U. of Chicago Law School Blocks Internet Access 343
Scott Jaschik writes "While some individual professors have banned laptops from classes at various colleges, the University of Chicago law school is going further, cutting off wireless and wired access in its classrooms to confront what officials see as out-of-control Web surfing. The story was first reported in the Above The Law 'legal tabloid' late last month. Students and the university's CIO question the strategy." Things will get interesting when Sprint WiMax service lights up in Chicago later this year.
About Time! (Score:4, Funny)
The "internet" (or "anarchist-net" as we've dubbed it here) is nothing more than a distraction for students and could never ever possibly be used for learning. I suppose next citizens will want every single state and federal law posted on there so they can try to interpret it themselves! Not on my watch, we here at U of Chicago produce no fewer than 50,000 lawyers a year and we will see you in court if you try to circumvent the United State's legal system's need for them (Sprint, we're watching you!).
Re:About Time! (Score:5, Interesting)
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Because programmers can be fired if they disobey. (Score:3, Interesting)
Politicians almost seem to have a union mentality. They look out for their class first, then do their job second. You fire one politician, your only choice for replacement are generally more people with the same attitudes.
Maybe we need MORE politicians, so some can be out of work, and hungry for employment, and will actually obey
Cue the knee jerk reactions... (Score:5, Insightful)
That said, overall I don't have a problem with students wasting their tuition money (or their parents' tuition money) by browsing the internet in class all day. But this isn't some power grab to squelch independent thinking. These students are free to browse the internet in their dorms, or the library, or the dining halls, etc. It might be poorly thought out, but I think people (or at least you) are freaking out over nothing.
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I'll stop browsing the web and playing Quake in class when professors start giving a shit and actually forming a coherent lecture. Until then, they're the ones wasting my tuition money, not me.
And has anyone else noticed that this kind of thing only happens in certain classes? I never once saw someone screwing off in my business law class, where the professor actually new what the hell he was doing, and did it well. But in my intro to business programming class, no one ever paid attention. We only even wen
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Re:Cue the knee jerk reactions... (Score:4, Insightful)
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Then again, silence is defeat people. If someone is doing something around you that's pissing you off, speak up dammit. Some people just don't know it bothers you.
Now if you continue to do obnoxious behaviour even though people vocalized their dislike, then you're just being an asshole.
Re:Cue the knee jerk reactions... (Score:5, Insightful)
Mod parent up!
Those that sit and surf the net while in class are complete assholes. Don't bother coming to class if you're not going to productively participate in lecture or if you're just going to distract others that can see your screen.
Not to mention that it's also just blatantly, obliviously, and childishly rude to the lecturer.
The same things go for talking on your cell phone in confined spaces.
Re:Cue the knee jerk reactions... (Score:5, Insightful)
I've had to take classes on subjects I was already fluent in, such as various programming courses, and in some cases the professors require attendance or they deduct points.
If I'm forced to be there even though I don't need to be, I'm going to sit in the back and either surf the web or do homework on my laptop. Why should my time go to waste?
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At the very least the lecture should be compelling enough to hold one's attention, even if the actual information in it would be more efficiently conveyed in text form; that way, there's at least a chance of a
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No kidding. About 75% of professors seem to think that it's acceptable to waste the students' time by conveying exactly the same information (and NOTHING more) that they could have digested with 10 minutes of reading via a 50 minute lecture.That's not education--that's a complete waste of 40 minutes.
Where did you go to school that this is true? At the college level I don't think I had *1* professor that did what you say they all do. Maybe Intro to Econ which had 300 people, but even that class had smaller breakout groups of 10-15 that had discussions, etc.
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Not everyone learns by reading... Some people require the professor to discuss the textbook material in class to help them understand it. Other people need both to read and to listen to the professor. So
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I'll stop browsing the web and playing Quake in class when professors start giving a shit and actually forming a coherent lecture. Until then, they're the ones wasting my tuition money, not me.
Good attitude! REmember, this is UChicago, not Podunk Community college. One would hope that one of the top faculties in the country would give decent lectures!
FWIW, I took one law course at Uchicago (I wasn't a law student, was sitting in) and every single person in the lecture hall had a laptop. The sound of typing was deafening!
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Law schools generally do not use a "lecture" format in the classes -- students are expected to participate in a "socratic dialog." My experience has been that such dialogs are much less interactive in classes with web access.
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I'll stop browsing the web and playing Quake in class when professors start giving a shit and actually forming a coherent lecture. Until then, they're the ones wasting my tuition money, not me.
I'm glad someone said it... because I was scrolling quickly to the bottom to post a very similar reply.
Too many classes were taught straight out of the text book that it became standard for people to show up for class with a power strip so everyone could be plugged in.
It was even more fun when the school recognized the wireless was being disruptive... so a couple of students with evdo modems just setup their own networks for everyone else to share (we all kicked in a few bucks for the service, it was the right thing to do. )
Sadly most of us graduated with high honors.
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What happened to Natural Selection? (Score:2)
If the problem is law students not paying attention, then the answer should be bad grades when they fail test...not grade inflation and a "once you're in, you're in until graduation" mentality.
Re:About Time! (Score:5, Insightful)
The parent makes one really good point. I was recently talking with a friend of mine just fresh out of law school. Aside from learning the language and protocol of courtrooms and some law theory a huge portion of a law degree today is learning to use some very expensive law databases. These for profit databases are the _only_ practical means of knowing the law. It seems to me, that of all the things our government could spend money on, making the law and cases knowable to the general public at an accessible price to everyone would be somewhat high on the list.
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I a not saying that there aren't are good and ethical judges, I am sure the majority of them are just that; but there are many judges who are political instruments, who refuse to inform juries of thei
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Since when is school about "doing what you love"? School is a means to an end, a stepping stone to teach you how to research what you really need to know, nothing more. It's to teach you how to think, and that's especially true for law school.
Not true. It sounds trite, but you'd better be doing what you love -- or at least appreciate each moment to the best of your ability -- or you are wasting your life. School is part of the whole life path. Life doesn't somehow start after school. This absurdly pseudo-practical "means to an end" myth some students have is _absolute nonsense_. If that is how you are treating school, my advice is you need to recalibrate. The only endpoint in life is death.
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Um, a lawyer does have a number of duties to his client, especially in a court setting. Perhaps a perusal of the rules of professional responsibility would help your understanding of them?
Perhaps a perusal of the definitions of sarcasm [reference.com] and snark [themediansib.com] would help your understanding of the grandparent post?
Re:About Time! (Score:4, Insightful)
Banning LAPTOPS?! (Score:5, Funny)
Am I supposed to go back to WRITING my notes? This is 2008 for fuck's sake.
Re:Banning LAPTOPS?! (Score:5, Funny)
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You had chisels? The luxury! :o
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'Intellectual property is the oil of the twenty first century' -- Mark Getty
From the very first time I read this quote, the statement has made no sense to me. Oil (petroleum) is a source of energy which is used by virtually every civilized individual simply to remain alive. It provides us clean drinking water, is used to ship us our food, and provides a means to prepare the food. The vast majority simply could not survive without it.
Intellectual Property (a contradiction in terms) is none of these things.
Re:Banning LAPTOPS?! (Score:5, Funny)
By the way, GUIs nowadays really are so easy that a cave man could use them, if you ever got the inclination.
You only get 7 out of 10 points for this (Score:2)
you forgot to request that the Cro Magnon come and thrash all of the people within your society that actually want to prevent those evils from causing further debasement of your society.
This would give you more violence to decry, while increasing your power.
Proper Political Correctness must ensconce wrong things for apparently right reasons.
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Re:Banning LAPTOPS?! (Score:5, Informative)
If I attempt to take notes, I just enter a weird pass-through mode where information comes in via the ears and out via my hands, but not a drop of it will stick anywhere in between.
I suspect it's because I'm a visual learner, and when my visual attention is focused on a blank sheet of paper instead of on the person doing the lecturing, my learning ability is severely impaired.
Anybody else out there like this?
Re:Banning LAPTOPS?! (Score:5, Interesting)
Maybe a tablet that let you freehand sketch accurately in addition to typing. I still think that would be rather clumsy compared to a pencil and notebook.
The pictures are in the text. (Score:2)
TFA is referring to lawyers...how often do lawyers draw diagrams and complex formulas anyway?
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I always found that taking notes was a distraction, and they were never useful to me anyway. Just paying attention and thinking about the lecture was far more useful.
Re:Banning LAPTOPS?! (Score:4, Interesting)
You have the right idea by listening though-don't try and copy everything your prof writes down, just the highlights along with the references to what s/he's talking about. For most people though, taking some kind of note is essential or you will drift off after 30 minutes or so no matter how interested you are.
*Speaking as someone who's been doing instructional tech work for more than a decade, Powerpoint is a tool of the devil. The first thing you need to say to yourself if you ever think about using it for more than projecting a few pictures is "No", then ago talk to your local IT guy and ask them for a better way.
Where I come from... (Score:4, Insightful)
If your students are able to pass without paying any attention to you, you must not teach very much in your lectures. And if you don't teach anything, well, why should they pay attention?
Re:Where I come from... (Score:5, Insightful)
Comment removed (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:A Word About Law School Exams (Score:4, Interesting)
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In the computer labs people looking at youtube or myspace together can cause distraction, which is decidedly unfair to students who *do* wish to learn.
Furthermore, for computer-related classes, bandwidth is limited due to users accessing bandwidth-greedy multimedia content. Some of my teachers *use* the
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Thanks, I was scanning the replies to see if anybody suggested this. One more thing, though.
A lot of schools, both at the undergraduate and 'professional graduate' levels are in the business of collecting money in exchange for a degree. Only in a lamentably diminishing set of cases does the degree actually hold some correlation with scholarly aptitude.
A diploma has become nothing more than a receipt.
This presents a problem for institutions th
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Time to transfer . . . (Score:5, Funny)
Apparently Law Students Can't Be Trusted (Score:5, Funny)
If they spend too much lecture time on the intarblags, it will be reflected in their grades.
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That's sort of how law school works. Sure, you get course grades, but the whole point is to prepare you for the Bar exam, and for a future career as a lawyer. The proof is in the result.
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What the hell??? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:What the hell??? (Score:5, Insightful)
The folks surfing during class aren't just cheating themselves. They are cheating the other people in the class who are trying to learn.
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Aren't we supposed to be adults at that level of education?
I know I've had a few classes in college that didn't teach me anything I didn't already know but had to take them anyway due to prereq
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Parents don't pay for law school, usually. Most students take out loans, or have scholarship, and are paying out of their own pockets, so if they want to ignore professors, its fine with me, its their money, as long as they aren't interrupting the class.
In order to understand why law students are goofing off in class, you have to understand the structure o
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But, this is law school, which uses an even more ancient idea -- the socratic dialog. In this, the professor will throw out a question, and the class will have
Next up... (Score:5, Funny)
Just let them fail.. (Score:5, Interesting)
I always assumed that once you hit college the hand-holding by instructors was supposed to stop.
Maybe they could use group projects to fix the problem. I know in my college classes I was a righteous dick to any group members who just goofed off on the Internet rather than contributing towards the project.
I loved my system analysis and design class where we could 'fire' group members for poor performance (and trust me, people did.)
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Internet access in the classroom always seemed to me like a boon from the "ignorant IT gods" of hasty wireless implementation by blithering idiots who didn't know how to make it secret and only let profes
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Would you hold class in the center of a crowded mall? The very nature of a college, or classroom, is a controlled environment to further learning. Controlling the student's ability to access the internet is no different than the four walls posted around them to keep them from seeing the rest of the world.
Internet access in the classroom always seemed to me like a boon from the "ignorant IT gods" of hasty wireless implementation by blithering idiots who didn't know how to make it secret and only let professors in the building have access (or smart peoplel like us.). It never made sense that it would continue long past this point, kind of like internet tax freedom or net neutrality. Once people realize its just too good to be true, they're going to stamp down it somewhere.
But no, controlling internet access in a classroom is not hand holding, its simply a common-sense measure to direct attention towards the teacher, like facing all the chairs in the same direction at the beginning of the class.
Oh, I completely agree that they have the right to do this, it just seems a little bit of an overreaction to outright disable Internet access.
I will concede the possibility that people's Internet use in class is so widespread and disruptive to everybody else that this was the best approach to the problem, but that seems unlikely.
This is speaking as somebody who frequently uses the Internet in class to augment his learning via looking up unfamiliar terms or finding more in depth explanations of things the p
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You have to remember that the generation that's currently attending various institutions of higher education (the Millennials or Gen-Y or whatever the fuck they are referred to by other out-of-touch generations) have, for the most part, been hovered over by their parents for the majority of their lives and have a lot less personal interest in their o
that is a great idea (Score:2, Interesting)
I don't get it. (Score:2, Insightful)
I graduated before the age of ubiquitous laptops and wi-fi, so this wasn't a problem. Even still we had our distractions and it probably irked certain professors to know that they didn't have the rapt attention of every single person in the room. Generally speaking though, we were left alone as long as our snoring didn't disturb others.
I wonder if these profs take a roll call before e
Instead, just force people to make a decision (Score:5, Insightful)
So I fully understand lecturers who urge (or force) people to make a conscious decision *either* to stay in the lecture room and (at the very least pretend to) pay attention, or if you don't feel like paying attention, want to browse the internet, or absolutely *have* to chat with your neighbour about the previous weekend, can you please just go to the lunchroom next door, thank you so much and don't let the door hit you on the way out. Because it's not like anybody is *forcing* you to be there. If you think you'll do fine by reading the lecture sheets and/or the book, you're free to do so (and in many cases that's perfectly possible, too).
If you want to take notes during the lecture (the excuse everyone uses), paper still works just fine, as it has for ages.
Re:Instead, just force people to make a decision (Score:4, Insightful)
So does chiselling hieroglyphs on little stone pyramids, but that's not a good reason to eschew new technology.
The argument against banning laptops/intartubes access is bullshit, because it presupposes that:
It fails every rational test. It's about ego, pure and simple. Lecturers are having hissy fits because their customers aren't a captive audience any more, and they want the old days back, when they could pretend that sleeping students were just listening really attentively. They may as well order the tide not to come in.
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You fail every rational test.
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This is probably the key to your answer; treating students as "customers". No. The goal of universities is not (or rather, in practice it often is, but it shouldn't be) to graduate as many students/year as possible. It's not supposed to be a "graduation business" where you can exchange tuition fees for a degree (that will hopefully get you a better paying job in the future).
Rather, students are supposed to be taught how to think systematically, how to approach the so
Re:Instead, just force people to make a decision (Score:4, Insightful)
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You sir are a rarity.
Maybe because I'm just a lowly 3rd-year undergrad but the internet is just about NEVER used as an "immediate, on-the-spot information resource for discussion and in-depth reference on a specific topic" in class. 99% of the time it's kids playing flash games and they're usually in the back right next to each other. I don't mind that bu
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The professor both lectures and leads the discussion. However, it is a rare occasion when the professor has at the tip of his or her tongue exact citations, dates, names, or quotations. Some of these they may find in their notes; some of them they do not because the topic has shifted to something related but not specifically
What is this, high school? (Score:2)
FWIW, here [uchicago.edu] is a link to an article from the university's website.
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Wow. Just... wow. (Score:2)
If I were going to school there, I'd transfer to a different school, there are a lot of them in the area. Perhaps U of C should rename itself "Luddite University"?
Kids, this comment came from a 56 year old geezer. I can only imagine how a young person who grew up with the internet would feel about this, it's like if SIU had outlawed using electricity when I was in college in the se
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Escalating the confict (Score:2)
They could build a Faraday cage [wikipedia.org] around the classroom. I've heard that the wire mesh used for some forms of stucco can make a Faraday cage that will block cell phone signals. There's a restaurant in my area where that happened by accident and many of the customers like it and go there when they want to be off the grid for a while.
You'd be surprised what these students do (Score:5, Interesting)
Sadly, after the grades came out, it seemed that chatting and porn viewership had a low correlation with scores. (i.e. I actually took notes but was middle of the road for grades)
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I don't see why they can't treat electronically disruptive individuals the same way they would treat conventionally disruptive individuals.
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Perhaps I should clarify--many students were reputably lazy, somewhat disruptive (this is law school, not high school, so no one was all that disruptive), and supposedly spent every night at the bar ended up transferring to better schools (meaning they must have done well). Whereas some students who spent most of every day at school and seemed like excellent students did not do as well (they were still at school with me and we talked about grades). That's all--we were just surpris
I also wondered before.... (Score:2)
Some time later, a friend who became a professor, instituted the same policy. He always browsed as a student so I asked why he would do something like this. His explanation was simple: "It's for my benefit, not theirs. Most of the time I just don't want to remind myself and maybe even my administration that my classes are boring and useless and can be replaced
the lectures need to be more then just reading out (Score:2)
Our law school (NUSL) never used to allow it (Score:3, Funny)
The result? Well, I'm sitting in class right now, so you take your pick.
Won't anyone think of the Children! (Score:4, Funny)
A place for everything (Score:3, Insightful)
And it's not just people doing other things. I did a couple of seminars on Java in its early days, at a progressive local university, that had internet (wired) at every seat. Only a couple of people were using it, but it's awfully hard to get across concepts when people are constantly googling what you say and trying to point out problems or sound smart before you finish getting a point across.
A lot of the time in teaching, you have to start with generalizations to get the general concept across, some of which aren't 100% correct, technically; then you delve into the details clarifying those points. (As a broad example in another field, teaching newtonian physics as a basis for relativistic stuff.) One smartass with Google/Wiki can ruin that process for the whole class.
(On the other hand, those who are genuinely curious about something that is said and want to take a quick detour, I could support; but like most liberties, where there's a tendency towards abuse, you sometimes have reduced those liberties in certain agreed upon circumstances. It's similar to the cell phones on planes arguments. There are those that would use it respectfully, moderately, and quietly; but there would typically be a more noticable inconsiderate contingent that would just drive everyone nuts.)
Who Cares? (Score:3, Insightful)
The Amish Method (Score:2)
At least they started to make amends to the music and movie industries, but they have a long way to go.
Emulators during lecture (Score:3, Funny)
There's a better way (Score:2)
A more elegant solution (Score:2)
One of my professors had a good solution: He didn't care if you were on-line during class, as long as you sat in the back row. That way, your screen activity wouldn't distract the other students. Worked out pretty well -- except for me. I sat in the back
Rebuttal (Score:2)
I tried to post, but I couldn't access Slashdot (Score:2, Funny)
From a professor (Score:5, Interesting)
I teach courses in literature, most frequently poetry, at a major Southern university.
This semester I've been trying to decide how to deal with students texting in class and with students who use laptops recreationally in class. I haven't come up with an ideal solution, but I'm leaning toward banning cellphones. The laptop thing is harder; many students use them to take notes and for reference, which is laudable. I think I might tell students using laptops to be prepared to e-mail me notes on demand at the end of class so that I'll know who's using a laptop to take notes and who's goofing off.
So that's background. I'm posting in response to some ideas from the student perspective that I see repeated here.
Several posters say that students are capable of multi-tasking. This is true, but research [sciencedaily.com] indicates that you're not capable of doing anything well nor of retaining it when you multi-task.
Several posters suggest that they should be allowed to be the judge of what's worthwhile. I'm all for agency, but if you decide to tune out, you might miss something that would interest you. Furthermore, some material isn't so exciting, and though a teacher should attempt to generate interest, some students expectations are unreasonably high when it comes to the entertainment value of literature. Maybe, too, it would be well to look on a lecture as a form of work.
A few people say they can pass without paying attention in lectures. That is probably true. I often find myself dumbing down my lectures, assignments, and exams so that students who have tuned out during class can pass. If I fail too many students, my enrollments go down, my evaluations suffer, and I may even lose my job, as I am on one-year contracts and get rehired based on student evaluations. If I do that, for fear of my job, the content of the course suffers.
Finally, a few people here say lectures are outdated and that content should be online. What about procrastination; would students just shrug off all this content until finals? What about dialog; will all exchange in your life take place via chat? What about seeing others modelling an interest in material only understood or valued by a minority? Do you want to give those faculty who are already distant from students one more excuse to tune you out completely?
I guess I'll conclude by saying that the small minority of students who text in class or play on their laptops in class are the worse students in my class. They waste a lot of my time asking me about things covered in class or begging for favors and special attention. And they tend to earn poor grades. I wouldn't want to be their boss and certainly not one of their fellow employees. Though as their boss, I could fire the lot of them, and that would be very gratifying.
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1995 called.... (Score:2)
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