1. I actually don't think having laptops in class makes students any less likely to take notes or any more likely to do alternative activities in class. There are lots of things you can do quite well in a notebook: homework for other courses, writing love letters or birthday cards, the crossword puzzle, drawing pictures, passing notes to your friends, playing tic tac toe with the person next to you, taking a nap, etc. It just makes it easier for us as faculty to spy on these alternate activities. Our students are adults (or at least should be treated as such); as long as they are not disrupting the ability of other students to learn, let them screw themselves if they want to. And if they can do very well while playing solitare in the classroom? More power to them, or change your course requirements so that they need to pay attention. (One other note--the biggest problem is actually WiFi in the classroom. Shopping is much more likely to make students unaple to listen to the lecture than playin g solitare is).
2. As someone who had to use a laptop to take notes as an undergraduate due to a physical disability at a time before it was common for students to bring them to class, I experienced considerable stigma for doing so. I think that it is ethically irresponsible for us to increase the stigma that students with physical and learning disabilities face simply so that we can act in loco parentis to other students. If you have a policy of no laptops except for those with disabilities, then everyone in the classroom immediately knows that all students with laptops HAVE disabilities. And as for the previous poster who has a policy allowing laptops for those with learning disabilities, I would point out that the rest of your class will now be assuming that every student with a physical disability in fact has a learning disability. Are these the lessons that we as sociologists want to teach? That people with disabilities should stand out and be noticed and stigmatized? Mikaila Mariel Lemonik Arthur New York University and Queens College, CUNY
