No Laptops in College Courses?

[Arbitrary]

For over a year now the entire department of Criminal Justice at the college I attend has banned the use of laptops in class. The reason? Students may be using them for non-classroom activities and they can be distracting to other classmates.

I don't even own a laptop and it bothers me to see them removed. The school even has campus-wide wireless.

Does anyone else go to a college with these sorts of restrictions? I'm pretty sure that these rules were implemented by 1-2 professors and everyone else just went along with it. I have not attended a class in any other department where I saw a student be told to turn off their laptop and whip out a notepad and pen.

[Ham n Cheese]

I have a few anal teachers who are like this, it's fucking retarded really. Half the time I spend doodling in my notebook with good ol fashioned pen and paper when the teacher starts talking about the weekend or repeating shit. In a class with lots of note taking (I imagine there's a beast in CJ) it's total bullshit to throw this thing at someone. My history classes were basically notes for 90 minutes straight, I'm a poor ass so I never had a laptop to help me out but man I wish I did

[Menoz]

I know that I've spent many long hours during lecture wanting to yell "DONT CLICK THAT MINE YOU FUCK" to the guy in front of me. Why play minesweeper when you suck horribly?

I'd rather see them ban certain ring tones during class. Tom Petty and you get a C, Hinder and you get a big fat fucking E.

[Zeste]

I used mine anywhere I wanted, I just dimmed the screen down. If someone tried to ban my laptop, I would immediately raise the issue with the department head or dean. I paid like 40,000 for my fucking degree - I'll use my primary note-taking device however I see fit.

Yeah, I would not let that stand for 1 second. I typed more pages in MSWord than I can count, hundreds and hundreds of pages of notes.

[brekk]

where else am i supposed to spend some quality time surfing facebook?

[tikkus]

I had a CS professor like that.



Of course, she also scheduled our midterms on fucking VALENTINE'S DAY.

[Menoz]

I had that same prof, tikkus.

[Frawdo]

I have a had a few profs ask that laptops not be open during class, and a few others that have had one day bans when it was clear that a lot of people weren't paying attention.

Really, most of the time I see someone in a laptop in one of my classes (engineering) they are not doing anything class related. It's mostly games or Facebook. I don't take my laptop to school all that often, when I do I'd say only about half the time do I have something open related to the class I'm in.

So I while I wouldn't agree with a department-wide ban, I can see how profs would justify it.

[splok]

My current college issues everyone a laptop, and we actively use them in about 3/4 of our classes. We do have at least one professor who asked that everyone's screens be down while he's lecturing, and it makes perfect sense to me. I wish all of them would make people turn them off during lectures. It's more than a little distracting to see people next to you and in front of you playing Bioshock, various deathmatches, or mmo's during class. It can't be that great for concentration for most of the people using them either judging by the number of people I see that just can't resist doing other things during class even if they aren't playing games. Take notes with a pen and paper imo. It's better for you and everyone sitting around you.

[Hachima]

My school's policy makes it easy. Use your laptop in class np if its for class work. Get caught playing games, IMing, surfing the web, watching videos etc and get an automatic 5% grade drop for the class.

[Burkex]

In grad school at USC they had wireless internet and about 75% of people brought a laptop to class to take notes and download the professors online notes. When you were accepted into the program it was required to have a laptop.

However in the very boring classes I was playing poker against other players in the class.

Hachima's policy would make it a no brainer tho.

[tikkus]

Originally Posted by Menoz

I had that same prof, tikkus.

Holy hell. Small world.

Keen FTL.

[Dintorr]

Originally Posted by Arbitrary

Does anyone else go to a college with these sorts of restrictions?

It's a smart move. Laptops *are* a big distraction. The Managers and Directors where I work have a rule for their meetings; no laptops, no cellphones, no blackberry's.

[Malakriss]

Maybe I have some laid back professors, but most of the computer courses I take have no attendance policy and encourage the use of laptops both in class and for the projects. We're paying them money regardless of what we learn or how we spend our time, so it's *our responsibility*. They just politely ask those who are using them to sit in the back rows to avoid any such distractions.

[The Ancient]

Laptops are a productivity tool. If students are in your classrooms not being disruptive or distracting, who gives a damn what they are doing on the laptops it's not worth taking a step backwards.

The top programs talk about making them required and some rinky-dink wants to forbid them. Who do you think has the right idea?