War on Laptops
A study conducted by Indiana University found that law students are more likely than other students to use their laptops in class. The study confirms our own internal data that shows that most law students enjoy having internet access on par with what can be achieved in Ghana.
The ABA Journal smartly put the study in the context of the University of Chicago Law School’s attempts to shut down internet access in most classes, a move no doubt applauded by this guy:
Distractions posed by laptops with Internet access have prompted some law professors to ban the computers and one law school—the University of Chicago—to shut down Internet access in most classrooms.
A very wise tenured professor once said to me:
The way I see it, if my presentations are not interesting enough to capture your attendance and attention to a lecture you’ve already paid for, the fault is on me.
Needless to say, his lectures were always well attended, and I know more about the English Revolution than I could possibly need. But I digress.
Other IU laptop nuggets after the jump.
Trying to shut down internet access in class is the modern day equivalent to stapling somebody’s eyes open, but the good people at IU found this nebulous data point that will no doubt strengthen the resolve of schools who hate freedom the internet:
Perhaps to be expected, students who frequently used their laptops during class to surf the Web, email or instant message were much less engaged overall. Third-year students were more likely than other law students to participate in such distracting activities during class.
In other breaking news, students who stay up late are less likely to wake up early.
I mean seriously, they needed an entire study to figure out that 3Ls are not paying attention to class? You could stage a naked debate between the Philadelphia Eagle Cheerleaders and the roster of dudes from Thunder Down Under and 3Ls would at best be mildly amused while the count the hours until the end of class/graduation.
But sure, take away the laptop. That’ll get people “focused.”
I think some people underestimate the brain’s ability to resist unwanted information.
Law school study links laptop computer use, student engagement [IU News Room]
Survey Captures 3L Ennui [ABA Journal]
Earlier: Hey Teacher, Leave Those Kids (and Their Internet) Alone!
Update: Hey Teacher, Leave Those Kids (and Their Internet) Alone!
(91) Comments
Comments
LAST!!
First, ho hum. Yawn.
SECOND!
slow news day?
suckers
I surf the web, visit ATL and other blogs etc during class all the time and I am still in the top 10, so this study is useless
"The study confirms our own internal data that shows that most law students enjoy having internet access on par with what can be achieved in Ghana."
Am I the only one who has no idea what this is supposed to mean?
"most law students enjoy having internet access on par with what can be achieved in Ghana."
What the hell does this mean? Do they not have the internet in Ghana, and most law students would prefer to similarly not have the internet? Or do they have awesome wireless coverage in Ghana, which law students would similarly prefer?
Ghana? WTF?
I surf the web, visit ATL and other blogs etc during class all the time and I am still in the top 10, so this study is useless.
7,8,9 I thought I was the only one WTF???
That was a fantastic sentences.
"The study confirms our own internal data that shows that most law students enjoy having internet access on par with what can be achieved in Ghana."
Am I the only one who has no clue what the hell this is supposed to mean?
-- Guy from Ghana
7,8,9,11,13 = all racists. If you were black like Elie, you would obviously understand the reference to Ghana.
Ghana = TTT. To get wireless there, you have to essentially be in the capital, and outside of downtown its only about 2/4 bars.
If you want real wireless, come here to Ouagadougou.
-- Guy from Burkina Faso
@10 Hey, I'm top ten in my class too, I go to Quinnipac. Where do you go, Suffolk?
This site sucks now. Bad reporting on bad topics. I'm out.
Was there supposed to be a hyperlink on Ghana, showing 63% internet penetration there?
I mean, obviously ATL's "internal data" doesn't show that law students prefer 63% internet penetration. Was it supposed to link to a study showing that 63% of Ghanians would like to have the internet and 37% wouldn't?
Are there other hypotheses on what kind of idiocy Elie could have been channeling when he wrote that?
Duh. Ghana is south of the Mason-Dixon line. Don't you guys get it? Think 2008 year in review. Brilliant. And duh.
The "no laptop" cancer has metastasized at the University of Virginia. The new dean apparently held a meeting with faculty last summer and encouraged this policy. Yay for paternalism!
6/10: you apparently are also effortlessly capable of maintaining a high level of doucheness.
A very wise tenured professor once said to Mystal:
What are you doing in my classroom? You can't find a coherent sentence with James Bond, Indiana Jones, Inspector Clouseau, and Sherlock Holmes walking you through one.
Riddle for you readers
Power to hire a new writer + Y = David Lat's loose asshole. What is Y?
.
.
.
Y = Elie Mystal
I strongly doubt that internet use during class has any correlation with law school GPA.
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/08/03/opinion/03friedman.html
You know, the sad thing is that I realize that somehow this is my fault.
--Elie
15, hillarious
Reference to Ghana I don't understand
@4 is correct, because close to 100% of students use the internet durring class.
"The study confirms our own internal data that shows that most law students enjoy having internet access on par with what can be achieved in Ghana."
Am I the only one who has no clue what the hell this is supposed to mean?
-- Guy from Ghana
24 is correct, because close to 100% of students use the internet durring class.
25, I believe that article is talking about cell phones in Ghana, not internet access.
As long as they don't ban farting in class... Welcome to the silent but deadly Chamber of Farts!
25 somehow? Try all! Just assume all your readers read gay guy in turtleneck op-ed piece
How come you post lame jokes about internet access in Ghana but say nothing about Dickstein Shapiro laying off a dozen and a half associates and freezing 2009 salaries for those lucky enough not to get the ax?
I hide my laptop behind my Sheep and no one is the wiser.
Suck it, UVA.
@25: A link to a 2005 editorial by Tom Friedman that doesn't say anything about internet use in Ghana somehow clears this up?
30 - Do most law school classrooms have wireless internet? When I was in law school there was no such thing as wireless, so I guess I'm just curious. Also, do they have plugs for laptops at the tables? Most of the time I remember not bringing my laptop to class, because my battery would die after like an hour, and everybody would try to hover around the one or two outlets in the whole lecture hall and posture for a spot.
Post a link to a columnist that nobody should read if you're going to make a reference to a columnist that no one should read.
Here's my Friedman imitation:
"You know, I was chatting with [Important person whom one should assume has inside information on topic X] about [topic X], and he whispered to me that, unlike what everyone with a brain thinks, the key to understanding [topic X] is this: [insanely obscure social fact of obviously miniscule import]. And, you know, a lot of famous people whisper this kind of stuff to me. Like, all the time."
Elie/25, that article only mentions Ghana once and the reference has nothing to do with wireless internet. It does imply that their cell phone coverage is good, but it also implies that their coverage is worse than Japan's. I don't get it...
Dickstein Shapiro
30 - Do most law school classrooms have wireless internet? When I was in law school there was no such thing as wireless, so I guess I'm just curious. Also, do they have plugs for laptops at the tables? Most of the time I remember not bringing my laptop to class, because my battery would die after like an hour, and everybody would try to hover around the one or two outlets in the whole lecture hall and posture for a spot.
"...on par with what can be achieved in Ghana."
You suck Elie. That is all.
Ok I'm actually going to defend Elie here. The article does talk about laptop access in Japan. More over most people accessing the internet in a public setting, IE on a train or in a public park are doing so through the cell tower network. Look up verizon or AT&T wireless cards. Cell coverage is directly linked to internet access if you are accessing the internet via a cell phone company's wireless card. Just let it go everyone, at worst it was a bad joke. The man didn't club your dog to death with a nine iron.
"I surf the web, visit ATL and other blogs etc during class all the time and I am still in the top 10, so this study is useless"
Of course we should refute an entire study based upon one person's unverified successful standing in their LS class! Sounds totally reasonable.
So the Ghana thing comes from some random Tom Friedman article from 3 years ago? The thing about references is they only work if your audience knows what the hell you're talking about, Elie.
In my day, we did not have internet access, but laptops were were extensively in class to play, among other challenging games, Freecell, Spider Solitare and Brickbreaker. The rich kids had a precursor to Cradle of Rome. Anyway, our professor basically admitted that he spent most of time as a law student--some 30 years ago now--completing crossword puzzles. This is hardly a new issue and reading the internet is probably better than playing brickbreaker.
1st time reader. 1st time commenter.
You all are retarded.
Is this blog only for Texans?
43, do law students access classroom internet through the cell tower network?
Thunder Down Under = Awesome
45, I think that he was assuming we were all somewhat informed. Or maybe you just read the paper every day. I got the reference. I didn't think it was funny, but I got it.
43 - If the article mentions wireless coverage IN JAPAN then Elie should have used it as a source for a reference to wireless coverage in Japan.
48, no they do not. Which is why the joke was bad. I was just refuting the point that the article had nothing to do with internet access.
-43
No INTERNET in the classroom I am ok with.
But banning COMPUTERS from the classroom is very different, and a big deal for people like me with shit handwriting. I always avoided profs who banned them, and would never attend a school that banned them.
52 - And you were doing a shitty job of it. No one said it had nothing to do "with internet access..." they said nothing to do "with internet access in Ghana," which is how the reference was used. Learn to read.
43/52, so a reference to Ghana is naturally a reference to everything else in that article? What if I want to bring up the City Hall subway stop, which is mentioned in the article; can I just say 'Ghana' instead?
Sorry, 50, for not having every word that Tom Friedman has ever uttered committed to memory. Somehow I've made it through life notwithstanding this grave personal defect.
51 - the article mentions cell coverage in both Ghana and Japan. This coverage is the same thing as wireless internet coverage no matter where in the world you are if you are accessing the internet through the cell tower network. The reference to Ghana makes more sense in this context because it is obvious that we will never have the kind of coverage that Japan has. And Ghana is a country that is generally seen as not on par with the US in terms of technological advancement. This makes the comparison more stark.
-43
56, you disgust me.
-50
If you ban the internet from classrooms, the people who go on the internet are going to play computer games instead. If you ban computers, then they are just going to space out by daydreaming about something -- perhaps about the day when they'll graduate and do work with real-world consequences for money, rather than boring esoteric theory and hypotheticals that you have to pay to hear.
43/57, so does Ghana have better or worse internet coverage than the US?
57, Cell phone coverage is not the same thing as internet coverage. Any cell phone can make calls using any cell phone signal. Only certain wireless internet devices can access the internet using only certain kinds of cell phone signals. They are not the same things.
Plus it was a stupid reference anyway.
53 - ditto. i once wrote a tirade to the dean to that effect when they were considering that. serious issue!
60 raises a fair point.
This sucks
Kudos to Elie for once again hijacking his own thread in order to generate greater numbers of site hits. Perhaps Elie does it unintentionally due to his lacking a fully developed frontal cortex, but you'd better believe that Lat sees what is going on here and is laughing all the way to the bank.
43/57 you have proven the adage that one cannot polish a turd, and you have done so by laying one of your own.
Because I'm OLD, I crossed the boundary of when laptops in the classroom became common. My 1L almost nobody used one. My 2L year, I'd say it was close to 40% use. By my 3L year, nearly everyone was using one. (Be it to play games, surf the net, or create a verbatim transcript of the lecture). Thing was, the quality of the classroom discussion and classroom participation went way way down over this period of time. Apparently, it's hard to engage the material when one is too busy taking it down word-by-word. Laptops in the classroom may have some advantages, but I thought they significantly degraded the classroom experience.
49 - Agreed. And I'd substitute the Dallas Cowboys cheerleaders for the Eagles cheerleaders. Better b00bies.
And if they ban computers and force everyone to take notes by hand, people will doodle in the margins. Or pass little notes to each other. Or fly paper airplanes in class.
67, I am in my 3L year now. I have notice a marked decline in classroom participation and the quality of discussion and laptop usage has always been over 90% in all of my classes. I think that declining participation from 1L to 3L year is just a function of no longer caring. Who the hell do I need to impress now? I have a job and I don't need a rec from any of these profs.
70: I considered that possibility. But over those three years, I think the number of 1Ls (allowed a couple of electives), 2Ls, and 3Ls remained pretty constent in the classes, while participation declined. Do other schools have 3L only-type classes? I'm not talking seminars here, but the big lecture classes.
67/71, discussion always seems worse from first to third year, cause you care less and so does everyone else. First year you have all 1Ls, who all care a hell of a lot. Second year you might have some 1Ls in certain classes, but the majority will be 2Ls (care less) and 3Ls (don't give a shit). Third year, even if the class makeup is the same, you are now a 3L so you don't give a shit, so no wonder you think the discussion is less interesting.
To make the point another way, we had 95%+ laptop usage all 3 years that I was in law school and I saw the same thing that you did.
71, here the 1Ls are relegated to their own courses, no electives. Last semester I took mostly seminars, journal and clinic, the only large class I had last semester had a 2L course as a pre-req so no only 3Ls could get in. As a 2L the classes that I took with 3Ls it always seemed to me that 2Ls participate more than 3Ls but it wasn't anything like the level of participation 1L year (loss cold calling too). I have nothing to back this up, just my general impression.
-70
53, how did you ever get through high school?
71, I took Antitrust with about 100 2Ls and 3Ls last semester. The level of preparation and participation seemed pretty similar to my 1L classes.
72: Not less interesting; less substantive and less participation. And I did care. That's why I was a little sad about the laptops. I was dorky and actually liked lawschool. No going backnow on the laptops, I know. Oh, and I don't really think it was the people playing games: they would've done crosswords or whatever instead. But I do think that the people who are obsessively typing every word (and this applies to the 1Ls, especially) can't participate in the same way they did before they had this option. Just observations; not advocating taking laptops away.
Once without thinking I opened a link in a friend's email, forgetting that I had the sound turned all the way up. My entire Contracts class was startled by Dave Attell at fire alarm volume admonishing: "Don't drink and drive, kids!" before I was able to hit the mute button. I still have nightmares about it.
What is the difference between staring at the ceiling and staring at ATL?
Surprise, students get bored.
I had Geoffrey Hazard for Civ Pro. I'm not a laptop guy, but sometimes I'd read books under my desk. That guy is simultaneously one of the best and one of the worst professors you could ever have.
E-A-G-L-E-S EAGLES!
55: that is some funny, funny shit. i laughed out loud. thanks.
G-H-A-N-A GHANA!!!
With all this focus on UofC's policy, I'm surprised that UMich's policy hasn't been discussed/criticized. My understanding is that wifi access at UMich is turned off based on the students schedule (so even if you skip class you can't get online). I think it's been this way for a few years.
What does the Ghana comment mean?
At Cornell, we don't have internet in our classrooms, and I think it is a great idea. Perhaps I would be a little less thrilled if I started with internet and had it taken away halfway through law school though....
For those of you whose internet access is shut off in the classrooms: how does this work? Assuming there is wireless access in other areas of the school, how can you keep the wireless signal limited to areas outside of classrooms? And what about students who want to study in a classroom when class isn't being held?
If law schools are going to continue to treat their students like elementary school children, we should at least get a real recess and some sort of snack break involving those little milk cartons. When did it become okay to treat adults in graduate school like 6-year-olds? Why do students - the people shelling out the big bucks to be there - put up with it?
84, killself
I taught as an adjunct up until about 2 years ago and almost all of the students in class had laptops. I didn't mind. I got very good reviews from the students year after year and most of my students did very well in my class. Surfing the web didn't seem to be any more distracting than reading newspapers, doing crosswords or playing a-hole bingo -- the major in-class distractions in my day. Besides, one day while telling one of my war stories, one of my students actually looked up the guy who was my opposing counsel and shared his cheesy website with the rest of the class, proving that I wasn't just making it all up as I was going along. The class got a big laugh out of it and it made the lecture that day particularly memorable.
I taught as an adjunct up until about 2 years ago and almost all of the students in class had laptops. I didn't mind. I got very good reviews from the students year after year and most of my students did very well in my class. Surfing the web didn't seem to be any more distracting than reading newspapers, doing crosswords or playing a-hole bingo -- the major in-class distractions in my day. Besides, one day while telling one of my war stories, one of my students actually looked up the guy who was my opposing counsel and shared his cheesy website with the rest of the class, proving that I wasn't just making it all up as I was going along. The class got a big laugh out of it and it made the lecture that day particularly memorable.
What an apt title, "The War on Laptops". It's as if the laptops are the bad guys that prevent law students from learning the law when it's bad profs who can't teach that's the problem. Maybe, if you taught better and didn't go on irrelevant tangents and actually taught, most students would actually pay attention. Think about law schools before you take us back into the Stone Age or the early '90s when there was no Wifi. I bet this is a all a conspiracy by old guard profs who want us to revert back to the Stone Age.
advice to profs/lecturers/law schools: (1) try not sucking and maybe students will listen to you (2) and, um, try using the internets rather than being a bunch of whiny, scared little luddite bee-yatches.
-Future Dwight