Banning laptops in the classroom: Is it worth the hassles?

Journal of Legal Education

Volumn 57, Issue 4, 2007, Pages 477-520

  Yamamoto, Kevin ^a  

^a South Texas College of Law   (United States)

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EID: 47849104577     PISSN: 00222208     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: None     Document Type: Review

References (194)

1. See, e.g., David Cole, Laptops vs. Learning, Wash. Post, Apr. 7, 2007, at A13 (a Georgetown University law professor reporting that this is "the most common response" to his questions).
2. See Lorenzo A. Trujillo, The Relationship between Law School and the Bar Exam: A Look at Assessment and Student Success, 78 U. Colo. L. Rev. 69, 73 (2007) (noting that "the introduction of laptops in the classroom coincides with the national decline in bar passage rates").
3. See infra text accompanying note 152.
4. Even though I teach book problems, I still use the Socratic Method since the students provide the analysis and answers to the problems with my questions being the guide. See, e.g., Douglas L. Leslie, How Not to Teach Contracts, and Any Other Course: PowerPoint, Laptops, and the CaseFile Method, 44 St. Louis U. L. J. 1289, 1297 (2000).
5. The Socratic Method has been criticized, with at least one article calling into question the ethics of using it as a teaching method in law school. See Debra Moss Curtis, Everything I Wanted to Know About Teaching Law School I Learned From Being a Kindergarten Teacher: Ethics in the Law School Classroom, 2006 BYU Educ. & L.J. 455, 481-82 (Socratic Method is unethical if it hampers learning and does not demonstrate skills needed when students actually begin their practice of law.).
6. See David M. Becker, Some Concerns About the Future of Legal Education, 51 J. Legal Educ. 469, 474 (2001) (commenting that "anyone who has ever struggled with this knows that real learning of skills is accomplished experientially: one acquires problem-solving skills only by attempting to perform them").
7. The Luddites were a group of early nineteenth century workers who protested new textile techniques by destroying the machinery because they thought it would cost them jobs. Merriam Webster's Collegiate Dictionary (10th ed., Springfield, Mass., 1998). Banning laptops may be considered by some a similar rage against the machine.
8. Others who have looked at the adoption of technology place individuals in one of five groups depending on how quickly they adopt new technology: (1) innovators (the first 3 percent of those who adopt new technology), (2) early adopters (the next 10 percent), (3) early majority (the next 35 percent who adopt after the technology shows a benefit to teaching and student learning), (4) late majority (the next 35 percent, most of whom were skeptical of the new technology), and (5) laggards (the final 17 percent and those who may oppose the technology's initial implementation). Mark Hall and Kevin M. Elliott, Diffusion of Technology into the Teaching Process: Strategies to Encourage Faculty Members to Embrace the Laptop Environment, 78 J. Educ. Bus. 301, 302 (2003). Except for the use of PowerPoint, I would consider myself an "early adopter." See infra note 10 discussing PowerPoint.
9. In 1996 Westlaw started TWEN ("The Westlaw Education Network"). An instructor can post the course syllabus, have a discussion board, keep a course calendar, provide quizzes, and create a class e-mail list on TWEN. Lexis/Nexis has a similar system called "Web Courses." TWEN allows for the creation of e-mail lists to communicate with a class. The only difficulty is that students must sign-up and correctly input their e-mail address. Typically in any given semester that I use TWEN, several students do not sign-up and many put in an incorrect e-mail address. In the spring 2007 semester, South Texas College of Law switched to its own portal called "STANLEY" which creates a class e-mail list. Since STANLEY creates the e-mail list TWEN is no longer necessary to do the same task. One author stated that e-mail's impersonal nature poses the "greatest threat to teaching law" since it removes the motivation of face-to-face contact between teacher and student. Robert H. Thomas, "Hey, Did You Get My E-Mail?" Reflections of a Retro-Grouch in the Computer Age of Legal Education, 44 J. Legal Educ. 233, 242 (1994).
10. See also Becker, Some Concerns about the Future of Legal Education, supra note 5, at 483 (The loss of face-to-face communication with students means professors miss an opportunity to be a part of one of the primary joys of teaching, watching students learn.). However, one study looking at undergraduate students found that laptops fostered a sense of community because faculty and students communicated using the Internet (e-mail, IMs). Ada Demb, Darlene Erickson, and Shane Hawkins-Wilding, The Laptop Alternative: Student Reactions and Strategic Implications, 43 Computers & Educ. 383, 384 (2004).
11. Students at South Texas College of Law have had the ability to type their exams with their laptops using Examsoft© since approximately 2000. Before that time students could bring their own typewriters to type their exams, but few took the opportunity. One empirical study done at Brigham Young University's J. Reuben Clark Law School found students who typed their exams had a 0.1 advantage over those who wrote out their exams by hand. Kif Augustine-Adams, Suzanne B. Hendrix, and James R. Rasband, Pen or Printer: Can Students Afford to Handwrite Their Exams?, 51 J. Legal Educ. 118, 122, 128 (2001). A University of Michigan Law School student filed a lawsuit alleging that he was unfairly disadvantaged on exams since he was not a skilled touch typist.
12. See Ashby Jones, Slow Typist Sues His Law School, Wall St. J., available at 〈http://blogs.wsj.com/law/2007/01/26/slow-typist-sues-his-law-school/ 〉 (last visited Jan. 1, 2008).
13. I do not see how PowerPoint slides enhance student learning unless done perfectly. On the other hand, I see many negatives to their use in class. Primary among these are the students' over-reliance on the slides, and unless they are perfectly timed in the lecture, the slides cause more of a distraction as students struggle to incorporate the slide information with the class discussion. See Leslie, How Not to Teach Contracts, supra note 4, at 1304 (observing that in any class using the Power Point slides the students are totally focused on PowerPoint slide "like a first-grader focuses on Barney").
14. See also Clifford Stoll, High-Tech Heretic: Why Computers Don't Belong in the Classroom and Other Reflections by a Computer Contrarian 12 (New York, 1999) ("Imagine a boring slide show. Now add lots of generic, irrelevant, and pyrotechnic graphics. What have you got? A boring slide show, complete with irrelevant whiz-bang graphics."). I concede that done correctly, PowerPoint slides can be helpful.
15. This has been done at law schools where the institution does not have a computer lab or so the laptop cost can be included into the student's total educational costs for determining financial aid. See Vanderbilt University Frequently Asked Questions, available at 〈http://frontweb.vuse.vanderbilt. edu/vuse_web/transit/transITFQA.htm〉 (last visited Jan. 1, 2008) (stating that in the engineering program the cost of a laptop will be counted into financial need since the school requires its purchase). The University of Richmond School of Law started requiring laptops for all students in 1994 and reports it was the first law school with such a requirement. Law and Information Technology, available at 〈http://law.richmond.edu/librarytech/lawtech. php〉 (last visited Jan.1, 2008). Of the 195 ABA approved law schools, twenty-seven require students to own laptops. See Appendix 1. Another fifteen law schools "strongly recommend" that students own laptops. See Appendix 2. See also Joan MacLeod Heminway, Caught In (Or On) the Web: A Review of Course Management Systems For Legal Education, 16 Alb. L.J. Sci. & Tech. 265, 277 n.46 (2006) (listing additional law schools that require students purchase laptop computers).
16. The numbers of laptops in classrooms may be directly linked to access to the Internet. In 2003 South Texas College of Law installed wireless transmitters in the new library, and with the advent of better wireless cards the signal can be picked up in the classroom. Our classrooms are not Wi-Fi enabled.
17. Several articles have reviewed the benefits of having computers, both in legal and non-legal education. Those individuals looking at computers in legal education have focused on the computer's "efficiency and flexibility" to support their use in teaching law. See generally Paul F. Teich, How Effective Is Computer-Assisted Instruction? An Evaluation for Legal Educators, 41 J. Legal Educ. 489 (1991) (reviewing studies on the efficacy of computer-aided instruction and suggesting their use is beneficial in law school instruction). Other articles have stressed the positive effects of e-mail, newsgroups, and the like in aiding student-professor communication.
18. See generally Iain Murray, Student Power?, Am. Enterp., Oct.-Dec. 2005, at 57.
19. But see Becker, Some Concerns about the Future of Legal Education, supra note 5, at 483 (giving the opinion that the lack of face-to-face communication with students means you cannot watch students learn, which is part of the true joy of teaching).
20. See, e.g., Hall and Elliott, Diffusion of Technology, supra note 7, at 303 (finding the classroom environment is enhanced when "students go online and retrieve information"); Astrid Bradley, Profs See Laptops as Distraction, Useful Tool, The Dartmouth.com News, Feb. 16, 2007, available at 〈http://thedartmouth.com/2007/02/16/news/profs/〉 (last visited Jan. 1, 2008) (writing that some professors see laptops as a benefit since "they allow students to quickly look up supplemental information during lectures...[and] complete their understanding of ideas presented by a professor").
21. See infra text accompanying notes 104-06.
22. See, e.g., Eric Chen, Laptops Nixed in Some Law Classes: Profs Split on Whether the Devices are Bane or Boon for Learning, Daily Penn., Apr. 13, 2006 (quoting University of Pennsylvania law professor Anita Allen as saying, "A professor should be able to compete with a stupid machine. If you are good, people will listen to you."); Victoria Rivkin, Solitaire, Anyone?, Student Lawyer, Nov. 2001, at 21, 23 (technology is "driving faculty to be more engaging");
23. John Schwartz, Professors Vie with Web for Class's Attention, N.Y. Times, Jan. 2, 2003, at A1 (Professor Jay Mallek of American University Law School sees the Internet as a "challenge to keep lectures interesting and lively").
24. Personally I have difficulty with the basic premise here that learning should be fun and entertaining. As one author noted when commenting on computers in the classroom, learning takes work, discipline, commitment from both teacher and student, and responsibility. Stoll, High-Tech Heretic, supra note 10, at 12. The "payoff [in learning] isn't an adrenaline rush, but a deep satisfaction arriving weeks, months, or years later." Id.
25. See Rivkin, Solitaire, Anyone?, supra note 16, at 24; Ellen Granberg and James Witte, Teaching with Laptops for the First Time: Lessons from a Social Science Classroom, New Directions for Teaching and Learning, Spring 2005, at 51, 53 (claiming instant messaging as beneficial since it allowed students to ask questions of others without talking).
26. See Ann Althouse, Let's Encourage Students to IM in the Law School Classroom (Apr. 12, 2005), available at 〈http://althouse.blogspot.com/2005/ 04/lets-encourage-students-to-im-in-law.html〉 (last visited Jan. 1, 2008).
27. But see Curtis, Everything I Wanted to Know About Teaching Law School, supra note 4, at 485 (Instant Messages are used to "feed" the answers to the student on-call.).
28. See, e.g., Cole, Laptops vs. Learning, supra note 1, at A13 (Cole's colleagues accused him of being "paternalistic, authoritarian or worse" for thinking of banning laptops.).
29. See Tracy McGaugh, Laptops in the Classroom: Pondering the Possibilities, 14 Perspectives: Teaching Legal Res. & Writing 163, 165 (2006).
30. See Catherine Ross Dunham, Stretching Toward the Future: A View of Laptop Computers from Both Sides of the Screen, The Law Teacher 1, 3 (Spring 2007) (commenting that "[b]anning laptops from the classroom is like holding back the river with a levee of sandbags - it's just a matter of time").
31. For example, Chicago-Kent required computers to better prepare its students to practice in a field that is becoming dependent on technology. Richard A. Matasar and Rosemary Shiels, Electronic Law Students: Repercussions on Legal Education, 29 Val. U. L. Rev. 909 (1995).
32. See Jonathan S. Greene, Coping, Student Lawyer, Mar. 2004, at 14-15.
33. See Cole, Laptops vs. Learning, supra note 1, at A13. Cole banned laptops because students with laptops were less engaged, transcribing lectures without processing the information, and distracted. Id.
34. Harvard Law School contemplated a complete ban on laptops in the classroom but never did so. See Cristina Silva, Some Colleges Crack Down on Laptop Use in Classroom, Boston Globe, June 10, 2006, at B1. At least three professors have reported eliminating laptops in their classrooms. Bruce Hay banned laptops because of the distraction they caused and their effects on class discussion.
35. See Marie Szaniszlo, Harvard Profs Lay Down Law: No Laptops in Class, Boston Herald, June 4, 2006, at News 6. Professor Carol Steiker did so for the same reasons. See Silva, supra, at B1. Elizabeth Warren banned laptops because she felt students were not thinking about the class discussion and were just transcribing the material.
36. See Paras D. Bhayani, HLS Debates Laptops in Class, Harv. Crimson, Apr. 11, 2006, available at 〈http://www.thecrimson.com/article.aspx?ref= 512622〉 (last visited Jan. 1, 2008).
37. Visiting Professor Cynthia Estlund banned laptops because of the lack of student engagement and students' use of laptops to take stenographic notes. E-mail from Cynthia Estlund, Professor, New York University School of Law, to Kevin Yamamoto, Professor, South Texas College of Law (Aug. 13, 2007, 8:24 p.m. CST) (on file with author). The experience went so well, she writes, that she is "not only a convert but an evangelist" of banning laptops in classrooms. Id.
38. Rutgers School of Law Professor Sherry Colb banned laptops because of the distraction they caused and their effect on class discussion due to students typing verbatim and not engaging themselves in class. See Sherry E Colb, Taking Notes Without a Computer: How Laptops Distract From Classroom Learning, FindLaw, Sept. 6, 2006, available at 〈http://writ.news.findlaw.com/colb/20060906. html〉 (last visited Jan. 1, 2008).
39. June Entman banned laptops to increase student participation and eye contact. See Brock Read, A Law Professor Bans Laptops From the Classroom, Chron. Higher Educ, Apr. 7, 2006, at A43. Her class did not take the ban well. See infra text accompanying notes 33-36 discussing the students' response to Entman's laptop ban.
40. Charles W. Mooney, Jr. banned laptops due to the distractions they cause. See Kathy Matheson, More Professors Ban Laptops in Class, Assoc. Press, May 3, 2006, available at 〈http://www.boston.com/business/technology/articles/ 2006/05/03/more_professors_ban_laptops_in_class?mode=PF〉 (last visited Apr. 7, 2007) (students playing games on their computers led to the ban); MSNBC, More Professors Ban Laptops in Class, available at 〈http://www.msnbc.msn. com/id/12609580/〉 (last visited on Mar. 13, 2007) (reporting on Mooney's "experiment" to ban laptops from class). Jason Johnston is reported to never have allowed laptops in his classroom. See Chen, Laptops Nixed in Some Law Classes, supra note 16.
41. Calvin Johnson banned laptops, as did other faculty members at the University of Texas School of Law. See E-mail from Calvin Johnson, Professor of Law, University of Texas School of Law, to TaxProf Listserv (Sept. 19, 2006, 9:52:08 CST), available at 〈http://listserv.uc.edu/archives/taxprof. html〉 (last visited Nov. 27, 2007).
42. See, e.g., Kaleigh Dumbach, Columbia U. May Ban Laptops in Classroom, Am. Intell. Wire, Feb. 28, 2007 (town hall discussion between students and faculty regarding a comprehensive ban on laptops in classrooms); Carrie B. Fried, In-class Laptop Use and its Effects on Student Learning, 50 Computers & Educ. (forthcoming Jan. 26, 2008) (manuscript at i, on file with author) (reporting more professors are banning laptops "due to concerns about the negative impact they have on student learning"); Nate McGinnis, Instructors at U. Kansas Forbid Laptop Use in Classrooms, U. Wire, Aug. 30, 2006 (laptops not allowed in certain classes in the University of Kansas Schools of Journalism and Architecture, and in the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences).
43. See Read, A Law Professor Bans Laptops From the Classroom, supra note 29. The full text of Professor Entman's e-mail is posted on the Internet. See More on Laptops in Class, available at 〈http://www.orinkerr.com/2006/ 03/23/more-on-laptops-in-class/〉 (last visited Jan. 1, 2008). What is not reported is that the University of Memphis Law School installed Wi-Fi in the entire building during Professor Entman's sabbatical. Therefore when she returned to the classroom she found more students were using laptops and surfing the Internet than the year before. See Greg Laughlin, Associate Dean, University of Memphis Cecil C. Humphreys School of Law, Laptops in the Classroom: Pros and Cons, Comments at CALI Conference (June 16, 2006), available at 〈http://demo.apreso.com/acmcontent/1a0b551e-936f-4915-b7c5- d6412e0c7567/CALI_002_2006-06-15_04-00-PM_files/flash_index.htm〉 (last visited Jan. 1, 2008).
44. More on Laptops in Class, supra note 33.
45. See Read, A Law Professor Bans Laptops From the Classroom, supra note 29. The most current version of ABA Standard 704 reads, "[a] law school shall have the technological capacities that are adequate for both its current program of legal education and for program changes anticipated in the immediate future." ABA Section of Legal Educ. and Admissions to the Bar, 2007-2008 Standards and Rules of Procedure for Approval of Law Schools 48 (Chicago, 2007) (Standard 704).
46. See Jeffrey R. Young, The Fight for Classroom Attention: Professor vs. Laptop, Chron. Higher Educ, June 2, 2006, at A27.
47. As discussed infra at text accompanying note 155, the only negative response to the ban I instituted was on a student-run Internet discussion group. A front-page article ran in our student newspaper, but the article just described the ban and some other background information. Melanie Fordyce, Yamamoto: Leave Your Laptops at Home, Annotations, Oct. 2006, at 1 (on file with author).
48. See Bhayani, HLS Debates Laptops in Class, supra note 26; Colb, Taking Notes Without a Computer, supra note 28; Cole, Laptops vs. Learning, supra note 1; Matheson, More Professors Ban Laptops in Class, supra note 30.
49. See Bhayani, HLS Debates Laptops in Class, supra note 26 (Professor Warren at Harvard reported that students are more engaged in class); Colb, Taking Notes Without a Computer, supra note 28 (noticing after only two weeks student improvement in analytical reasoning); Matheson, More Professors Ban Laptops in Class, supra note 30.
50. Matheson, More Professors Ban Laptops in Class, supra note 30 (statement of University of Pennsylvania law professor Charles Mooney).
51. Professor Catherine Ross Dunham took a JD class and "observed that almost all students were doing some form of mental multi-tasking on their computers during class." Dunham, Stretching Toward the Future, supra note 22, at 1.
52. One of my students reported he has seen his fellow students doing non-class activities on their laptops "in every class I have attended." E-mail from Frank Chelly, former student, South Texas College of Law, to Kevin Yamamoto, Professor of Law, South Texas College of Law (Aug. 10, 2006, 4:04 p.m. CST) (on file with author). As for the number of students in any given class, Professor Don Herzog of the University of Michigan School of Law stated when he looked at a colleague's class at "any given moment...literally 85 to 90 percent of the students were online." Maia Ridberg, Professors Want Their Classes "Unwired," Christian Sci. Monitor, May 4, 2006, at 16; Young, The Fight for Classroom Attention, supra note 36. Others have reported the number of students doing other activities at some time during class at "only" 40 percent. See Colb, Taking Notes without a Computer, supra note 28.
53. See Curtis, Everything I Wanted to Know About Teaching Law School, supra note 4, at 485 (listing the types of distractions laptops bring to the classroom); Eric Finkelstein, Students, Professors Clash Over Laptops, Nat'l L. J., June 26, 2006, (one "unauthorized usage of laptops" included students checking e-mail during class);
54. Brian Kladko, Wireless Classrooms: Tool or Distraction?, The Record (Bergen County, N.J.), Apr. 16, 2005, at A1 (reporting on a visit to Rutgers (Newark) Law School Professor Sherry Colb's class discussed in note 28).
55. See Finkelstein, Students, Professors Clash Over Laptops, supra note 43 (part of the "unauthorized usage of laptops" included shopping); Kladko, Wireless Classrooms, supra note 43, at A1 (watched in class as students shopped on the Internet for clothes and other gifts); Ridberg, Professors Want Their Classes "Unwired," supra note 42, at 16 (students shopping for clothes at Eddie Bauer).
56. See Leslie, How Not to Teach Contracts, supra note 4, at 1305 (commenting that if you look from the back of any law classroom you will see a "non-trivial number of students are playing solitaire"); Finkelstein, Students, Professors Clash Over Laptops, supra note 43 (the "unauthorized usage of laptops" included playing games); Kladko, Wireless Classrooms, supra note 43, at A1 (watched in class as students played solitaire); David Marquez, Letter to the Editor, In Class, but Virtually Anywhere, N.Y. Times, Mar. 21, 2001, at A22 (law student commenting that laptop users play video games during class). In my evaluations, one student who commented positively about the laptop ban stated he/she did miss playing solitaire. Student Evaluations for Professor Kevin Yamamoto's Fall Semester 2006 Federal Income Taxation Class (on file with author).
57. See Leslie, How Not to Teach Contracts, supra note 4, at 1305 (students watching closed captioned movies on DVD).
58. See Peter Barnes, Classroom Disconnect, G4 (Jan. 28, 2003), 〈http://www.g4tv.com/techtvvault/features/41498/Classroom_Disconnect. html〉 (last visited Jan. 10, 2008) (student using the web during class to learn how to build a motorcycle); Kladko, Wireless Classrooms, supra note 43, at A1 (watched in class as students looked at various web sites); Ridberg, Professors Want Their Classes "Unwired," supra note 42, at 16 (students looking at New York Times and apartment hunting during class).
59. Harvard, Michigan, Stanford, UCLA, and Virginia Law Schools all have technology which allows instructors to turn off either the classroom Wi-Fi or block student access to the internet. See Ridberg, Professors Want Their Classes "Unwired," supra note 42, at 16 (ability to deny web access at Michigan, UCLA, and Virginia law schools); Rivkin, Solitaire, Anyone?, supra note 16, at 22 (instructors at Harvard and Stanford law schools can turn off Wi-Fi). The switch back to "dumb" classrooms is also occurring in business schools.
60. See Katherine S. Mangan, Business Schools, Fed Up with Internet Use During Classes, Force Students to Log Off, Chron. Higher Educ., Sept. 7, 2001, at A43.
61. University of Michigan law professor Don Herzog conceded this point. Herzog jokes he is "willing to compete with Minesweeper, but not with the entire Internet." University of Michigan Law School has since created a way to eliminate the use of the university's Wi-Fi network during class. Jodi S. Cohen, E-Slacking: It's Laptop over Lecture, Chi. Trib., July 18, 2006, at News 1. Georgetown University law professor David Cole points to the amount of competition on the web for students' attention as the reason why he banned laptops. Cole, Laptops vs. Learning, supra note 1, at A13.
62. But see infra text accompanying notes 125-44 (discussing how computers may harm student learning if students take verbatim notes).
63. "We have provided students with a multimedia contraption, a magic lantern and an unspoken challenge: do you have the strength to avoid 'amusing yourself to death,' ...and the courage to step around this self destructive aspect of the dark side." Ken Meierdiercks, The Dark Side of the Laptop University, J. Info. Ethics, Spring 2005, at 9.
64. Fried, In-class Laptop Use, supra note 32 (manuscript at 3) ("Because of the vertical orientation of laptops, they also pose more of a distraction to fellow students than traditional notebooks... . Thus, the cognitive interference posed by laptops could spread from users to those seated nearby."). Many of my student evaluations from the fall 2006 semester when I banned laptops noted this fact. The comments were: [#1] "I thought the lack of computers was a very good thing; less distraction;" [#2] "I enjoyed the absence of computers in the classroom. I personally do not use one in other classes and I find them to be a distraction in class. Someone in sight is always playing games or on the Internet in class;" [#3] "I also liked the no computer rule, it got rid of the distractions of people playing games and distracting me while I am trying to learn;" [#4] "Loved the no lap top because fewer distractions from people playing on the computer;" [#5] "They are a distraction to everyone, even the user;" [#6] "Not having computers overall was very helpful...lack of distraction because of games/email by other students was a blessing;" [#7] "The 'ban' made a nice atmosphere in class." Student Evaluations, supra note 45. A former student put the distraction caused by others this way: "[A laptop] distracts other students as well. While [I] should not be watching someone else['s] computer screen, if Zidane is showed head butting an Italian, my focus on the intricacies of section 1231 may be a little lost." E-mail from Chelly, supra note 42.
65. A new class of computers, Ultra-Mobile PCs (a.k.a. tablet computers) may rectify the problem of the vertical orientation of the screen. These computers are small and work like a notepad with the user inputting information by a stylus. See Walter S. Mossberg, This Time, Samsung Has Made a Tiny PC That's Practical to Use, Wall St. J., May 17, 2007, at B1 (discussing Samsung Q1 Ultra tablet computer).
66. One student commented that laptops are "one of those things where one student can ruin it for everyone." McGinnis, Instructors at U. Kansas Forbid Laptop Use in Classrooms, supra note 32. At a CALI (Computer-Assisted Legal Instruction) conference presentation on laptops in the classroom, Professor Michael Richmond told of a situation at Nova Southeastern University Law School where several students looked at pornography during class for the primary purpose of upsetting a female classmate who had "emotional problems." See Laughlin, Laptops in the Classroom, supra note 33.
67. Curtis, Everything I Wanted to Know About Teaching Law School, supra note 4, at 485 ("Ignoring the proliferation of distractions is equivalent to not managing the classroom, and thus constitutes unethical behavior."). However, Professor Curtis may not agree with banning computers from the classroom since she writes that reprimanding all students for the behavior of some is "mismanagement of the classroom and thus unethical." Id.
68. "Unless law students are fully engaged in the class...they miss out on the give and take of ideas in class discussion and do not develop the critical thinking skills that emerge from 'deeply tearing apart a case.'" Schwartz, Professor Vie with Web, supra note 16, at A1 (quoting Ayres). University of Pennsylvania law professor Jason Johnston agrees, stating, "In law school, everything is Socratic method," and law students "have to listen very carefully. Without laptops, it's easier to do that." Chen, Laptops Nixed in Some Law Classes, supra note 16.
69. "[S]tudents who surf are not fully present to ask or answer questions themselves." Ian Ayres, Lectures vs. Laptops, N.Y. Times, Mar. 20, 2001, at A25.
70. I did not realize how much information was being lost about the students' body language until I banned laptops and saw their faces, both engaged and bored, again.
71. This is monitoring the "classroom climate." See Genevieve Marie Johnson, Perception of Classroom Climate, Use of WebCT, and Academic Achievement, 17 J. Comp. Higher Educ. 25, 26 (2006). The classroom climate describes the learning environment a professor creates. Id. An instructor can control the classroom climate by "establishing and maintaining the nature of the learning environment in terms of competition, collaboration, and caring." Id. Even if a professor patrolled the classroom it would be difficult to police the use of laptops since students can change what they were looking at in an instant. See Kladko, Wireless Classrooms, supra note 43, at A1 (noting that pictures of Britney Spears can be "closed in an instant" by students).
72. This has been reported to me in student e-mails and evaluations. In an e-mail supporting the ban one student wrote, "Computers are often used to read directly from commercial outlines, case brief, etc." E-mail from Chelly, supra note 42. One of my evaluations also echoed the same sentiment: "Good idea to disallow laptops, it makes us pay attention and prevents us from cheating by looking at old outlines." Student Evaluations, supra note 45.
73. One article suggested ways to combat this problem besides banning laptops, such as "emphasiz[ing] Socratic discussion and analysis of hypotheticals over lecturing." See Richard Warner, Stephen D. Sowie, and Will Sadler, Teaching Law with Computers, 24 Rutgers Computer & Tech. L. J. 107, 140 (1998).
74. Colb relates that she prefers students to take notes by hand since she believes they listen more closely in class. After banning laptops she "noticed a higher level of reasoning" by her students. See Colb, Taking Notes Without a Computer, supra note 28.
75. Anne L. Fay, Impact of Laptop Computers on Students' Academic Lives 11 (Carnegie Mellon University, Eberly Center for Teaching Excellence, and Office of Technology for Education, Draft 2006), available at 〈http://www.cmu.edu/ teaching/resources/PublicationsArchives/StudiesWhitepapers/LaptopStudyReport- 2006.pdf〉 (last visited Jan. 10, 2008).
76. "Not having computers overall was very helpful. Professor seemed to be right on top of whether we were following him; lack of distraction because of games/email by other students was a blessing. I had to come up with a plan for note-taking, but overall, once I had that down, I preferred not having the computer. Space is limited anyway. I paid closer attention in class." Student Evaluations, supra note 45.
77. The laptop study completed at Carnegie Mellon University found students using laptops relied too much on their computers and found they constrained the students' ability to think independently. See Fay, Impact of Laptop Computers on Students' Academic Lives, supra note 63, at 11, 21. See also Brock Read, The Upside and Downside of Laptops in Education, Chron. Higher Educ, Dec. 8, 2006, at 28 (commenting on the Carnegie Mellon study).
78. See Leslie, How Not to Teach Contracts, supra note 4, at 1304 (describing a classroom at Virginia Law School where students started to play computer games the moment another student started to talk).
79. "Seeing the person in the next seat playing a video game while you are trying to puzzle out a law question is demoralizing." Ayres, Lectures vs. Laptops, supra note 57, at A25.
80. See Eric Finkelstein, No Logoff in Fight over Laptops in Class, Nat'l L. J., June 30, 2006, at 1 (commenting on the "angry typist" student who types loud enough to disrupt both student and professor);
81. see Sara Silver, Wired Classes Give Lesson in Interest of Students: Access to Web Can Turn Off Attention, Chi. Trib., Mar. 12, 2001, at D6 (noting that noisy keyboards can disrupt a class);
82. Warner et al., Teaching Law with Computers, supra note 61, at 140 (raising a concern that the noise from numerous students typing may distract the instructor and other students).
83. See Young, The Fight for Classroom Attention, supra note 36, at A27; Laptops Latest Classroom Time Waster, UPI News Track, Oct. 18, 2005, available at 〈http://www.upi.com/NewsTrack/Quirks/2005/10/18/ laptops_latest_classroom_time_waster/8880/〉 (last visited Jan. 10, 2008).
84. Young, The Fight for Classroom Attention, supra note 36, at A27 (relating a story of a professor who allows laptops only in the front row so that he can just glance down to monitor what students are doing on their laptops); Laptops Latest Classroom Time Waster, supra note 69 (other undergraduate students can monitor what is being done by those students using laptops in the front row).
85. See Schwartz, Professors Vie with Web for Class's Attention, supra note 16, at A1.
86. See Rivkin, Solitaire, Anyone?, supra note 16, at 22 (stating that Harvard and Stanford law schools have installed technology into the classrooms that allows a professor to turn off the school's internet connection). There is one story about a professor at a "law school in Texas" who took a ladder and disconnected the classroom Wi-Fi transmitter. Schwartz, Professors Vie with Web for Class's Attention, supra note 16, at A1. Turning off the transmitter for any individual classroom does not stop any signal "bleeding" in from other rooms. No product may ever be able to actively jam the signal because such activity may not be allowed under FCC rules.
87. See Mangan, Business Schools, supra note 48, at A43 (reporting that various schools have methods to keep students off the Internet during class); Young, The Fight for Classroom Attention, supra note 36, at A27 (reporting that Bentley College installed switches to allow professors to turn off the Internet in class). One associate dean at a business school analogized the Internet to a "big bowl of candy in front of students" which they would "eat, whether they were hungry or not." Mangan, Business Schools, supra note 48.
88. See McGaugh, Laptops in the Classroom, supra note 21, at 164.
89. This was my rule in Tax I until I changed it because the students were over-relying on their computers to find "the answer." However, when I used this approach on a visit to the University of Montana School of Law, the experience was a disaster. At least one student totally ignored the no Internet rule and dealing with the infraction proved difficult.
90. See Ayres, Lectures vs. Laptops, supra note 57, at A25 (Professor Ayres says his students "went ballistic" after he made this request.). Students gave many reasons why they should be able to do other activities on their laptops in Ayres' class, including that it was their right to multi-task during class. Rivkin, Solitaire, Anyone?, supra note 16, at 21.
91. Professor Donald Tobin of the Ohio State Univeristy, Moritz College of Law does this and reports that non-class use is reduced, but not eliminated. E-mail from Donald Tobin, Professor of Law, Moritz College of Law, to TaxProf Listserv (Sept. 19, 2006, 11:26:44 CST), available at 〈http://listserv.uc. edu/archives/taxprof.html〉 (last visited Nov. 26, 2007). Professor Bruce Ottley of DePaul Law School also does the same and dismisses those students who violate the rule for the remainder of the class period. Cohen, E-slacking, supra note 49, at News 1. Putting the rule in the syllabus is the "ethical" way to handle the problem according to one law review article, and if students violate the policy treat it in the same manner as the professor would for the student being unprepared for class.
92. See Curtis, Everything I Wanted to Know About Teaching Law School, supra note 4, at 485.
93. See Silver, Wired Classes, supra note 68, at D6.
94. See e-mail from Johnson, supra note 31. But see Kenneth A. Kiewra, Acquiring Effective Notetaking Skills: An Alternative to Professional Notetaking, 27 J. Reading 299, 300 (1984) (citing studies that indicate students recall more from their personal notes versus notes completed by someone else).
95. See Cole, Laptops vs. Learning, supra note 1, at A13; E-mail from Estlund, supra note 27. Professor Estlund made the ban provisional and polled the students after several weeks. More than two-thirds of the students supported the ban after the provisional period was completed. Id.
96. See Paul Grondahl, Digital Doodling Students Plus Laptops Can Add Up to Some Serious Goofing off in College Classrooms, Times Union (Albany, N.Y.), Oct. 2, 2001, at D1 (classrooms at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute have the ability to project the contents of students' laptop screens to all students); Mangan, Business Schools, supra note 48 (Bentley College professors can look electronically at individual student laptop screens).
97. See Anya Sostek, Laptops Give Students a License to Roam, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, Nov. 6, 2005, at A1 (teaching assistants used to track students in a 200 student class).
98. See Paul L. Caron and Rafael Gely, Taking Back the Law School Classroom: Using Technology to Foster Active Student Learning, 54 J. Legal Educ. 551, 560-61 (2004).
99. Id. at 560-62.
100. David G. Myers, Exploring Psychology 221 (7th ed., New York, 2007).
101. David G. Myers, Psychology 349 (8th ed., New York, 2007).
102. See id. at 351 (breaking memory down into sensory, short-term, and long-term); Fergus I.M. Craik and Robert S. Lockhart, Levels of Processing: A Framework for Memory Research, 11 J. Verbal Learning & Verbal Behav. 671, 675 (1972) (perception involves "a number of levels or stages") (hereinafter Framework for Memory Research).
103. See Myers, Psychology, supra note 86, at 351.
104. Id. at 362.
105. go. See id. at 351-52. But see Fergus I. M. Craik, On the Transfer of Information from Temporary to Permanent Memory, 302 Phil. Transactions Royal Soc'y London 341, 342 (1983) (stating that the "buffer model has its failing").
106. Fergus I.M. Craik, Levels of Processing: Past, Present...and Future?, 10 Memory 305, 306 (2002) (hereinafter Past, Present...and Future?).
107. See Helene Hembrooke and Geri Gay, The Laptop and the Lecture: The Effects of Multitasking in Learning Environments, 15 J. Computing Higher Educ. 46, 50 (2003).
108. See Craik, Past, Present...and Future?, supra note 91, at 308 (shallow analysis looks only to "surface form, colour, loudness, and brightness").
109. See id. at 306-08.
110. Craik and Lockhart, Framework for Memory Research, supra note 87, at 676.
111. See Myers, Psychology, supra note 86, at 355; Moshe Naveh-Benjamin, Fergus I.M. Craik, Jonathan Guez, and Halit Dori, Effects of Divided Attention on Encoding and Retrieval Processes in Human Memory: Further Support for an Asymmetry, 24 J. Experimental Psychol.: Learning, Memory and Cognition 1091, 1091 (1998);
112. Michael I. Posner, Cumulative Development of Attentional Theory, 37 Am. Psychol. 168, 170 (1982) (reviewing several studies on attention and surmising "people were limited in their ability to process information").
113. See C.M.B. Anderson and Fergus I.M. Craik, The Effect of a Concurrent Task on Recall From Primary Memory, 13 J. Verbal Learning & Verbal Behav. 107 (1974);
114. Naveh-Benjamin et al., Effects of Divided Attention, supra note 96, at 1099;
115. Fergus I.M. Craik, Richard Govoni, Moshe Naveh-Benjamin and Nicole D. Anderson, The Effects of Divided Attention on Encoding and Retrieval Processes in Human Memory, 125 J. Experimental Psychol.: Gen. 159, 160 (1996);
116. B.B. Murdock Jr., Effects of a Subsidiary Task on Short-Term Memory, 56 Brit. J. Psychol. 413 (1965).
117. Moshe Naveh-Benjamin, Fergus I.M. Craik, Dana Gavrilescu, and Nicole D. Anderson, Asymmetry between Encoding and Retrieval Processes: Evidence from Divided Attention and a Calibration Analysis, 28 J. Memory & Cognition 965, 969, 974 (2000).
118. Craik, Past, Present...and Future?, supra note 91, at 309.
119. See Fried, In-class Laptop Use, supra note 32 (manuscript at 3).
120. Id. at 2.
121. See id. at 7; Michael Grace-Martin and Geri Gay, Web Browsing: Mobile Computing and Academic Performance, 4 Educ. Tech. & Soc'y 95, 104 (2001);
122. Hembrooke and Gay, The Laptop and the Lecture, supra note 92, at 61.
123. Grace-Martin and Gay, Web Browsing, supra note 102, at 99-100, 103-04. There is no indication that the researchers tried to account for other confounding factors such as the students' past GPA or SAT scores.
124. Hembrooke and Gay, The Laptop and the Lecture, supra note 92, at 46, 58.
125. Id. at 52, 58.
126. Id. at 58-59. However, the paper notes that the students' overall performance in the class did not suffer, with the average final grade being a B+. Id. at 61. They surmise this is because the class structure was "nontraditional, highly interactive and dynamic, and students were encouraged to use their laptops in class to supplement the course lecture," while in a more traditional class format grades may have suffered. Id. at 60-61.
127. Fried, In-class Laptop Usc, supra note 32 (manuscript at 3).
128. Id. at 5-6. The author suggests that students who are struggling perhaps use their laptops as a diversion.
129. Karin Foerde, Barbara J. Knowlton, and Russell A. Poldrack, Modulation of Competing Memory Systems by Distraction, 103 Proc Nat'l Acad. Sci. U. S. 11778 (2006).
130. Id. at 11781.
131. See id. at 11778; Kate N. Grossman, Stop Interrupting Yourself, Chi. Sun-Times, Mar. 4, 2007, at B1 (habit learning supports automatic behavior like riding a bicycle).
132. Foerde, Knowlton, and Poldrack, Modulation of Competing Memory Systems by Distraction, supra note 109, at 11778.
133. See Randolph E. Schmid, Turning Off the Idiot Tube Can Sharpen Kids' Learning, Star-Ledger, July 25, 2006, at News 2.
134. Foerde, Knowlton, and Poldrack, Modulation of Competing Memory Systems, supra note 109, at 11781.
135. Id. at 11779.
136. Id. at 11778. The fMRI tracks brain activity by looking to which portion of the brain blood is flowing. See Health & Wellness: Multitasking Adversely Affects the Brain's Learning Systems, Thousand Oaks Acorn, Aug. 3, 2006, available at 〈http://www.toacorn.com/news/2006/0803/ health_and_wellness/052.html〉 (last visited Jan. 10, 2008).
137. Foerde, Knowlton, and Poldrack, Modulation of Competing Memory Systems by Distraction, supra note 109, at 11780.
138. Id. See also Lori Aratani, Teens Can Multitask, But What Are Costs?, Wash. Post, Feb. 26, 2007, at A1 (quoting one of the authors as saying that during multi-tasking the hippocampus was "quiet" while the striatum was active).
139. See Schmid, Turning Off the Idiot Tube, supra note 113.
140. See Foerde, Knowlton, and Poldrack, Modulation of Competing Memory Systems by Distraction, supra note 109, at 11778, 11782.
141. Health & Wellness, supra note 116 (quoting Russell Poldrack of UCLA).
142. See Linda Stone, Linda Stone's Thoughts on Attention and Specifically, Continuous Partial Attention, available at 〈http:// continuouspartialattention.jot.com/WikiHome〉 (last visited Jan. 10, 2008).
143. See Posner, Cumulative Development of Attentional Theory, supra note 96, at 170 (commenting that at "high levels of practice, people can time share two tasks as well, or almost as well, as they can perform a single task").
144. See Linda Stone, Thoughts on Attention, supra note 122.
145. See Kenneth A. Kiewra et al., Note-Taking Functions and Techniques, 83 J. Educ. Psychol. 240, 240 (1991);
146. Richard J. Peper and Richard E. Mayer, Generative Effects of Note-Taking During Science Lectures, 78 J. Educ. Psychol. 34, 34 (1986).
147. See Burke H. Bretzing and Raymond W. Kulhavy, Notetaking and Depth of Processing, 4 Contemp. Educ. Psychol. 145, 146 (1979) (note-taking focuses attention to content);
148. John P. Rickards and Frank Friedman, The Encoding Versus the External Storage Hypothesis in Note Taking, 3 Contemp. Educ. Psychol. 136, 136 (1978) (taking notes on written prose encodes and results in a " transformation" to aid learning).
149. See Bretzing and Kulhavy, Notetaking and Depth of Processing, supra note 126, at 146 (as individuals analyze something more thoroughly they encode the material and relate it to prior knowledge).
150. See Kenneth A. Kiewra, Students' Note-Taking Behaviors and the Efficacy of Providing Instructor's Notes for Review, 10 Contemp. Educ. Psychol. 378, 378 (1985);
151. Rickards and Friedman, The Encoding Versus the External Storage Hypothesis, supra note 126, at 136.
152. See Kiewra et al., Note-Taking Functions and Techniques, supra note 125, at 240; Kiewra, Students' Note-Taking Behaviors, supra note 128, at 378; Rickards and Friedman, The Encoding Versus the External Storage Hypothesis, supra note 126, at 136.
153. See Kiewra et al., Note-Taking Functions and Techniques, supra note 125, at 240;
154. Rickards and Friedman, The Encoding Versus the External Storage Hypothesis, supra note 126, at 136.
155. See Kiewra et al., Note-Taking Functions and Techniques, supra note 125, at 240.
156. See id. (noting that both functions "contribute to learning" but "the external storage function is the more important function").
157. See, e.g., Kiewra, Students' Note-Taking Behaviors, supra note 128, at 384-85.
158. See Bretzing and Kulhavy, Notetaking and Depth of Processing, supra note 126, at 151 (describing study on the comprehension of written materials when subjects were asked to either write portions of the material verbatim, paraphrase portion or write summaries of the material).
159. See Kiewra, Students' Note-Taking Behaviors, supra note 128, at 384-85.
160. See Trujillo, The Relationship between Law School and the Bar Exam, supra note 2, at 73 (hypothesizing that the cognitive process of taking notes by hand and computers is different);
161. Raina Kelley, The Writing on the Wall, Newsweek, Nov. 12, 2007, at 69 (commenting on recent studies suggesting that good penmanship is linked to better grades).
162. See Bretzing and Kulhavy, Notetaking and Depth of Processing, supra note 126, at 151 (summary and paraphrased note-taking helps increase comprehension on written material);
163. Kenneth A. Kiewra and Harold J. Fletcher, The Relationship Between Levels of NoteTaking and Achievement, 3 Hum. Learning 273, 280 (1984) ("students who note more conceptual main points do better than factual note-takers" on learning the material in a conceptual and relational manner).
164. See Kiewra, Acquiring Effective Notetaking Skills, supra note 79, at 300 (an incoming college freshman records as little as 11 percent of the key lecture ideas, while top students get only 62 percent of the key ideas).
165. See Kiewra et al., Note-Taking Functions and Techniques, supra note 125, at 240;
166. Kiewra, Students' Note-Taking Behaviors, supra note 128, at 384-85; Rickards and Friedman, The Encoding Versus the External Storage Hypothesis, supra note 126, at 136.
167. But see Kiewra et al., Note-Taking Functions and Techniques, supra note 125, 241 (suggesting that little generative processing can occur since lectures place a great demand on students' cognitive abilities).
168. See Kiewra, Acquiring Effective Notetaking Skills, supra note 79, at 300.
169. See id. This allows for the lecture to be reconstructed at a later time while not interfering with any encoding that may occur during the lecture itself.
170. Id. at 301. I tell my students that if they are going to add in any material to their notes to do so with a different colored pen, pencil, or font. This way they will know what material was delivered during class and what was written from their recollections of class.
171. See Craik and Lockhart, Framework for Memory Research, supra note 87, at 676;
172. Kiewra, Acquiring Effective Notetaking Skills, supra note 79, at 301.
173. When Ayres attempted to ban the use of the Internet (but allow laptops) in his classroom at Yale Law School, he stated that he was "surprised at how brazenly my own students resisted my laptop restrictions, both in class discussion and in a virtual chat room." Ayres, Lectures vs. Laptops, supra note 57, at A25. The students argued that they were multi-tasking, being productive during slow or poorly taught sections of the class period, and that web surfing helped them to stay awake during class and increased their desire to attend class, provided the ability to research legal questions that came up in class, and provided competition for the professor so he would have increased incentive to teach more effectively. Id.
174. Gary McWilliams, The Laptop Backlash-Wireless Classrooms Promote Messaging and Web Surfing, Not Learning, Professors Say, Wall St. J., Oct 14, 2005, at B1 (student at Chapman Law School saying that professors feared banning laptops since "[t]hey know students will go after them when it comes time for review"). Another reason why professors may not want to upset students is that the community they live in is small, and upsetting students may have negative social ramifications. A senior administrator from such a school told me that professors tend to cater to students since in a small town everyone is very interconnected. She gave as an example the student health center. A disliked professor will receive inferior care to one who is liked because "[the health center] is staffed by students, or the friends/spouses of students." Where the students control the institution, doing anything to upset even a small vocal minority would be difficult for anyone who did not see a critical pedagogical need for making the change in the classroom.
175. See, e.g., Clark Kauffman, Lawyer Could Be Suspended for Changing Student Surveys, Des Moines Reg., Apr. 1, 2007, at B1. University of Iowa law professor Kenneth Kress resigned after being charged with changing scores on his student evaluations. Student evaluations are one of the factors used by the administration to determine both salaries and appointment of endowed chairs. Id.
176. South Texas College of Law adopted a new student evaluation form in the fall 2006 semester, so a direct comparison to my prior evaluation numbers is impossible. However, the numbers seem similar and are above the school average. Estlund said that the first semester she banned laptops she received her best course evaluations of her career. E-mail from Cynthia Estlund, Professor, New York University School of Law, to Kevin Yamamoto, Professor, South Texas College of Law (Aug. 14, 2007, 9:15 p.m. CST) (on file with author).
177. In banning laptops, I found students more malleable and understanding than I originally believed. While I worried about a student uprising, other sources foretold a smooth transition. The first example is from a student in my summer Tax I class. After I told the summer students about my decision to ban computers in the fall semester this student said, "they will complain about it, but after a week they will accept it." He was correct. The second is a reply to Professor Ayres, Op-Ed piece in the New York Times. A chemistry professor at UNC Greensboro wrote, "The students will agree to any such stated policy as long as the expectation is made clear from the get-go. Clear expectations are also an important part of teaching." Paul Kelter, In Class, but Virtually Anywhere, N.Y. Times, Mar. 21, 2001, at A22.
178. See, e.g., e-mail from Chelly, supra note 42.
179. See Susan Johanne Adams, Leveling The Floor: Classroom Accommodations for Law Students with Disabilities, 48 J. Legal Educ. 273, 280, 283 (1998) (stating that professors should be more involved in making special arrangements for students and that computers may assist students with disabilities).
180. At South Texas College of Law my typical course package also includes one of the following courses in addition to Tax I: Advanced Federal Income Taxation, Corporate Taxation, or Estate and Gift Taxation. In addition to Tax I, during the fall 2006 semester I also taught Corporate Taxation.
181. E-mail from Lylene Pilkenton, Registrar, South Texas College of Law, to Kevin Yamamoto, Professor, South Texas College of Law (July 3, 2006, 9:02 a.m. CST) (on file with author).
182. The argument that a professor should be able to keep the students' attention regardless of other distractions is outrageous. I fully acknowledge that, as opposed to the entire content of the World Wide Web, my Tax I class will fall far short in the area of entertainment. See supra text accompanying note 49 for similar sentiments by other law professors. This also raises the point that students are not in class to be entertained, but to learn. Once we decide that a class must be "fun" in order to make our students learn, we are in a battle I believe we cannot win.
183. Bulletin boards are at times mean-spirited. See e.g., Ellen Nakashima, Harsh Words Die Hard on the Web; Law Students Feel Lasting Effects of Anonymous Attacks, Wash. Post, Mar. 7, 2007, at A1 (Yale law student felt she lost job offers due to malicious posts about her on popular law student message board). The discussion of my banning laptops was brought to my attention by my research assistant, and I read the bulletin board for the first time when writing this paper.
184. Other law professors who banned laptops have also observed an increase in class discussion. See Bhayani, HLS Debates Laptops in Class, supra note 26; Colb, Taking Notes Without a Computer, supra note 28; Schwartz, Professors Vie with Web for Class's Attention, supra note 16, at A1; E-mail from Estlund, supra note 27. Also, several of my student evaluations noted the same increase in class discussion. Student Evaluations, supra note 45 ([#1] "I did notice that more students than usual were actively participating in class..."; [#2] not having laptops led to "more participation and discussion"; [#3] "[t]he 'ban' made a nice atmosphere in class").
185. But see Paul Wangerin, Technology in the Service of Tradition: Electronic Lectures and Live-Class Teaching, 53 J. Legal Educ. 213, 217 n.12 (2003) (commenting that the same group of students ask all the questions (whom his students label "dorks") and the reason this is tolerated is that "dorks, candidly, love other dorks"). Another possible reason for greater participation from the students is the Hawthorne effect - that experimental subjects improve performance just because they are in a study.
186. See, Elton Mayo, The Human Problems of an Industrial Civilization 73-74 (1933). Nevertheless, I was pleased with the result.
187. In my fall 2006 evaluations, one student wrote the lack of laptops "prevents us from cheating by looking at old outlines." Student Evaluations, supra note 45.
188. One student commented, "[The] Professor seemed to be right on top of whether we were following him." Student Evaluations, supra note 45. I attribute this partially to the ability to see the students' faces. The lack of body language to aid in communication is something that others have pointed to with using e-mail exclusively to communicate with students. See Becker, Some Concerns, supra note 5, at 480. This effect is multiplied when you look out over a class of 80 people; you cannot see the students, and you might as well be teaching over the Internet.
189. Comment #1: "I found I write the most important things and rather than simply typing everything that is said." Comment #2: "I listened and know that I learned more because I was not concerned about typing every line." Comment #3: "It forced you to pay attention rather than just writing down everything said." Student Evaluations, supra note 45.
190. See Bretzing and Kulhavy, Notetaking and Depth of Processing, supra note 126, at 151 (suggesting summary notes of books for better recall); Kiewra, Acquiring Effective Notetaking Skills, supra note 79, at 300 (suggesting students take "paraphrase or summary notes").
191. One student wrote: "[Laptops] only serve a good purpose if someone types really fast, but even then that person takes too many notes. EXCLUDE LAPTOPS." Student Evaluations, supra note 45.
192. Id.
193. Comment #1: "Overall good to not have computers and good to rely more on code book"; Comment #2: "Without computers helped to the extent that we referred back to our code book more." Id.
194. I tell my students that if they get together and talk about the problems, lecture, Code, and Regulations that is a "study group." However, if they are getting together to complain about how hard the class is, how much material we cover, or that they get called on too many times to recite that is a "support group." Both can be helpful, but only study groups will assist in learning the material.