“Could you repeat the question?”

As most of you know, Korea International School (KIS) is a 1:1 laptop school where every student in grades 6-12 must own his or her own personal laptops and bring it to class everyday. The purpose of this program is to get students ready for the technological world of the 21st century. However, are laptops being served as they are supposed to be? David Cole, a professor at Georgetown University recently banned laptops from being used in his class for two major reasons. First of all, taking notes using your laptops allows notes to be taken verbatim, whereas if one were to write using classic paper and pencil, he or she would not have enough time thus prioritize the most important themes while taking notes. Second of all, using laptops is almost equivalent as giving a student magazines, games, shopping malls, e-mails, and instant messaging and not supervising. Whenever Mr.Cole posed a question, the majority of the reply would be “Could you repeat the question?” and students return to gazing at their computer screens as soon as the question is answered. David Cole conducted a survey to see how the students were using their laptops, and the results were striking.

“The results were striking. About 80 percent reported that they are more engaged in class discussion when they are laptop-free. Seventy percent said that, on balance, they liked the no-laptop policy. And perhaps most surprising, 95 percent admitted that they use their laptops in class for “purposes other than taking notes, such as surfing the Web, checking e-mail, instant messaging and the like.” Ninety-eight percent reported seeing fellow students do the same.”

This makes me ask: are laptops really helping us get prepared or are they just subtle obstacles that prevent us from academically succeeding?

*I was inspired to write this after reading an article on Washingtonpost.com, Laptops VS Learning by David Cole.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/04/06/AR2007040601544.html

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