Laptops in class?

Simple answer to this question: yes.  There are many benefits to using laptops. I won’t list them here.  However, maybe it's better for me to say that I support the idea that students should be able to choose what type of notes they will take but also that students should know the arguments for and against laptops in the university classroom.

When I first came to Redeemer in the fall of 2008, I was struck by the fact that every professor in each of my classes mentioned something about taking notes with a laptop.  The serious talk about consequences for being caught doing something other then note taking and sitting only in the first two rows annoyed me greatly.  As a transfer student from another institution, the only time I ever heard a professor mention lap tops was in my French course where the French department’s laptop ban was in effect.  Even then, there was no discussion as to why this was prohibited or consequences for having a laptop. I quickly shrugged off all the ‘laptop talk’ at Redeemer as some sort of attempt to try and tightly control a university classroom.  Defiant, I came to each class with my laptop in tow and sat in the rows where laptops where allowed.

When I look back at my response to the ‘laptop talk’, I find it kind of humourous because this year my note taking habits have changed a great deal.  I have shifted from only taking notes on my laptop to writing almost all my notes by hand.  (I take my laptop to one class where I am a note taker for other persons. I considered switching to the ‘special paper’ but decided against for various reasons).

Why did I change my mind about the whole lap top thing?  Looking back, I am not sure what caused the shift.  It seems to me that I am much more mentally present in a class when I take my notes by hand.  My hand written notes are perhaps less detailed, but I find that when I look over them I recall a great deal more about what the professor was trying to point out in the lecture compared to when I read over my word processed notes.  I guess one could say there is less on the paper compared to what would be on the screen, but more connections with the material in my mind.  I’m sure there are lots of studies that talk about why this could be.  The point that I am trying to make is this: I should not have been so quick to shrug off what the professors were trying to explain through the ‘laptops in my class talk’.

Perhaps some readers are thinking that I was just influenced into the whole ‘handwritten notes movement’ after hearing about it so much?  I would like to think that is not the case.  Last semester, my grade point average rose slightly.  I don’t believe it’s possible to definitively prove a correlation with my average rising and my switch to hand written notes.  There are probably a zillion other relevant factors to take into consideration, such as comfort level at this school, experience as a student, etc...  But perhaps the switch to handwritten notes was one of the contributing factors to this positive increase?

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