My colleague, Alissa Burstein, brought this New York Times article to my attention, asking how it might apply in day school classrooms, many of which are moving to full-time tablet and laptop use:
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Leave Your Laptops at the Door to My Classroom
Darren Rosenblum
When I started teaching, I assumed my “fun†class, sexuality and the law, full of contemporary controversy, would prove gripping to the students. One day, I provoked them with a point against marriage equality, and the response was a slew of laptops staring back. The screens seemed to block our classroom connection. Then, observing a senior colleague’s contracts class, I spied one student shopping for half the class. Another was surfing Facebook. Both took notes when my colleague spoke, but resumed the rest of their lives instead of listening to classmates.
Laptops at best reduce education to the clackety-clack of transcribing lectures on shiny screens and, at worst, provide students with a constant escape from whatever is hard, challenging or uncomfortable about learning. And yet, education requires constant interaction in which professor and students are fully present for an exchange.
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www.nytimes.com]
