Plugs in lectures

Breezer

Shazbot wrote: »

It's not wastefull if it serves a purpose, like learning from it and adding notes to the pages. I'd imagine it would be very difficult to take down a diagram or complex pathway on a laptop. Can't imagine anyones MS paint skills being that good.

But that same purpose can be accomplished on a laptop, which is less wasteful. Admittedly diagrams are complicated with a standard keyboard and mouse, so the paper usually comes out for those, but I don't have to do that very often. The fact that we can use paper isn't reason enough to ban laptops anyway, either option should be allowed.

I'd find it extremely irritating in small lecture rooms that seat <20 people but thankfully noone in my lectures does it.

I'm only in those a couple of times a year for each subject, and when I am I don't use my laptop.

Stepherunie

I'm always in classrooms that sit max 40 and have regularly used my laptop. I've never once had a complaint about it, either from a lecturer or student.

My lecturer just asked at the end did why I used it and I explained I type faster than I write and it's far more legible when you're dealing with scenarios that you might otherwise miss something on.

Only time a lecturer called me out on it was a big one, and he was cool once I explained i couldn't write.

If i have lecture notes from BB then there's no issue, I won't use it, but for ones where I've no lecture notes it's great as I can take down the bulk of the slides to give context to my own scribbles.

Red Alert

Just a bit of advice - Word isn't necessairly your best bet for note taking. Some people say Microsoft Onenote or Omni Outliner for the mac do a better job. You'd have to try yourself and see.

If you're doing lots of diagrams, there's a very good diagram program included with Openoffice. Beats MS Paint for taking 'lecture note' type diagrams. Also check out Inkscape if you're after more 'custom' diagrams.

If you were going to be doing lots of note/diagram taking on one, another option might be a tablet-PC. These are like a laptop but have a touch screen and you can sit them down flat on the desk. They run Windows XP or Linux, rumor has it apple has one in the works too. Personally though you'd probably want either a desktop at home or a normal laptop too. If you've already got a PC at home, another idea might be something like the Macbook Air: a very light machine that won't get in your way in crowded lecture halls.

On the whole thing about banning them, I think it's counterproductive. Back when I was in undergrad, laptops were just starting and nobody used them in Engineering lectures at all. If I was lecturer I'd have absolutely no problem with them. I'd also add that I wouldn't take attendance so if people want to talk or mess there's no penalty in leaving or not coming.

I demonstrate in labs where people actually need to use them to help with the assignment - of course you're going to get people doing mail, facebook and whatnot. But if they're not disrupting anybody else I don't care at all.

Another tip - you should be technically asking your lecturer first - but remember most laptops can record sound too. A good free program to do it is Audacity.

bnt

Microsoft OneNote is excellent for note-taking, complete with diagrams, and I used to use it on a Tablet PC, and it would have been great in lectures. For annotating Acrobat PDFs, there's that free Jarnal program I mentioned earlier. Unfortunately, the Tablet PC wasn't mine, and I had to give it back before coming to UCD, leaving me with a 6-y.o. steam-powered 15" Compaq that I never took to UCD.

If Tablet PCs were cheaper, I would go for one, but they're not. The cheapest one in the pipeline is the Gigabyte M912, which Expansys will be carrying (I asked them) - but it's not a true Tablet PC. It has a touchscreen, not a proper tablet digitiser, and the same is true of some of the cheaper HP TX2xxx machines (it varies, so check). This makes them OK for general work but unsuitable for finer art applications, where pen pressure sensitivity is very useful. So I've resigned myself to doing without a true Tablet PC, and have ordered one (eee PC 1000 in black) small, quiet, and discreet.

I don't think anyone's talking about banning laptops. Even where the lecturer asks you not to use one, it's for a reason, which you can talk to him or her about later. Co-operation is the name of the game. If you don't behave like schoolkids, the lecturer won't behave like a schoolteacher. I'm simply suggesting that you show some sensitivity to the environment and to other people, including the lecturer. :pac:

Breezer

bnt wrote: »

I don't think anyone's talking about banning laptops. Even where the lecturer asks you not to use one, it's for a reason, which you can talk to him or her about later. Co-operation is the name of the game. If you don't behave like schoolkids, the lecturer won't behave like a schoolteacher. I'm simply suggesting that you show some sensitivity to the environment and to other people, including the lecturer. :pac:

I'm not suggesting I don't :pac: I put it away when asked, and as I said it only happened once. If it were to happen repeatedly I would speak to the lecturer privately, of course. I've just spent an entire year during just that with various grievances my class had over absolutely everything you can think of. 'Banning' was probably a poor choice of words. Anyway, I've said my piece, nothing to see here folks :pac:

Tayto2000

Wow. How did anyone possibly get through college before laptops and notes provided on blackboard?

I think the main reason lecturers get pi$$ed at laptop users has been mentioned, some perceive them to be a distraction more than a learning aid. And believe it or not, many lecturers do actually care about whether the people in their lecture are paying attention. It must be extremely demoralising to give a lecture to a class full of people who clearly couldn't give a toss about the subject being taught.

Regarding the lecturer asking people to put away laptops (especially in a class where notes are provided), although they have no power to force compliance beyond throwing the person out of the lecture, I think it should come down to respecting the wishes of the teacher in question, simple as that.