Should Computers Be Allowed In Class

As the world of technology continues to progress in an exponential rate, portable technologies such as laptops, tablets, phones, etc. continue to become more accessible to students due to their decrease in cost and size. With greater accessibility and affordable prices, universities across the globe have seen a giant influx of laptops among their classes across various disciplines. In a class like CCT109, there is no need for laptops as the lectures are often discussion oriented rather than simply being fact oriented. This requires undivided attention of which laptops tend to interrupt due to their very distractive nature. In addition, using laptops to write notes do not necessarily enforce the learning process. The tactile nature of writing …show more content…
According to many student accounts, typing notes rather than writing is more convenient as typing tends to be faster and also lightens up the weight of their backpack. However, students can easily use the lockers provided by the university in order to store excessive materials not needed for the class which could also lighten the weight of the backpack. In addition, according to a paper published in journal of Psychological Science, two researchers Pam Mueller and Daniel Oppenheimer found that writing notes rather than typing helps by providing students with a better grasp of subject materials being taught in class. This would give the students writing notes far better advantage over those typing it in test taking skills, written explanations, reasoning behind answers, etc. making them more successful in the course. In addition, written notes are much easier to customize in terms of adding anecdotes, underlines, diagrams, etc. compared to the typed notes which often fall into the limits of word processors being used by the students. This provides the students with written notes much more detailed and perspective understanding of the course materials than those who are typing it in their …show more content…
In laptops, a simple system failure can result in years of course materials and notes being lost which are usually very difficult to recover. This could cause students in not being able to prepare for tests, assignments, etc. negatively affecting their performance on the subject. Banning laptops would eradicate similar problems and would ensure that everyone is on the same page and no one has any difficulty regarding their technology. This would also make tasks such as report marking, essay marking and assignment marking less complicated for teaching assistants as they would now not have to worry about problems such as word file compatibility, assignment submission hub, etc. making marking process much easier and hassle