Computers in Class

September 7, 2004

Expect light blogging this week as I am still discombobulated without my Mac (although I have gotten the Dell set up to my liking, it is still older and slower.)

On the other hand, this may be a bit of a blessing in disguise. In law school classes, the laptop reigns supreme as note-taking device of the masses. However, the lack of a light laptop has forced me to take notes in class using the ever-reliable pen and paper. (Yes, I could drag the Dell around, but it is a heavy computer and I am a lazy, lazy man.) However, I tend to take better class notes using a pen and paper. Perhaps this is due to the fact that I can not write nearly as fast or as legibly as I type. The value of these notes may be questionable because I may not be able to read them.

The other advantage of going back to the traditional pen and paper is having 5 fewer pounds of electronics to schlep around.

Jeremy Blachman is giving up using the laptop in-class in order to avoid the distractions of font colors and wireless internet, "that demon creature created by the devil of anti-productivity."

Of course, for WiFi to work as a force of anti-productivity, it needs to work. In our classrooms, the odds of it working are less than perfect. The lack of high-tech distractions doesn't prevent the odd daydream, idle thought or one's neighbor's freecell game from disrupting one's concentration.