Sunday, 26 March 2000
\© 2000 The New York Times
http://www.azstarnet.com/public/dnews/000326NCOLLEGE-LAPTOPS.html
WINSTON-SALEM, N.C. -- During his economics seminar the other
day, Sean Leary, a Wake Forest University freshman, scanned stock
prices, browsed basketball updates, checked his e-mail and perused
pictures of beautiful girls in search of a new backdrop for his
laptop computer screen.
It seems Leary, who had already taken one economics course in
the fall, was bored by the discussion of marginal benefit and
cost. But no matter. This is a laptop classroom, where each student
sits behind an open machine, sometimes posting answers to the
professor's queries on a virtual chalkboard, sometimes, well,
doing something else.
"I haven't skipped this class once," noted Leary, 18.
"Even if there's something in class that's boring, there's
other stuff you can do."
Wake Forest is one of more than 100 colleges and universities
across the country where a computer is now required. Some, like
Wake Forest, have raised tuition and mail the laptops shortly
after acceptance letters.
Not only has this created new forms of in-class distraction and
revolutionized campus communication e-mail is used to plan Saturday
night outings as well as to write responses to required readings
but it has begun to transform teaching itself.
For example, Gordon McCray, a Wake Forest business professor,
turned all his lectures into a streaming video CD-ROM, essentially
doubling his class time by forcing students to watch the lectures
(or read a transcript) on their own, thereby freeing class time
for group exercises.
Others have students do Web research in class to supplement discussion
or use software for homework and quizzes that help tailor syllabuses
to individuals. Professors say that this way they are now serving
a broader spectrum of learning styles.
The very hours of learning have also been extended beyond the
classroom through online discussion groups often including experts
in the field or alumni. Where only a handful of students typically
take advantage of once-a-week office hours, instructors are now
in constant contact with their students by e-mail, even in the
wee hours.
"It's not just added on to the old curriculum it's a whole
new curriculum," said Bill Moss, a professor of mathematics
at Clemson University in South Carolina, where he started a laptop
project for 250 engineering majors this year. "You've got
old guys like me who've been teaching for 30 years who've got
to throw out stacks of yellow notes and start a whole new pedagogy."
Arguing that computer literacy is now an essential part of a liberal
arts education, small colleges and professional schools now scratch
for spots on Yahoo's annual ranking of America's "most wired"
colleges.
The first colleges to require computers were the military academies,
which started putting a desktop in every cadet's room in 1983.
But the current wave began a decade later at the University of
Minnesota-Crookston, an outpost of 2,464 students on the western
edge of the state. It has erupted over the last five years, from
Seton Hall in New Jersey to Sonoma State in California, from the
University of Virginia's business school to the tiny Shepard Broad
Law Center at Nova Southeastern University in Fort Lauderdale,
Fla.
Now the trend is spreading to large public institutions: the University
of Florida in Gainesville, the University of North Carolina at
Chapel Hill and Michigan State University have all recently approved
computer requirements.
Experts estimate that 80 percent of college students now bring
a computer with them to campus. Making it a requirement means
the cost can be factored in for financial aid; it also allows
the university to impose uniformity, which makes technical support
much simpler. In most cases, students pay about $3,000 for a laptop
fully loaded with software specially designed for the institution,
then trade it for a new model in their junior or senior year.
Universities are also spending millions of dollars to upgrade
classrooms so there are plugs and Internet connections at every
seat though some are experimenting with wireless technology as
well as laser disc players and video screens up front. There are
added costs for expanded computer help desks; work-study jobs
for students who provide emergency technical assistance in dormitories;
and training for reluctant, old-fashioned faculty.
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