That being said, the issue of the distractability of personal devices, including laptops, tablets and cell phones, is one that has become a frequent topic of discussion among educators. Knowing how easily I am distracted in the presence of these devices, it is not surprising that many educators have banned them from their classrooms. My current situation provides me the great fortune (?) of multiple perspectives on this issue: that of student, teacher, and parent.
My attitude from the student standpoint is twofold. First, I know myself well enough to know that using a laptop to take notes would not be effective for me. I have a very specific method for note taking, and while the computer might be useful to help me organize after the fact, I like to have the ability to write in the margins, draw arrows, and make other types of notations that would be difficult to make on a computer. Second, I know that during any real or perceived lull, I would be tempted to be off task and use the device for some other purpose. Am I likely to be browsing Facebook? Probably not. But it wouldn't be a surprise if I were using it to play spider solitaire or scrabble. These days, all my coursework as a student is on line, so the temptation is not there, but at a recent faculty in-service, the speaker was so dry that I sat, unabashedly (though pretty far in the back), and played games on my cell phone.
From the perspective of a teacher, I am fairly open to allowing students to use laptops. I'll admit, though, that the courses I teach do not require extensive note taking. In a matter of two or three class sessions, my students are aware that there is no real need for one and they tend to stop bringing theirs to class (or taking them out). Since I teach at a community college and my class sizes are small, I also learn all my student's names, and I call them out when I see them using their devices inappropriately. Having had my share of disruptive students when I taught high school, I can also appreciate that tablets or computers might at least prevent some students from being troublesome. I sometimes see my students texting under their desks or in their laps or using their phones somewhat furtively. I generally ignore them, and find that their classmates give them plenty of dirty looks for being rude and disrespectful. I sometimes comment on it, especially when there is some clear task that they are supposed to be working on. I have mentioned this in other posts, but I am fortunate (this semester anyway) to have all my classes in a special tech room that has both an inner U shape of tables for 20 students and an outer perimeter of computers. This setup is ideal because I can easily send students to computers when necessary and pull them back when they're not. This type of classroom should be the standard.
As a parent, my views get a little fuzzier about laptops and tablets in the classroom. My children are in second and fourth grades and I am adamantly opposed to electronics as a matter of course. Partially this is because I want them to be learning in a hands-on manner, and they are. Also, I know how easily they are distracted. But these is no denying that tablets especially are hands-on devices. Is there a difference between completing a math worksheet and working the same problems on a tablet? I'm not sure. The research that exists supports both perspectives.
This past spring, an article in the Atlantic Monthly titled "To Remember a Lecture Better, Take Notes by Hand" chronicled Princeton graduate student Pam Mueller who makes an interesting discovery when she forgets her laptop and has to take notes by hand. She knows she must take excellent notes because she is the teaching assistant for the course and will be sharing her notes with others. In June, she co-published the findings of the research she conducted with the professor from that course in an article titled "The Pen is Mightier than the Keyboard." The gist of the findings is this: when we take notes with a computer, we are more likely to simply transcribe the lecture, word for word. When we take notes by hand, we are more likely to process the information as we write and listen so that what we have on our paper is not a transcription, but a fusion of listening and understanding. This is found on Bloom's taxonomy as students leap from knowledge to synthesis. It is the kind of critical thinking that we want for students.
Putting aside the pedagogy and best practices of the lecture as a teaching method, it is no surprise to me that, given the task of note taking, pen on paper is better than keyboard. My own personal experience supports this in many other settings as well, including solving math problems, revising papers, and conducting experiments.
A final caveat is that I do not contend that there is no place in the classroom for these devices. With careful planning and use, they should be excellent support tools in the classroom.
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