Wireless in the Classroom: Part2,376
Laptops andteaching value is a fav topic at Laptopical, in large partbecause it is fast becoming a real issue in the educationalworld.
Laptops andteaching value is a fav topic at Laptopical, in large partbecause it is fast becoming a real issue in the educationalworld. Many teachers are out there improvising and innovatingwith notebooks on university campuses and in high schoolhallways. But many more teachers are terrified of wirelesslaptops. We came across an interesting discourse on thisdichotomy-big words to show off for any professors perhapsreading this-on a Web site for Southern Connecticut University,or SCTU.
The Englishdepartment there had formed a tech committee a few years back tofight an administration push to teach courses online. That pushnever materialized, and instead the committee became a majorsupporter of professors who were experimenting with computers inthe classroom.
The author of the piece, Bob McEachern, who teaches technicalwriting at SCTU, also goes into great detail about the fourexperiences he's had using Wi-Fi enabled notebooks in classrooms,going all the way back to 1991.
The right way is to use laptops, he says, to promote interactionbetween the students, and between the students and the teacher.The bad way is to seal off students at computer terminals, withtheir backs to each other and their brains locked. Wirelesslaptops, he says, are nothing but the right way, allowingstudents to sit in groups, talk and type, and allowing theteacher to set up a teaching environment basically any way shefeels fit.
Plus, Wi-Fi notebooks have a high Technology Cool Factor, he adds, thateven nerdy literature professors can appreciate. Studentsdefinitely will. Kids now have been practically using wirelesstechnology their whole lives-so NOT letting them use it in theclassroom would be almost as bad as taking away their cell phonesand forcing them to dial on an old rotary phone.
