The Rules of Distraction (from /.) In sum, a relatively well-behaved class. In my other lectures, nearly half of the students spend time pecking away at laptops, and most of us aren’t just fact-checking the professor. This is the classroom of the future: Students use class time to read the Drudge Report, send e-mail, play Legend of Zelda, or update our profiles on Facebook.com. Last year, during a guest lecture by the estimable K. Anthony Appiah on W.E.B. DuBois and cosmopolitanism, I edited three articles for a campus magazine. But the distraction epidemic is really nothing new. Replace laptops with crumpled notes, and the classroom of the future looks a lot like the classroom of the past.
The article was quite interesting cause they actually linked the student’s surfing behavior with the grade the got in the course. This observation may be total hooey. But 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.
I’ve always thought of the laptop as a distraction tool for most people. But there are several key questions one must think about. 1. Would the student even have gone to class if he didn’t have a notebook? 2. Aren’t there any other “objects” that can be used for distraction too?
I’d like to split the 1st question into 2 groups. The 1st group consists of people that already ditch class *whistles*. Lectures were boring and there was no enticement to go to class, UNTIL they brought high speed WIFI. Now people from that group can have a reason to attend class, even though it’s not the best reason to attend, but it actually gets you to go to class in the 1st place. Although leaning by osmosis is nothing more than a myth, there are times when you would pay attention to the professor, either because you ran outta places to surf to or you’re waiting for something to finish downloading or maybe the professor just said a keyword that your brain reacted to. Either way, I’d still think it’s better than just sleeping through class. Though before I had a laptop, I would often fall asleep in class because lecture was boring. So I figured it was better to sleep at home in bed, then to go to class to sleep in the uncomfortable chairs.
The 2nd group are people who already attend class daily. Having a notebook would be most devastatious to those people. Although a few could do it, it is quite hard to multi-task trying to surf the web, chat with friends, and understand your professor at the same time. Listening to your professor is easy, it’s understanding the concepts he’s trying to push through that is hard. And that’s what’s lectures are all about, professors trying to get you to “understand” the concept, and not just “know of it”.
Some people noted that people who tend to surf the web, were those who already didn’t really bother going to class or if they did, didn’t pay much attention by doodling or falling asleep. I tend to think laptops make it easier to get distracted than falling asleep or doodling. Falling asleep requries a lot of courage, because you never really want to get caught and if you do, it’s quite embarassing. Sometimes it’s fun to look behind you and see al the bobbing heads. Doodling on the other hand isn’t as easy as it sounds. Creating your own content is a good excercise for your mind and requires. Using a laptop doesn’t require you to create your own content cause all the web content has already been created for you. It’s not embarassing either cause the professor can never see what your looking at, though the guys next to you and behind you can clearly see you’re playing Street Fighter 2.
I was discussing this issue with fuzzywuzzy and we moved on to classes the required mandatory attendance and the different methods professors use to get you to class. The easiest one woudl be to pass around a attendance sheet and have people sign it. I’ve actually had a professor that did that, but as fuzzywuzzy noted: I’d just rotate with my friends, and come in, sit in the back, wait for the sheet to get to me, sign in for everone and leave. Then there other professors who’s lecture complimented the readings, basically talked about stuff that was not in your readings and will be on the tests. Then there’s a reason to actually go to class, unless Black Lightning was auditing your class. Then you can just buy the notes from them. Finally, there’s the pop quiz idea. My EE20 professor stated in the beginning of the semester that there will be 4 pop quizes, so people actually came or tried to guess when the pop quiz days were. The 4th pop quiz never showed up and before we knew it, it was already finals. So the last pop quiz was purely not given so that people would still come to class. Fuzzywuzzy said people can easily escape that by having friends call them on their cell phones. I asked wouldn’t it be obvious then and the professor would probably catch them and give them a 0. He goes, then there’s the sneaky text message technique. hehe.
There were actually classes I attended every single class. This would be my Japanese classes and my Sandinavian Literature class. I’m not sure if it was because the class was small or if it was just really fun, bu I had actually read all my papers and books assigned. Did all my homework. I had a great time in 3 classes. CDMCC believes because the class size is small, it’s highly likely that the professor would pick on you to answer some questions and it’d be quite embarassing to not know the answer for a question about the previous night’s reading. Maybe it just coincidentally ended up that way, but I think if the class and the readings were boring, I’d probably end up not doing the work anyway and if I got picked on, I’d pull a move like Walt from The Squid and The Whale.
