Is Wi-Fi Ruining College? 370
theodp writes "Over at Slate, Avi Zenilman has seen the real classroom of the future firsthand: Students use class time to read the Drudge Report, send e-mail, play Legend of Zelda, or update profiles on Facebook.com. But not to worry - replace laptops with crumpled notes, and the classroom of the future looks a lot like the classroom of the past." From the article: "... when Cornell University researchers outfitted classrooms with wireless Internet and monitored students' browsing habits, they concluded, 'Longer browsing sessions during class tend to lead to lower grades, but there's a hint that a greater number of browsing sessions during class may actually lead to higher grades.' It seems a bit of a stretch to impute a causal relationship, but it's certainly possible that the kind of brain that can handle multiple channels of information is also the kind of brain that earns A's."
Browsing vs Looking up definitions (Score:5, Insightful)
and short but frequent sessions increase grades (because students are looking up wtf the teacher is talking about)
Seems pretty strightforward.
An "A" is an "A" Studen (Score:5, Insightful)
So the real question is, would these same students pre-occupy themselves with something else if they didn't have their laptops open to browse? Its reasonable to conclude that they have a limited attention span as it is, so whether they're sending email, talking on an IM client, or checking out the hot blond two rows down, they weren't going to being paying attention in their English 101 lecture anyways.
Re:Limiting Internet Access (Score:2, Insightful)
Being a teacher that is what id like to do.
It's a tool (Score:5, Insightful)
The problem is peope abuse the tool to do other things, so they lose focus which ends up making them worse off in the long run.
Wifi is not the problem here, giving it to people who want to dick around is.
Re:Limiting Internet Access (Score:5, Insightful)
the more things change the more they stay the same (Score:3, Insightful)
This is no surprise (Score:5, Insightful)
The really good part of information tools is that they allow us to multitask on our own time, not the time schedule of others. The article hardly lends any time to whether or not the students who are surfing in class know the material well already or not. The wide variety of subject matter knowledge held by the students determines their own personal need to listen intently or not. If they don't require it, multitasking is a good use of time, and students who can multitask well will make good grades whether there is Internet access or not, likewise, students who cannot multitask will not make as good of grades.
Multitasking in a school environment means that you don't have to shut off the parts of your thinking that are not fully focused on the matter at hand.... you may be in a poli-sci class, but your thinking is on a project that you are working on for another.
There are three kinds of lies... lies, damned lies, and statistics!
Re:Limiting Internet Access (Score:5, Insightful)
And what about the times when the prof is going on and on about things that you have clear understanding, honestly everyone was just falls asleep or skips the class, or you can use that time to look up some information on the subject/topic the prof just talked about or is about to talk which is much more efficient use of the time while still keeping a ear open to see if anything interesting is said be the prof. This helped me understand the lectures and material much better (than those days when I don't take my laptop).
If you are playing games or surfing stupid websites that the students choice and you shouldn't blame wifi or laptops for that, the student is responsible. But if you just take wifi out of the class room, then all the students who use internet connection in class rooms are the ones who will suffer.
Re:How they handle it at Harvard (Business School) (Score:2, Insightful)
Job (Score:5, Insightful)
Is the study realistic? (Score:3, Insightful)
As a College Student... (Score:4, Insightful)
So is wifi ruining college? No more than any other service provided on campus. I can still shut down the laptop and not pay attention to the professor the old fashioned way, like reading a book, or sleeping. A boring professor is a boring professor whether there's wifi or not. It's my choice to use it knowing the consequences of my actions may lead to lower grades, and as long as I'm not disturbing or otherwise interfering with my classmates who actually want to pay attention, I don't see the problem.
How they handle it at Georgia Tech (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Limiting Internet Access (Score:2, Insightful)
Do you expect people to slash your tires every time you park slightly crooked in a parking lot?
Congratulations, you're the lowest form of asshole. How the hell were they infringing on your learning experience anyway? If you can't help but watch the porn on their laptop, that's your problem. Adopt qualities that are less akin to a ferrett.
Re:How they handle it at Harvard (Business School) (Score:2, Insightful)
A very good point. Two possible responses
(1) the admins want the internet wirelessly available in common / collaborative work spaces in the class buildings, which their solution still allows (as long as you're not "collaborating" during class time)
(2) genuine lack of foresight (as you suggest)
Probably a bit of both...
Re:As a College Student... (Score:3, Insightful)
This is the real problem. Go to a class where the professor is engaging and entertaining, where the material taught is relevant and the students are engaged. You'll notice a lot less people slacking off.
Re:How they handle it at Harvard (Business School) (Score:5, Insightful)
Should not require notes (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Limiting Internet Access (Score:3, Insightful)
So, it is in their own interest to minimise the negative impact of WLAN in classrooms.
Comment removed (Score:3, Insightful)
Placing blame (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Limiting Internet Access (Score:2, Insightful)
Multi-tasking (Score:3, Insightful)
It's also certainly possible that the kind of brain that THINKS it can handle multiple channels of information is also the kind of brain that can't.
Since none of them have your full attention, doing four things all at once makes the odds pretty good that all you're doing is screwing up four things at once.
Of course, I expect plenty of people here are going to tell me they're experts in this regard... much like the "90% of all drivers think they're above average" statistic.
Re:Limiting Internet Access (Score:2, Insightful)
Thats bullshit (Score:2, Insightful)
I think removing wifi is as stupid as removing the library to prevent people from stealing books. If a student is too stupid to use their tools to succeed then they shouldnt be in college to anyway. Wifi is just a tool, just like a notebook, a library, or a teacher giving a lecture, all tools to help you get a degree.
(I know teachers are persons but their role is to help you get your degree)
Removing a tool makes it harder to get a degree. Just like removing the internet makes us dumber, removing books makes is less educated, removing wifi also is stupid. If people surf less they'll just find something else to do other than study.
Re:It's a tool (Score:2, Insightful)
Really, what possible use could the Internet have when you are supposed to be paying attention to the Prof? You don't need to be checking email, surfing websites, or posting to your blog. You need to be paying attention and taking notes.
I say keep the laptops, take away the Net.
Law School (Score:4, Insightful)
What amazes me are the people who chat on aim the whole class, or browse facebook, or play MMORPGs (seriously). Even if you're a freakin' genius and don't need to listen to the professor and class discussion, it's distracting and just plain rude. The corolary, of course, is that it's natural selection in action
[As an aside, I actually find law school fun and, while not easy, certainly not hard. It is a feeling shared by the other handful of hard-science and engineering grads. We're basically used to the workload, if not the type of work . (No worries Slashdot-crowd, I'm not in it for the money and I'd sooner commit seppuku than work for the likes of the **AA.) ]
So What? (Score:3, Insightful)
I don't think we need to treat the Internet differently from bringing, say, a book or magazine to class. If I bring my textbook to class, and use it to follow along with the professor, it's helpful. If I bring the textbook for another class and study in downtime during class, it's only me that's losing out. If I bring Playboy to class, it'd be a distraction to others, and then we have a problem.
We give professors a means of turning network access off, but few professors do. I applaud this: I've used the Internet for a lot of constructive stuff during class. Looking up related material, getting the document we were supposed to print out and bring to class, etc.
Yes, sometimes I'll notice classmates chatting on AIM or doing other stuff of no adademic value, but they're only hurting themselves. I really don't think schools have any need to try to regulate usage in classrooms.
Re:Run a chat room (Score:2, Insightful)
Any good teacher welcomes an interruption to clarify something that the students don't understand. That's the whole point of paying tuition instead of just buying books and learning at home. Human interaction can fill in the knowledge gaps more efficiently than staring at a book. The only problem is convincing the students that their teacher really is a human and can answer questions just like a classmate (and hopefully, better than the classmate).
Likewise, any good college-level teacher wants to spend no time doing babysitting of this sort, and without some kind of on-topic enforcement, it is almost guaranteed to degenerate into useless noise.
Re:Limiting Internet Access (Score:5, Insightful)
In that scenario, it is not WLAN that causes the problem, it is the students who goof off too much. An effective way to produce good graduates is to help the slackers flunk out early. Forcing students to pay attention is therefore counterproductive. The higher your dropout rate, the more students you can admit, and the greater your odds of admitting someone who will someday make you proud.
Re:Limiting Internet Access (Score:5, Insightful)
Been to an academic conference recently? (Score:5, Insightful)
It seems to me the reason is simple: a lot of what speakers say isn't useful, even in the case of good speakers and voluntary audience. Even when it *is* useful, the rate at which information is presented is usually an order of magnitude slower than the rate at which the audience can absorb it, with huge gaps of dead time between important statements. So, at lectures people spend an hour sitting in their seats in order to catch a minute or two of really useful information.
As someone who hasn't taken a course without lots of equations and diagrams in a long time, I've never had an excuse to bring a laptop to class. Instead, I have to spend all that dead time thinking about other things on my own without the benefit of a technological distraction.
The problem with laptops in the classroom is that it hurts the feelings of lecturers, who are forced to confront the fact that most of their audience isn't paying attention to most of what they say most of the time.
Re:Run a chat room (Score:3, Insightful)
And I think that the chatroom could help with this. Students could see that others have the same questions as them, thus sorta embolden them to ask it in class. I think a lot of the time people don't ask questions because they think they might be alone in not knowing it and don't want their classmates to think they don't know.
Though who knows if that's the real reason, or if a chatroom would help relieve anxiety. (I think the anonymous nature would help.)
So I think a chatroom could help and wouldn't hurt.
(Also, you have to take into account that not all teachers are good. In fact, there are plenty of sucky ones. I have one now that really doesn't answer questions well.
Likewise, any good college-level teacher wants to spend no time doing babysitting of this sort
Get the TA to do it.
I really wouldn't mind a quick perusal. And it could also help to identify sticky areas.
accountability (Score:2, Insightful)
As long as students understand the material (and show it by doing well on tests and assignments), I don't see any problem with having internet access in classrooms. Provided that students are held accountable for their learning through exam grades (it's easier to cheat on assignments, so they don't always demonstrate mastery), there's really not much that can "ruin college" as far as learning goes.
The most obnoxious/distracting thing I've seen anyone do on a laptop in class is play stepmania and make lots of noise with their keyboards. But even then, anyone can easily ask them to stop or move to another seat.
Re:Limiting Internet Access (Score:2, Insightful)
So true, yet from what I've seen that's very hard to do. Most students will do just enough to scrape by, so whereever the line is drawn you'll see them floating just above it. I see that universities have 2 approaches; either draw the bar very high and focus on a small amount of high quality/motivated students, or be less-exclusive and baby the kids some. Basically, from a college standpoint it seems like they've added something (internet), measured it, and found negative effects. Say, more internet = lower grades (completely untrue, no in the article, but useful for this argument). Are they going to say "we should weed out the bad ones by slowly and subtly lowering their grades and concentration." Ahh, very tricky of them. The college is already made that kind of decision. Either they're a high level school and are weeding kids out in real ways (hard classes) vs. subliminal ways (wifi, internet, free beer just outside the classrooms, free GTA3 for each student). Or they're a lower level school and they want to help kids help themselves.
So take away that wifi, eliminate those notebooks in the classroom, no talking in class! Help me, help you. Help me, help you... etc etc etc.
Re:This is no surprise (Score:3, Insightful)
Among several incorrect assumptions, you suppose that people with ADD can't multitask. I don't pretend to know whether this is a problem in general, but I know of one person who is diagnosed with ADD and is an amazing multitasker. He, however, cannot focus very well on one task for long periods of time though he has figured a way around that problem.
Laptop can be a distraction (Score:3, Insightful)
I use laptop in my classes. And yes, it can be a distraction. I find myself checking my mail, reading comics, cnn, updating information on a portal I (with my friends) own. But most distractions do not come from the Internet, they come from what you already have on laptop. You read articles you have downloaded last night, you write documents for your other classes, you prepare your projects, you write your own materials (ie. personal web page or a blog entry to be uploaded later when finished, projects, programs, finish job tasks), try out new soutions (software), audit and configure your PC and do a lot more. So blocking Internet acces is not a good solution!
And blocking Internet access is bad for a number of other reasons as well. The first thing I do when I ge to class, I try to download the latest materials about the subject (and check the classes web page for updates). I also use the Internet to find materials relating to the subject (that can be very handy if you want to "take on" the tutor/presenter/lecturer ;)). Also finding alternate viewpoints to the materials can be helpful when trying to understand the lecturer or trying to confront him/her. Finding translations (from estonian to english or french or latin in my case) of terms is a challenge by itself. The downside is you understanding the amount of false information on wikipedia :p.
For people having trouble paying attention to class I have a suggestion. Try to make notes. Not handwritten (you won't be able to read those anyways - that is the reason why I started carrying my laptop to classes at first place), but make notes using Lotus Notes, Microsoft Word (or Excel), KWord, AbiWord or OpenOffice.org Write. If you are some kind of a Linux/Unix geek, you might even take notes in *TeX (which I wouldn't suggest to anyone else). It is especially useful if the class does not yet have an online conspect as then you will be the first to write one and it can be an opportunity to get credit or extra income.
I have seen most laptops in physics and economy classes, a bit less in computer science followed by law and then other social and real sciences and finally others. But I see the use of laptops increasing every week. I consider the use of laptops and Internet in classes more of a necessity than of distraction. It gives you much more opportunities than takes away. Ideally colleges and universities should be able to supply laptops to students in need as I can't see uncomputerised learning possible in ten years. E-learning, i-learning and learning from remote and independent is becoming more and more common. Classrooms are becoming more and more like (student) corporation rooms - places where people with similar interests can gather. It is even possible to graduate an university eithout actually ever visiting the university building (of the university you are to graduate) today. Why should we spend time for commuting between universty and home or university and work or university and cafe or ...? And why should we reserve certain times a week just to go and listen to one person talking if you could listen to the recording of his talk any time anywhere? We shouldn't!
Re:Job (Score:2, Insightful)
Comment removed (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Limiting Internet Access (Score:3, Insightful)
Because if you have a crappy school/prof, there is information to be learned at the lectures, but over a 1-hour lecture, there is a total of about 10 minutes' worth of actual information.
In any school where Wi-Fi in class is actually a problem, I can't help but suspect that the real source of the problem is bad profs.
Re:Limiting Internet Access (Score:2, Insightful)
Solution: Requires students to attend classes
Problem: Students are ignoring the teacher in the classes they are now required to attend. ...
Solution:
Well, I dunno. Maybe they should fix the first fucking problem and stop making people show up to classes if they don't want to be there. They are, indeed, distracting other students, but an equally logical argument could be that the teacher is distracting them and wasting their time.
If people would rather play computer games than listen in class, they should be allowed to...they're the ones paying for the class. We can argue if it's rude to do that inside of the classroom when they actually have a choice about their location.
OTOH, once they do have a choice, the teacher should ask them to be quiet or leave if they're distracting anyone, no matter what the reason. And not ask them to leave if they aren't, even if they clearly aren't paying attention. Leaving is for when their behavior is interfering with learning.
And it'd be nice if they'd designate a 'computer free' area of the class room. It could be as simple as the first two rows or whatever.
I say this as someone who never used a laptop in class outside of a computer lab, because it would distract me.