I ran across an interesting conversation on Facebook earlier today that’s lead me to reflect on the current debate about laptops and portable devices in the classroom, their effectiveness, and criticism by some of how much of a “distraction” they are to learning.
“Dude this guy is painful!”
Someone I follow on Facebook posted a pair of extremely insightful statements in which she confessed to being:
“…totally on facebook during class right now. hey, anything to stay awake and survive this pharm lecture.”
Shortly thereafter she received several comments of affirmation and agreement from people who have obviously had similar experiences. To these she responded “Dude this guy is painful!”
I was immediately struck by the question: “Is this use of Facebook and laptops during a lecture the cause of the students distraction and their apparent lack of interest, or it is it instead a symptom or effect of a much larger issue.”
An Escape
It seems clear in this instance that the student resorted to Facebook as a means of passing the time during a lecture that was completely uninteresting to her. And based on her final statement – “Dude this guy is painful” – the source of her disengagement can be clearly attributed to one element: the instructor.
Now I won’t go so far as saying that all student disengagement and browsing of websites during class time can be blamed on “painful” instructors, however I would argue that the presence of an engaging instructor is an extraordinary motivators for participation.
Richard Buckland
Moreover as the example of UNSW Computer Science Lecture Richard Buckland illustrates, the combination of an engaging instructor and empowering technology can have incredible results for student participation.
In the following YouTube video (55 minutes), Buckland discusses the motives and logic behind his decision to implement wikis in the classroom, their nature and use, and the results that have been realised as a result.
The most accurate description of his work and apparent philosophies is featured in the video’s synopsis, which reads:
“Depending on your courage and how much faith you are prepared to have in your students, wonderful things can happen when you empower them.”
Beginning around 12:40 in the recording, Buckland starts discussing his experiences, saying (13:00 – 13:57):
“The first time I did the wiki, I said ‘students, there are no notes in this course I’m afraid. I’ve just got terrible bullet points that I’m lecturing off. But you yourself will have to have notes to survive in this course, so I’m letting you edit my notes.’ And I just threw open all my lecture notes.
And as each lecture was going, I would find my lecture notes started to get fleshed out with what I was saying at that instant because people were in the lecture with their laptops. Spelling mistakes would suddenly mysteriously get corrected even before I got to the point. Sometimes people would put humorous flippant points in, in front of what I was going to say – so this is the fear, that people will muck up my notes.
But in general because I trusted the students and gave them great respect…they rose to that respect. I had complete faith in them; and they did amazing things. …the notes were no longer my notes, they were theirs.”
Philosophy
It’s important to bear in mind here, that the successes that Richard Buckland has experienced with wikis has as much to do – if not more – with the way he facilitates the course and engages with students – as well as his teaching philosophy – as it does with the model for wiki use he has implemented.
Central to this is the notion of Wiki Nature, which he describes as (15:39):
“…this notion of trusting each other, having respect in each other, having pride in our workmanship…and trying to be objective.”
This ethos is clearly visible in any of the 55 full-length lectures Buckland has released on YouTube of his Higher Computing course – all of which carry 5-star ratings, and in the case of his first lecture, uploaded one year ago, has been viewed nearly 50,000 times.
Conclusion
Both of these examples featured students using portable web-based technologies in a lecture environment. This is the extent of their similarity; the remainder is stark in contrast. In the first example, students embrace technology as a means of escaping boredom and disinterest. In the second, as a means of engaging in a participatory activity that brought students and teacher closer together and undoubtedly fueled a deeper understanding of the subject matter.
My first thought was near the beginning of your post, when you talked about the students chatting because they didn’t like the lecture.
If I bring a laptop to a meeting or lecture, I do tend to “multitask”, checking email and doing other things, some professional and some social. This doesn’t have much to do with the quality of the lecturer. I recently was guilty of this behavior at a workshop of someone who was really very good, and I could have learned more had I been paying attention.
So while I realize that scenario may be seen as chicken-egg (if I hadn’t brought the laptop would I have paid attention? did it “cause” my behavior?), I don’t think it’s fair to blame the presenter.
What Buckland is doing is creating a participatory lecture, which is very cool. Contradicting myself now (I can do that!) , because I just commented in your other post that a new type of presentation was needed, perhaps there are ways to include students synchronously without reformatting the concept of presentation.
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