Professors want their classes 'unwired'

Law school students say laptops are good for taking neat notes and e-mailing them to friends who miss class. Laptop notetaking is still largely a graduate-school phenomenon, but the practice will probably spread to undergrads - unless teachers balk.

"It would have upset me if they had banned computers at Michigan," says University of Michigan Law School student Michael Jacobson. "I think my laptop has enhanced my study skills in that I'm able to capture a lot of what's said during class."

Educational assets aside, the main issue for graduate students with banning technology is their freedom - the freedom to use a tool that can be useful in class.

"If [the] Internet is distracting in law school," wrote second-year Harvard Law student Bryan Choi, "it will be just as distracting in the real world, and if Internet is helpful in the real world, it can be just as helpful in law school."

The UCLA Anderson School of Management realized the futility of blocking Internet access last year. In 2004, when it began offering wireless, it installed blocking devices in classrooms. Last year, however, the school decided to remove the block.

"We all came to realize that if students wanted to communicate electronically, they could do so by hooking up their cellphones to their laptops or by just text messaging," wrote Susan Gutman, an official at the school. "In some ways, student behavior is the same as it ever was. In the old days, they chatted with each other, passed notes, read the newspaper, or did other work in class.... Now they surf, IM, and e-mail or play solitaire. The issue is behavioral."

Supporters of computers in the classroom emphasize useful ways that computers can be used in class, such as a program that lets professors ask questions of students and receive responses electronically to see how well they understand a lecture.

Professor Steven Smith, a psychology professor at Texas A&M University in College Station is "delighted" when students use laptops in class to access lecture outlines posted on course websites.

This may be the wave of the future. According to one recent study by the Campus Computing Project, more than one-quarter of university campuses have campus-wide wireless networks. That portion grew from one-fifth in 2004 and only 3.8 percent in 2000.

As wireless Internet access expands on campuses, the next frontline for laptop use may be undergraduate classrooms, where, for whatever reason, most students still don't use them in class.

"Every single person I have ever seen bring a computer to class has also surfed the Web or been on IM," says Amy Kornell, an undergraduate at the University of California at Davis. "I saw one girl watch a whole episode of 'Gray's Anatomy.' But I would guess that solitaire is the most popular game."

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