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The Wireless Future -- Professors Vie With Web for Class's Attention
From: Dave Farber <dave () farber net>
Date: Thu, 02 Jan 2003 04:52:51 -0500
------ Forwarded Message From: "the terminal of Geoff Goodfellow" <geoff () iconia com> Date: Thu, 2 Jan 2003 10:51:55 +0100 To: "Dave E-mail Pamphleteer Farber" <farber () cis upenn edu> Subject: The Wireless Future -- Professors Vie With Web for Class's Attention Professors Vie With Web for Class's Attention By JOHN SCHWARTZ The New York Times Universities are rushing toward a wireless future, installing networks that let students and the faculty surf the Internet from laptop computers in the classroom, in the library or by those ponds that always seem to show up on the cover of the campus brochure. But professors say the technology poses a growing challenge for them: retaining their students' attention. In a classroom at American University in Washington on a recent afternoon, the benefits and drawbacks of the new wireless world were on display. From the back row of an amphitheater classroom, more than a dozen laptop screens were visible. As Prof. Jay Mallek lectured graduate students on the finer points of creating and reading an office budget, many students went online to Blackboard.com, a Web site that stores course materials, and grabbed the day's handouts from the ether. But just as many students were off surfing. A young man looked at sports photos while a woman checked out baby photos that just arrived in her e-mailbox. --snip-- One professor at a law school in Texas became so upset by the level of student distraction in 2001 that he took a ladder to school, climbed up to reach the wireless transmitter in his classroom and disconnected it. The students protested. The administration told him to plug it back in. But the point was made, he said, and he regained the attention of the class. In 2002, he told his students that they could not use laptops in his class at all, even for taking notes. "It has made an enormously positive difference to shut those computers off," he said. --snip-- http://www.nytimes.com/2003/01/02/technology/02WIRE.html?pagewanted=all =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- geoff.goodfellow () iconia com * Prague - CZ * telephone +420 603 706 558 "success is getting what you want & happiness is wanting what you get" http://www.nytimes.com/library/tech/99/01/biztech/articles/17drop.html http://www.tapsns.com/members-bio/geoff-goodfellow.shtml ------ End of Forwarded Message ------------------------------------- You are subscribed as interesting-people () lists elistx com To unsubscribe or update your address, click http://v2.listbox.com/member/?listname=ip Archives at: http://www.interesting-people.org/archives/interesting-people/
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- The Wireless Future -- Professors Vie With Web for Class's Attention Dave Farber (Jan 02)