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Anyone who looked carefully at the original studies understood they were limited, suspect, and ableist.
This isn’t really about laptops, note-taking, or distraction. It’s about power. And the need for teachers to recognize the complex contexts students bring to the classroom.
This isn’t really about laptops, note-taking, or distraction. It’s about power. And the need for teachers to recognize the complex contexts students bring to the classroom.
I believe it is none of my business what implements students use for note-taking, whether they even decide to take notes or doodle, pass notes, live tweet, etc.
My hope is that students have space to find the best ways (for them) to engage the work. And while I might have ideas about what has worked for me, and for others, I can not know what will work (and when) for each of them.
As teachers, we should not presume to know, or rely on limited research to decide, what will work for every (or almost every) student.
My biggest concern: I don’t think it is alright to even debate the merits of tools necessary for certain disabled students. And it is not alright for us to offer the use of these tools only as an accommodation, if that requires students needing them to out themselves as disabled.
Teachers should trust students to make choices about their own educations. We can offer guidance, without being patronizing. We can stir necessary conversation, but we must also guard space for students to learn, even if that learning looks different from our own.
And, of course, laptops can be distracting to other students (or to me as a teacher). Pencils are also distracting, and so are windows ... and imaginations. Attention is complex and not something a blanket laptop policy can dictate, control, or allow.
