Leave Your Laptops At The Door To The Classroom

There’s no denying that technology has grown to play a major role in education and learning. Students are using laptops, tablets, and smartphones to research, complete, and even collaborate on assignments, both in and outside of the classroom. Timothy D. Snyder and Thomas L. Friedman both have written articles expressing their opposing opinions on technology in the classroom. Timothy Snyder is a Professor of History at Yale University who has written five different award-winning books. In his article, “Why Laptops Are Distracting America’s Future Workforce”, Snyder explains to students and teachers why he is against technology in the classroom. Thomas Friedman is a reporter and columnist for The New York Times, author of six award-winning

In defense of laptops in the classroom” Summary/Analysis/Response (SAR) Paper Summary “In defense of laptops in the classroom” written by Rebecca Schuman, talks about the issue of why computers should be allowed in a college classroom. Schuman explains how people of the new generation use computers in classrooms doing almost everything in college now, rather it be taking notes or accessing course material, and it's more affordable for poorer students. Analysis Schuman attempts to use logos, structuring of her article, and has a good purpose to persuade readers of her agreement. Schuman wrote this article “In defense of laptops in the classroom” in order to persuade professors why computers should be allowed in the classroom and how you can combat them if the student isn’t paying attention, plus they are more affordable for poorer students because they’re covered by financial aid. Schuman focuses on this group of audience primarily because some professors do not like computers in their classroom rather it be because the student isn’t paying attention or is using the computer for non-class related things. Schuman attempts to reason the discussion of why computers should be allowed in the class is that it’s completely up to the student whether they use it for good or not. Schuman makes the point early on that she feels that the computer is not faulty, but rather the student who makes the decision on what use to use the computer for. Schuman exemplifies this problem when she

In response to the article “Attention Students: Put Your Laptops Away”, my opinion on the

Which includes less time on my phone texting, or any social media sites. This relates back to Margaret Soltan’s essay “Better Living Through Consciousness: Why You Should Take Your College Education Seriously”, she discusses how technology should be limited to reduce distraction of students. She wrote “Students are gazing at all manner of stuff on their laptops (and in doing so distracting those students trying to pay attention to the front of the room); professors are staring down at their PowerPoint slides and reading the words on them aloud. In some classrooms, professors report that groups of students are gathering in various corners to watch films together on someone’s screen while the professor attempts to lecture”. Many students use technology whether it’s a laptop, cell phone or IPad almost every class period you will find at least one student on a device.

“In defense of laptops in the classroom” written by Rebecca Schuman, talks about the issue of why computers should be allowed in a college classroom. Schuman explains how people of the new generation use computers in classrooms to do almost everything in college now, rather it be taking notes or accessing course material, and its more affordable for poorer students.

According to Jame Doubek, in the article “Attention, Students: Put Your Laptops Away”, writing notes by hand is much more effective than typing notes in class.He used an example of Mueller and Oppenheimer’s study that published in Psychological Science to demonstrate that writing notes by hand can be more potent than typing on the computer.First, Mueller and Oppenheimer suggest that with the development of technology, students are relying more on the laptop because laptops are small and and typing notes is much faster than writing by hand, so students love to type notes in class and always “try to transcribe all thing they heard”. However, the more words they copied verbatim, the worse

In Nicholas Carr’s article “Does the Internet Make you dumber” he emphasizes how the Internet causes distractions and leads to lack of focus turning us into scattered superficial thinkers. Carr talks about how multitasking makes it hard for us to sustain concentration and meaningfully understand and retain knowledge. Carr uses experiments conducted in highly recognized universities such as Cornell and Stanford to support his claim. In the experiment conducted by Cornell University half of the class was allowed to use their internet-connected laptops and the other half had to keep them shut. The half that glanced the web did much inferior on the subsequent test of how well they retained the lectures content.

The article “In Defence of Laptops in the Classroom” by Rebecca Schuman, a university professor, offers a different perspective to the banning of laptops in academics. She argues that while it might be distracting, it is ultimately the student’s own attitude towards education that dictates the effectiveness of electronics in the classroom. As the title suggests, Schuman argues that laptops have a place in the modern day classroom. She emphasises how the current generation lives in an age that “doesn’t learn to write by hand” (5) and argues that it is impossible to separate technology from learning.

“In Defense of Laptops in the Classroom” by Rebecca Schuman is an article that aims to put across a point that the attitude of the students in class is a decision for the students to make. She states that being a “Laptop Police” (Para 2) – played by the professors – can be helpful to the students in learning but it is also stopping the students from making their own decisions when it comes to the attitude of learning. Schuman had presented her article in a positive stand where she does not disagree with other professors’ idea of banning laptops in class to improve learning. Instead, she is trying to convince us that the professors’ decisions will not make a significant change in the attitude of the students. She states a point where the attitude of the students is entirely “their responsibility” (Para 10).

With the new one to one initiative at Seaman High School multiple students have taken favor to typing notes rather than writing their notes down. Scientific studies have shown that writing down notes helps students learn since they are “… forced to be more selective — because you can't write as fast as you can type” writes Pam Mueller, a psychological scientist. Muller has led a study researching the effects that typing notes has on a student’s learning; her findings indicated “… that even when laptops are used as intended… they may still be harming academic performance” (APS 1). One student reported typing notes for an entire class period, only to realize, at the conclusion of class, that he did not fully grasp what the lesson was (APS 1).

Ellen Granberg and James Witte discuss the positive results achieved by two professors who used laptops in social science classes in “Teaching with Laptops for the First Time: Lessons from a Social Science Classroom.” Granberg and Witte begin by describing how “the development of inexpensive laptop computers along with the growing availability of wireless networking has made it much more feasible to bring this technology to the social science classroom” (51). Initially, Granberg and Witte claim, computers only suited problem-based disciplines such as mathematics. However, they argue that laptops have now become applicable to the social sciences. Next, Granberg and Witte illustrate two experiments with laptops. In the first situation, a professor

Transferring the teaching method from out of the textbook to laptops can be very distracting. Of course all electronic devices come with games or at least some application you can download. The Students will be able to access many apps including; games, email, social media, and instant messaging classmates (Hurst). Even without this change, students are already constantly on their phones texting or playing games during classes. Do we really want to have more distractions?

Writing an essay on the impossibility of multitasking and the learning setbacks caused by technology use in the classroom caused me to reduce my technology use while doing homework. Deak says, “If you are listening to Mozart while you are going maths, whenever your brain starts to hear Mozart it has to leave the maths part, and that takes time. When the brain starts to refocus on maths, it goes through the whole process again” (Morrison 1). Ever since writing this essay, I’ve began to pay attention more to my own technology use and productivity. I no longer take short, frequent breaks while doing school work. Instead, I take longer breaks after accomplishing more of my work before switching to another task. I find that I am now more efficient and less stressed ever since I allow myself to do more work. Prior to writing, I would have never considered such an anti-technology stance, no matter what

During the last decades, laptops have become standard learning tools in university and college classrooms. Since today’s students’ are high-technology demanding and tech savvy, laptops manufacturers and engineers are constantly thinking of unique ways to design their products. With advanced functions and specifications, laptops can do various activities and educational tasks for students. Also, as technology advances, yesterday’s laptops are less expensive compared to today’s and tomorrow’s which allows every student to afford a laptop. However, educational institutions are concern about whether laptops in class hinder or facilitate students’ learning. Overtime, new technology and devices have been noticed to weaken student performance in

Thousands of websites are distracting students from studying time. In an experiment at Cornell University, students who used internet-connected laptops during a lecture did much worse on a subsequent test than students who did not use the internet (Carr, 2010). It indicated that using the internet in class impacts students’ attention span (2010). Distractions can take attention away from learning. In fact, using the internet does not promote study efficiency, but wastes time.