The Hindu Business Line : Laptop in the classroom

In an era when human beings are pitted against the computer all the time, the question before educationists today is whether a laptop is necessary in the classroom.

Last month, the New York Times carried an article depicting the dilemma of teachers in wired universities where laptops were allowed in classes.

Describing the scene at American University in Washington, it said, "From the back row, more than a dozen laptop screens were visible. As Prof. Jay Mallek lectured graduate students on the finer points of creating and reading an office budget, many students went online to Blackboard.com, a Web site that stores course materials, and grabbed the day's handouts from the ether. But just as many students were off surfing. A young man looked at sports photos while a woman checked out baby photos that just arrived in her e-mailbox."

Though distraction in the classroom is nothing new, the laptop provides yet another opportunity for diversion, says the article. As expected, most Professors are seeing red. "This is an addictive thing that hurts the students themselves. When you see 25 percent of the screens playing solitaire, besides it's being distracting, you feel like a sucker for paying attention," said an irritated Ian Ayres, a professor at the Yale Law School. He added that unless law students were fully engaged in the class, they would not develop critical thinking skills so necessary in a courtroom. But, of late, he allows surfing in class, but only from the back rows, so that other students will not get distracted.

The article also cites the instance of another professor in Texas, who actually got hold of a ladder, reached the wireless transmitter and disconnected it! "It has made an enormously positive difference to shut those computers off," was his triumphant comment to the newspaper.

Most Indian institutions, including our IIMs, don't allow use of laptops in the classroom. Abraham Koshy, Professor of Marketing at IIM, Ahmedabad, says that while there is no facility to plug in computers in classrooms, each classroom has a computer with Internet/intranet connectivity and the facility is available to the faculty and the students.

All the students have Internet connectivity in their rooms. On joining each student has to buy a PC or laptop, as compulsory course material. With this facility in their rooms, allowing laptops in classrooms might not serve any purpose, he says. "The purpose of the class is to discuss, learn from each other and debate relevant points. I don't know what additional help a laptop can provide when a 70-75 minute class session is on."

But, he concedes, it has become fashionable to say that the institute allows students to carry their own laptops, get connected and surf on the Net, presumably in search of relevant information during class time.

"I wonder what the Professor is supposed to be doing in the class at this time! A friend of mine who teaches in an Institute in India, where laptops are allowed, more as proof of sterling academic standards, told me he was miserable with this practice. He found many students scanning the Net to complete their assignments for another course, while he was trying to generate a discussion in class."

Unfortunately this professor's strict instructions to his students to refrain from "the diversions of laptop-learning resulted in an unpleasant relationships with them."

This teacher has now learnt to view the class relationship differently and had this bitter comment to make to Koshy, "I now go to the class and perform my `cabaret dance'; if they want to watch, then let them. If they don't, that too is OK with me. I am now least bothered as to whether they learn or not."

Koshy is on the faculty of the European School of Management in Paris and there too laptops are not allowed in classrooms. "I do not think that not having laptops in classrooms impedes learning in any way. Technology is a great facilitator of learning but could be a disaster if used wrongly. The concept of a laptop as a fashionable tool is different from laptop as facilitator of learning."

Ashrafi S. Bhagat, Head, Department of Fine Arts in Stella Maris College, Chennai, is scathing in her criticism of "desensitising elements in the classroom environment called laptops."

At the risk of "sounding like a dinosaur", she says that such practices are "terrorising the world. Within the classroom, when students have laptop screens flashing images before them, where is the personal empathy of the student with the teacher? I feel that is precisely the disengagement on the human level that has created terrorists. After all the 9/11 attacks came from students, she says.

She feels that in her art classes, where the co-ordination of the hand and the eye works most effectively, "it also makes relationship between the teacher and the student more human and sympathetic. It has always been my strategy not to allow the mediating mechanism — the mouse — to come between the student and my teaching in practical design classes. I emphatically stress on skill development through the use of hand. For what is a mouse after all? Only a means to an end and definitely not an end."

So much for teacherspeak. On the other side of the divide, Gunjan Khetan, a second year PG student at IIM, Ahmedabad, welcomes the idea of a storehouse of information available to students at a mere click of the mouse. "But both responsibility and sensibility are required when you allow students to carry laptops to class," he says.

If the students are motivated enough not to misuse this facility and the "lecturer interesting enough to capture the attention of students, the idea would be a hit. But obviously the teacher would need a greater acceptance of technology."

But he does concede that there is a probability of such freedom being misused with students using the laptops during dull classes for sending e-mail messages, forwarding jokes and the like. Khetan touches upon a crucial aspect of teacher-student relationship when he says that with respect for teachers being greater in the East compared to the West, students here would be less likely to antagonise their teachers.

"I think a mutually acceptable practice would be for the students and the teachers to joinly access certain academic sites in the classroom."

But, adds Khetan, at his IIM, "I don't think this is required as our professors are highly qualified, and the best way to pay them respect is to listen to them and participate in meaty discussions in the classroom. This would be hampered by the presence of laptops in the classroom. A 70-minute class in IIM-A is power packed with information and I don't feel a very compelling reason to revert to the Net for any information. Anyway, if I need a post-class perspective on a burning issue, I have access to the Net in my dormitory."

P.V. Indiresan, former Director of IIT, Madras, says that knowledge comprises two parts — theory and practice, "or its science and its art. The former can be learnt by self-study. All advances are made that way.

On the other hand, art is learnt best by direct contact with a teacher. You cannot even acquire the skill to iron a shirt by reading a book; it has to be taught or learnt by observation. In particular, fine arts like music, dance or painting need gurus. That is why the best artists are disciples, not university graduates!"

He adds that no teacher can compete with vast store of information a computer can give. "But the ability to select the most apt information is something else. Too much information can clog the mind. When printing was invented in the 15th century, teachers must have felt as they do today vis-à-vis the computer... that there would be no further need for teachers. But we know that both the teachers and books have flourished, and the demand for teachers has actually increased."

Indiresan says that the same story is likely to repeat again. "In course of time, computers and teachers will learn to live together, and prosper as never before."

Coming to the human interface between teachers and students, he says with a smile, "Like stage actors, teachers need audience response. Without that, teaching is no fun. We live in an age where discipline is a dirty word. Unfortunately, learning does not come without discipline — unless one is a prodigy. Most students think they have understood but when the test comes, they realise they haven't. So they bring pressure to lower standards! Great musicians practice elementary scales for hours every day — that is why they are great. Good students slog. They know the difference between hearing and listening and absorbing. It appears to me that the computer is like the book — a most useful device but not a complete substitute to a good teacher."

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