Using Laptops In Class To Avoid Interruptions (Essay Sample)

Should Professors Ban Laptops From Their Classroom?
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The topic regarding the use of laptops in the classroom has attracted too much attention in institutions of higher learning. Parties involved are professors and student each with a different view toward the issue. Some professors claim that allowing students to use laptops in class is a way of encouraging them to remain inattentive. They say that, when students are allowed to use laptops in class, they sure use them. Students, on the other hand, explain argue that they transcribe whatever the lecturer says for future reference.
College students should not be allowed to use their laptops in class; most of them pretend to be serious taking notes as the lecture goes on. However, if you happen to stealthily stand right at the back of a full University Lecture Hall, you would be astonished by what you would see. You will see screens congested with uncountable active windows, all open to everything including dating sites, sports sites, and news sites, YouTube, Facebook and Twitter among many others. It is disgusting that some of them would be playing games! Such students also disrupt those sited next to them. A closer look will reveal some typed noted underneath the other windows.
By banning the use of laptops in class, the students will remain attentive because they will have no chance of going online to download movies and chatting with friend on social media platforms. Their attention will be boosted improving the lecture – student interaction with a chain result of improved class performance.
The use of laptops in the conference rooms has an adverse effect even on the attentive students as they put emphasis in typing every word uttered by the lecturers. They prefer typing the notes on their keyboard to writing on board because they can type faster than they can write but this has an adverse effect of distorting the essence of a lecture; it turns the students into secretaries who dutifully take the dictations of the boss.
This has adverse effects as; the meaning of listening to a lecturer is to determine what is necessary and what is not necessary but not documenting everything the professor utters. Keeping the laptops out of class will, therefore, help the attentive student to grasp much of the course content, which they can add on later through the internet.
It cannot be disputed that searching the internet for more information related to the topic being discussed invaluable but this should be done after the class. Students should remain attentive in class, take important notes and points made by the professor and later after the class they go online to look for complimentary materials. The primary purpose of a lecture is to create a student – teacher interaction, and nothing should break the student’s concentration. The communication is crucial in teaching them how to think critically about the topic.
Writing personal notes on a book is much better for students to understand the course content as compared to typing on the laptop. Note taking through writing is involving and allows the student to listen carefully, think deeply and prioritize before putting it down on paper. By thinking while writing the notes slowly, the student can develop questions on the concepts he or she has not understood well. Through the art of asking the question, the student can comprehend all he or she has learned in class. It’s hard for students to write short notes using the computer or to make graphical representations made by the lecturer to represent something in a fast way. Laptops should, therefore, be banned from the classrooms to ensure that the students can internalize what they write before they put it down on a paper which increases their understanding and performance in their course work.
Concentrating so much on the laptop typing notes lessens class participation by a high margin. The student’s concentration gets lower when much attention is dedicated to the computer other than the professor. While the student tries to write extensive notes by searching for more information from the internet, his or concentration in class is affected. Devoting more attention to the taking of notes and searching for related information on the web makes the students to become better typists or note takers but not better students at all. Keeping the device outside the classroom will significantly improve the student's concentration; understanding and consequently their performance will be affected in a positive direction!