As we looked over their shoulders from our back-row seats," says Mollie Cooney, "we found instead they were on Facebook, Dave Matthews Band Web sites, instant messaging friends, and e-mailing fellow classmates."
This is exactly what we are worried about when we try to teach English in Language Lab, providing one computer hooked on line (not wireless though) for every student. Though they are first and second year students in university, they still steal the chance to play with the computer any time they can under the guarding eyes of the teacher. Not only for the undergraduate students, even for teacher-students like us, the temptation of internet can be too much to resist sometimes. I remember that last semester some classmates concentrated too much on their own laptops in our class, rather than what the lecturers were talking about.
- "Anyone who engages in rude, thoughtless, selfish behavior, such as use of a cellphone for instant messages, games, etc., will have his or her cell phone confiscated until the next class session and will be excused from the class. The cell phone will be returned after the student apologizes to the class at the next class session."
- "If your cellular phone is heard by the class you are responsible for completing one of two options: 1. Before the end of the class period you will sing a verse and chorus of any song of your choice or, 2. You will lead the next class period through a 10-minute discussion on a topic to be determined by the end of the class. (To the extent that there are multiple individuals in violation, duets will be accepted)."
For these two warnings, I like the latter one better, since it is both easier to be accepted by the students, and more beneficial to all the class. I once tried to “menace” the students that I would deduct points from their final score if they are using computer doing anything irrelevant to what they are supposed to do in my class. I feel bad myself for drawing more attention to the marks instead of enjoying the process of learning with my students.
4 comments:
Things like what you mentioned do happen in our classrooms. Access to the Web is really tempting, for all of us actually. Responsibility should be taken on every concerned party. What is crucial for us is to qcuire a banlance between merits and demerits elicited by the modern technology.
Yeah,it is indeed rather annoying when teachers come across this situation on their classes. I also remrember I act so, leaving my QQ on, writing email to my friends, sometimes even to you, seeing movies and checking other websites.I am sorry for that,haha!In fact, I would love to accept the second method as a student.
To resist the temptation of surfing in the computer or clicking instant messages in class, students themselves should make an effort. Furthermore, teachers should make their class interesting enough to attract students to take part in it.
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