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"Luddites, paternalistic, or, worse, boring instructors who blame the Internet for their pedagogical shortcomings" ... lawprofs who ban laptops.

The Chronicle of Higher Education addresses the subject. (With some quotes from me.)

Their comment section is over here. I like the second one, from "Wilford Brimley":

You young whippersnappers with your newfangled folding computers?what a waste of time reading that facebook. Why, in my day we didn?t have such nonsensical tomfoolery, we couldn?t count but to 20 cause that?s all the fingers and toes we had. And the only people surfin was them pretty boys in Californy. Ahhh, flibbity gibbit.

The article ends with a quote from Harvard Business School prof John Deighton: "Ultimately the only way to ensure that a class member is not on the Web is to conduct an engaging class." That reminds me of one of the things I said that was not used: Make understanding of what was said in class crucial to doing well on the exam. Students are not motivated only by what happens to interest them.

ADDED: Law students deprived of laptops can't surf the web ? or, wait, actually they can ? but what are you going to do about jurors doing sudoku? Call a mistrial?

Full post as published by Althouse on June 11, 2008 (boomark / email).