in bed and download all the notes."
"The real solution here is to get classes to be more exciting," he added, likening the use of technology in education to "decanting the old wine of teaching into a new bottle."
Slavic languages and literatures chair Caryl Emerson elaborated on how to craft a more engaging lecture.
"In a large class, there has to be some spectacular pacing to make it worthwhile to people to get together in the flesh, and if the professor cannot do that, he will have to be coached," she said. "Princeton is an institute of education, and this can be a great opportunity."
The CPUC hopes to implement concrete measures addressing these issues and others in the second phase of the Strategic Planning Initiative, scheduled for April.
"We have already had many wonderful ideas — more than we are likely to ever do," Leydon said. "We must organize our priorities, and among them will certainly be the question of responsible IT application."
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