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The Daily OrangeTech temptation
By Amanda Allison
Posted: 1/15/08, 10:23 PM EST Section: Feature
To combat the same issue in his undergraduate Whitman classes, Alessandri makes class participation and discussion an essential part of students' grades and even attempts to utilize laptop technology in his classrooms by putting all of his Power Point notes online. That way, students can download the files before class and type in their own notes during the lecture.
"My general stance is that there is a very useful and positive way to use laptops to enhance the learning experience, but I think the struggle is not having enough self-discipline to not play," Alessandri said. "Open Word or Power Point, shut down e-mail and keep all other programs closed. The student has to always think about if their laptop is hurting or helping them."
One way laptops serve to help some students is in the memory and retention of lecture notes. Bruce Carter, an SU psychology and child development professor, said it is a common misconception that typing notes rather than hand writing them has negative effects on students remembering essential information.
He adds if one tries to multi-task too much, as in surfing the Web or playing games, performance can be hindered. But if all efforts are put into one action, like typing lecture notes, there is no difference than if they were handwritten.
"All the data indicates that everyone is bad at multi-tasking even though we all think we're good at it," Carter said. "As we add additional work into what we are doing with our minds, we lose attention to other things. It's competition for attention that becomes the problem, but if one focuses, you can process information just as well typing it."
Tanya Eckert, a behavior disorders professor at SU, doesn't understand why more of her students don't type their notes. She consistently sees students shaking their hands halfway through lecture after writing so much.
"As long as you can type efficiently, I would think that using a laptop and typing notes would be to their advantage," Eckert said. "Part of it may just be patterns though, as I have heard that a lot of students take hand notes and then type them up at home. It provides them the opportunity to review again and learn to a greater depth."
"My general stance is that there is a very useful and positive way to use laptops to enhance the learning experience, but I think the struggle is not having enough self-discipline to not play," Alessandri said. "Open Word or Power Point, shut down e-mail and keep all other programs closed. The student has to always think about if their laptop is hurting or helping them."
One way laptops serve to help some students is in the memory and retention of lecture notes. Bruce Carter, an SU psychology and child development professor, said it is a common misconception that typing notes rather than hand writing them has negative effects on students remembering essential information.
He adds if one tries to multi-task too much, as in surfing the Web or playing games, performance can be hindered. But if all efforts are put into one action, like typing lecture notes, there is no difference than if they were handwritten.
"All the data indicates that everyone is bad at multi-tasking even though we all think we're good at it," Carter said. "As we add additional work into what we are doing with our minds, we lose attention to other things. It's competition for attention that becomes the problem, but if one focuses, you can process information just as well typing it."
Tanya Eckert, a behavior disorders professor at SU, doesn't understand why more of her students don't type their notes. She consistently sees students shaking their hands halfway through lecture after writing so much.
"As long as you can type efficiently, I would think that using a laptop and typing notes would be to their advantage," Eckert said. "Part of it may just be patterns though, as I have heard that a lot of students take hand notes and then type them up at home. It provides them the opportunity to review again and learn to a greater depth."
Viewing Comments 1 - 1 of 1
Sue Heley
posted 1/16/08 @ 5:50 PM EST
Very informative article and I enjoyed hearing the point of view of so many different students and professors! Nicely written!
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