
Why Clay Shirky just banned technology use in class - juanplusjuan
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/answer-sheet/wp/2014/09/25/why-a-leading-professor-of-new-media-just-banned-technology-use-in-class/
======
was_hellbanned
I went to college in the late 90's, before laptops were really viable for use
in lectures (despite what I recall from the 1986 movie Back to School). We
_did_ have our math class in the computer lab, so we could graph functions. Of
course, I spent most of my time reading newsgroups and mailing lists, the
equivalent of modern students on Facebook.

Looking back, I really regret the use of technology. I'm talking about the
computer distraction, but also the heavy reliance on advanced calculators like
the TI-92 that did symbolic integration and differentiation. The classes were
focused on making the graphs appear and getting answers, not on grasping the
fundamental, underlying concepts. I'd prefer a strict paper and pencil
analysis course.

I also remember the countless student questions, "will this be on the test?"
The basic concept of testing student knowledge is that you can only administer
a test where a small set of questions are randomly distributed across the much
larger subject matter. You aren't supposed to memorize the answers to some
questions, you're supposed to demonstrate that you learned everything.

I didn't even learn _what learning is_ until a good fifteen years after I was
done with school. I suspect the students engaging in these behaviors, also,
don't understand what learning is, and will graduate having passed some tests
without knowing much.

~~~
jimmaswell
On the other side, I get annoyed at having to do a quadratic equation or
matrix multiplication by hand for the millionth time because I can't have
advanced calculators on the tests or quizzes. After you understand the
concepts of those it becomes pointless to do them by hand so much. What am I
getting out of manually multiplying two matrices? It prepares you for a
situation that will pretty much never exist - not being able to look up a
formula or make wolframalpha do some tedious algebra for you. This is what I
like about physics tests; they tend to just give you a sheet full of all the
formulas because if you don't understand the concepts of the material, then
all the formulas in the world aren't going to help you. Physics professors
tend to understand what's important more, in my experience.

------
shanusmagnus
Shirky quotes Sana et al [1]:

 _The results demonstrate that multitasking on a laptop poses a significant
distraction to both users and fellow students and can be detrimental to
comprehension of lecture content._

I want to kiss all these people on the mouth. I feel like a cross between Don
Quixote and the stay-off-my-lawn guy for fuming whenever someone sits down
next to me when I'm trying to concentrate, and engages in a constant stream of
messaging, or playing some game that's chirping and beeping and booping. There
is such a thing as a 'tragedy of the attention commons' but it seems like
nobody gives a shit about it. But maybe this piece, and this research, means
the tide is about to change.

[1]
[http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0360131512...](http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0360131512002254?np=y)

~~~
wyager
> engages in a constant stream of messaging, or playing some game that's
> chirping and beeping and booping.

That sounds like a people problem, not a technology problem. Might it be
better to ask them to be quiet than to advocate the banning of all computers
in the classroom, thereby screwing over everyone who uses computers for a good
reason?

------
sghodas
For some reason the article didn't link to the actual Medium post:
[https://medium.com/@cshirky/why-i-just-asked-my-students-
to-...](https://medium.com/@cshirky/why-i-just-asked-my-students-to-put-their-
laptops-away-7f5f7c50f368)

~~~
privong
The original was on HN a few weeks ago too, but apparently did not get much
traction.

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8297995](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8297995)

------
kpennell
Really wish my profs at UW Seattle would have done this. So many of my classes
lacked discussion or engagement because so many people were chillin on
Facebook. I think I also met fewer friends because of it. Very few of the
people actually cared about getting an education and were instead just there
to get the credits and then get a job (this was in the business undergrad).
Having no devices might have forced people to engage out of sheer lack of an
alternative.

~~~
TheCowboy
I think it's true that it is more of a default now because of Facebook and
phones, but it's incorrect to assume that classes were ripe with discussion
and engagement before the 'Mobile Age'.

Students have always been able to tune out and not participate in a class. It
will likely always be dependent upon the abilities of the professor, and the
students themselves.

I also wouldn't dismiss people for being interested job prospects. The HN
community may not have to worry about possible future un[der]employment, but
it's a legitimate concern for most people.

~~~
sopooneo
While students have certainly always been able to tune out, I would argue
there is a difference in degree when facebook is available.

------
austenallred
The notion of using a computer to be productive in class is desirable, but
walk into your average college classroom and you'll see ~50% of the computer
users on Facebook. In one of my classes the kid in front of me would straight
up watch Netflix or The Daily Show. And bear in mind this was a top private
school.

I used a computer through most of my classes in college to "take notes."
Personally I took a computer to every class, and was taking notes <10% of the
time. Most of the time I was reading stuff that I did care about (and do use
today, as opposed to most of what was being taught to me in class), but the
notion of using a computer in the class to be more productive in the class was
just a cop-out I used to pursue what I was interested in.

------
chasing
I agree with his conclusion. Open laptops degrade the classroom experience --
especially when the classes (like Clay's) are meant to be both lectures and
conversations. Behind laptops, too many students seem to treat the class
itself like a television program that happens to be running in the background.
Instead of something they need to actively engage with.

Note-taking is the only thing I'm concerned about interfering with. I think
note-taking can actually increase engagement with the content. Going back to
pen and paper feels weird. But so does expecting students to just take notes
on a device that, as Shirky notes, is pretty much designed for distraction.

~~~
tfederman
When I take notes because I need to retain something, the writing part is more
valuable than reviewing it later. And writing on paper is important, typing
isn't effective for that part.

When I take notes just to record details that I can look up later on demand
it's faster to type and there's no downside. But that matches work more than
it does school.

------
Tenhundfeld
My favorite lecture-style classes were ones where the prof (or more often a
TA) would post notes for each lecture online. You still benefitted from taking
your own notes, especially to remember what concepts the prof was really
hammering home (and likely testing on). But it freed you up to appreciate and
mentally digest the lecture, without worrying about recording every little
fact.

I've never understood why every lecture-style class doesn't work this way –
except for the minimal extra effort required.

~~~
gioele
> My favorite lecture-style classes were ones where the prof (or more often a
> TA) would post notes for each lecture online.

> I've never understood why every lecture-style class doesn't work this way –
> except for the minimal extra effort required.

Because:

1\. The effort is not minimal if you want to produce decent _notes_ (not dry
slides).

2\. What is written black on white will bite you back. Unhappy students will
complain loudly to your school about your incompetence for a missing comma in
a code snippet. This will have a non-positive impact on your career.

So, notes are not posted mostly because of problem 1, but in many environments
problem 2 also plays a big role.

------
beloch
I went through undergrad at a time when it was relatively uncommon for
students to use a laptop in class. There were usually a couple students in a
typical lecture using them and they got a lot of flack from their neighbors if
they were typing too loudly.

In grad school, I recall sitting in on some lectures of a course I was TA'ing.
In just a few years it seemed that a technological revolution had occurred.
More students had laptops open than not. It was like sitting in a field of
frantically mating crickets. The subject being taught was classical mechanics
(for non-physics majors), so there were plenty of equations and diagrams. The
students nearest to me seemed to have a variety of solutions. Some had tablets
that allowed them to draw directly in their notes. Some had a pad of paper
that they switched to. Others seemed to be ignoring anything they couldn't
type. Suboptimal, to say the least!

The really disturbing thing was how many laptops were not engaged in anything
that remotely resembled note-taking. People were writing emails, browsing,
sending text messages, watching T.V. shows, you name it. There was one kid
sitting in the front row, happily watching South Park with a giant pair of
headphones on. She clearly didn't care about the class, nor did she care about
letting both the prof and everyone sitting behind her know about it. Why did
this kid even bother showing up?

I was just there so I'd know what was being covered, but I think I missed half
of that class just gawking at how technology was being (mis)used. Even once
I'd gotten over the initial shock and started paying attention, my eyes were
repeatedly drawn to South Park being played on a huge 17" monitor in the first
row.

Hats off to Clay Shirky. I'm normally in favor of treating students like
adults (even the childish ones), but laptop use has a big impact on people who
aren't using them. If I'm running a lab or tutorial and people are being noisy
in the hall, I close the door. I do what I can to give my students a good
learning environment. Banning laptops and phones is no different.

~~~
theoh
FYI it's "flak" not "flack". From, you know, the German.

~~~
Tenhundfeld
I agree with you, but FYI, many dictionaries are now listing flack as a
variant spelling of flak. So, I wouldn't consider the OP technically wrong,
despite flak being clearly better.

~~~
theoh
I'm in Europe and my impression is that the corrupted version ("flack") is not
acceptable here. I notice that none of the web dictionaries is claiming that
"flack jacket" is an acceptable variant of "flak jacket".

------
thrush
I think that in an ideal world, it is more effective to refrain from multi-
tasking and instead to focus on an influx of information provided by a skilled
teacher. Unfortunately, many classrooms do not represent the ideal world.
Teachers may be unengaging, uninformed, or just plain not good. Students may
be unprepared, overqualified, or uninterested. Sometimes there is simply a
mismatch in expectations and understanding. If the professor and students are
driven to overcome these inefficiencies, and work incredibly hard to avoid
them, then and only then do I think that this "rule" should be put forth.
Although, one could argue that students and professors should strive to
achieve this goal in every setting.

------
WalterBright
For 100+ years, and likely much longer, students attend lectures with paper
and pencil to take notes on. There's not a shred of evidence that having
laptops, phones, tablets in class has engendered the slightest improvement in
results.

I don't even know how one takes notes on a laptop. My college notes were full
of diagrams, arrows, freeform jots, etc. The only way to do that with a laptop
is using a stylus, at which point might as well just go back to paper, and
then after class run it through a scanner.

------
ahomescu1
I'm surprised to see that the increased use of electronics in lectures hasn't
started to make people doubt the merits of the lecture system itself. In my
opinion, university has two main benefits: learning and socialization with
like-minded people. Even before the occurrence of laptops and tablets, I
always thought that lectures are a terribly inefficient way of achieving
either of those goals. If I want to learn something, I go pick up a book and
read it myself, at my own pace. On the socialization side, a 30-to-1 forced
conversation that takes 3 hours (or 1 hour, depending on the length of the
lecture) is silly. Besides, I've seen very few professors who come to class to
engage their students in a conversation; most just come with a set of slides
and do a 3-hour slide-assisted monologue. I have always found the latter
boring.

I think universities need to get rid of lectures, and start to focus more on
dynamic, spontaneous interactions between students and professors. For
example, instead of having a 3-hours lecture every week, the professor could
have 15 10-minute office hours sessions in his office.

------
Vektorweg
As many pointed out, its a lack of motivation, flexibility and etiquette.

* Instead of stoking motivation and interests, teachers often go the easy way and squeeze knowledge into students. Which leads to even more bored students with no chance that they start to learn by there own motivation.

* There is a lack of flexilibity. You must learn specific things in specific time. Not even free courses can handle the temporar interest of the student and the students own specific interest.

* And bad etiquette. When its up to you to visit a lecture or not, many students go anyway, because thats what society expects. Even when its a big waste of time and motivation.

------
a3_nm
Having both used "technology" (laptops, phones) during classes as a student
and taught to students which used them, I still can't make up my mind about
this debate.

Arguments for technology use:

\- There are legitimate uses of computers to take notes, so banning technology
overall seems misguided, and it's hard to ban specific usages meaningfully. (A
better approximation would be to block Wi-Fi/phone in rooms. It takes much
more dedication to get distracted with no connectivity, and arguably
connectivity isn't necessary if you want to remain focused. That being said,
people could still legitimately want to look things up during the class...)

\- It is each student's choice to pay attention or not, it doesn't look like
you would want to force them. (The article does a good job of justifying this
claim, though it goes a bit far in saying that students just cannot help but
get distracted. Having just a text editor to take notes requires some
discipline but it's not entirely impossible either.)

\- It is a valuable lesson to figure out that multitasking is a sure way to
both not get anything done and not get anything out of a class, and maybe you
need to experience it yourself. If everyone prevented students from realizing
this, maybe they would still need the time to figure it out later. People who
were adults when laptops and phones came around are now figuring out about
this at the workplace.

\- Sitting in a class and not paying attention is not even necessarily a mark
of disrespect. As a student, sometimes if I had one free hour with nothing
better to do, I would go to an a-priori irrelevant class to work on
homeworks/projects. So I could work if the class indeed wasn't relevant to my
interests, but sometimes I had pleasant surprises and ended up paying
attention. Sitting in the class and working silently on something else would
seem disrespectful, but what if I was doing this rather than not showing up?

Arguments against technology use:

\- It's a hard lesson to figure out that multitasking is often a bad idea. It
may require sometimes kicking you out of the habit for you to realize the
difference. (I'm not yet sure if this is a lesson that we are "getting", as a
society.)

\- The second-hand distraction effect is real: of course, it's harder to pay
attention individually if people around you are not. (Although it's not clear
whether it should be your responsability to not be influenced. The line
between passively and actively distracting fellow students is quite a bit
blurry.)

\- Even more viciously than that, even if a student is individually dedicated
to paying attention no matter what happens around, a room where 90% of people
are listening feels very differently from a room where 10% of people are, from
the teacher's perspective. When you're addressing a sparse group of survivors
among a mass of people who zoned out, it's hard, you feel bad, and the quality
drops. Teaching isn't a one-way process where the teacher is not influenced by
the students and the students individually retain what they want out of the
teaching, so the simple reasoning about students individually doing what they
want doesn't exactly apply.

So I don't know what the right answer is. I think a minimal step in the right
direction is to encourage people who use computers for other things than work
to sit towards the back, and encourage those who want to pay attention to sit
towards the front. In this way, second-hand distraction is reduced (you can't
see the screen of someone sitting behind you) and the teacher is motivated by
what they see in the front row.

~~~
tzs
> The article does a good job of justifying this claim, though it goes a bit
> far in saying that students just cannot help but get distracted. Having just
> a text editor to take notes requires some discipline but it's not entirely
> impossible either

Even if you have the discipline to just use a laptop for simple not taking,
research suggests that this impairs learning compared to talking notes by
hand. See "The Pen Is Mightier Than the Keyboard: Advantages of Longhand Over
Laptop Note Taking", Psychological Science June 2014 vol. 25 no. 6 1159-1168
[1].

Here is an article about that research [2] for those who do not want to deal
with the paywall the paper is behind, or who want something more readable than
a scientific paper.

[1]
[http://pss.sagepub.com/content/25/6/1159](http://pss.sagepub.com/content/25/6/1159)

[2] [http://www.vox.com/2014/6/4/5776804/note-taking-by-hand-
vers...](http://www.vox.com/2014/6/4/5776804/note-taking-by-hand-versus-
laptop)

~~~
leoc
> Even if you have the discipline to just use a laptop for simple not taking,
> research suggests that this impairs learning compared to talking notes by
> hand. See "The Pen Is Mightier Than the Keyboard: Advantages of Longhand
> Over Laptop Note Taking", Psychological Science June 2014 vol. 25 no. 6
> 1159-1168 [1].

That leaves you with a sheaf of longhand notes. So then you have to, what, go
away and type them up into a text editor in order to get them into a tractable
form? Well, I suppose that's going to further aid retention ... win-win?

I must admit that I have a personal grudge against this nonsense as I can't
write quickly enough to take adequate notes; in fact it's touch-and-go even
when I can type. But even if you can generally keep up with the lecturer's
pace taking notes on his output is a tightrope-walking exercise: one lapse of
concentration or understanding and you have a permanent hole in your record.
Then of course this whole process is being repeated by each of the _n_
students at the lecture. In this day and age (or really at any time since
photocopying got cheap several decades ago) organising a course where getting
a complete copy of the important course materials requires you to turn up and
spend hours transcribing someone else's speech in person is an insulting
farrago and a mass time-wasting exercise. If it's important enough to be
examining students on then it's important enough for the teacher to type it
out or read it to video camera.

~~~
graeme
Your comment, while long, did not respond to the cited article.

The paper's abstract cites specific benefits to using handwritten notes,
including:

    
    
      * laptop note takers’ tendency to transcribe lectures verbatim rather than processing information and reframing it in their own words is detrimental to learning.

* even when laptops are used solely to take notes, they may still be impairing learning because their use results in shallower processing.

It sounds like the study indicates that processing by hand is different from
taking notes on a computer.

To rebut the study, you should address those points, rather than just talk
about advantages you have perceived to using laptops.

------
sauere
When i was still in school Tablets didn't exist so i can only tell from my
experience using Laptops (old old shit, like first Intel Celeron generation).
It was stupid. Work did not get done and i always felt we are just using them
for "HAY WOW WE TECHNOLOGY NAO", not to actually do anything that increases
production.

Don't get me wrong. There are scenarios where Laptops are a great tool if a
teacher knows how to use them, but overall i always felt they we're a big
distraction.

I could be wrong. Things have changed.

------
markbnj
This is a tremendously good and well-written piece. I absolutely love the
metaphor of the elephant and the rider, and of devices and social media
"whispering" to the elephant. Although that is not the author's invention,
bravo for a great use of it. I know a few young programmers who should read
this about six times and have it tattooed on their forearms.

------
tomrod
I've found Mike Munger's thoughts on this to be wise:

[http://www.theihs.org/academic/2011/12/19/faculty-debate-
sho...](http://www.theihs.org/academic/2011/12/19/faculty-debate-should-
professors-allow-laptops-in-class/)

He's for it.

------
mcculley
I was struck by how this article talks about how hard it is to focus in the
modern world while it had annoying advertisements after every few paragraphs.

------
anotheryou
that's just tackling the symptom.

In this case it might work, but please teach the kids some self-control.

and btw: I dim my laptop down, keep the lid open wide so it makes less of a
wall and usually just type plain text black on white or google relevant stuff.
Given the lecture is remotely interesting.

I'd come to class with a noisy typewriter there.

------
ThomPete
I can't help to wonder whether the underlying questions isn't tech or no tech
but class or no class.

------
trfen
My main question is who is Clay Shirky, and why does what he does matter?

------
cbd1984
I wonder if he makes exceptions for assistive technology.

~~~
leoc
He'd have to, or else lawsuits.

------
z3t4
While multitasking is bad for productivity, most workplaces require
multitasking ... Some people even perform better while multi-tasking.

So I think it varies a lot from person to person.

------
guard-of-terra
Why a leading professor of new media even teaches in class?

Teaching in class to a medium-sized set (more than five but less than a
thousand) of students is sooo old media.

------
slvv
"I’m coming to see student focus as a collaborative process." To me, this
statement feels deeply condescending. I would much prefer to treat students as
people making their own choices - for good or ill - so that they can deal with
the consequences. If a student chooses not to pay attention in class to their
disadvantage, they have every right to do that! I hope professors aren't
pressured to become babysitters.

~~~
chasing
Yeah, what do those stupid professors know about education? How dare they
attempt to engineer an environment in which students can engage with new ideas
and information, even if it's a little dry or difficult to understand at
first. You should totally be allowed to waste their time and energy and occupy
a seat in their class that could've gone to someone who might've valued the
experience a bit more.

~~~
slvv
That's fair - the intentions of the no-screens policy are really good, and I
hope that students do respond favourably and end up getting more out of their
classes because of it.

~~~
chasing
I do think the intentions are good. I know Clay Shirky and have taken several
classes from him. He's very thoughtful about the decisions he makes in his
classes. On top of being someone who has a very good rapport with his students
and is very talented and making class interesting. If he thinks this will
help, I am strongly inclined to give him the benefit of the doubt.

You also happened to tap into one of my pet peeves about education: Students
being weirdly condescending to their teachers for having the audacity to try
to make them learn.

~~~
slvv
Thanks for your reply! I admit that I've spent the last 10 years teaching,
TAing, and being a student, and I'm probably a tiny bit skeptical about what
it's possible to get students to do, which coloured my initial reaction.
Anyway - hopefully Clay is right and the learning process improves screen-
free! :)

~~~
chasing
Sure -- thanks for not (appearing to) take offense to my snarky tone. :-)

I've also spent a fair amount of time on both sides of the classroom, as
student and as teacher. It's really tough for students to understand the
classroom from the teacher's perspective.

------
Hoffmannnn
It really is an interesting question, and made me think over the implications:

On one hand, I exchanged $X,000 for the knowledge I would potentially gain
from the class. It seems like I'm within my rights to intentionally NOT learn,
and thus waste my money.

On the other hand, other people also paid $X,000, possibly with the
expectation that they would get engaging discussions with the whole class,
rather than just the professor.

So which is it? When you pay good money for a class, do you expect, in return,
that the whole class participates? It seems like everyone would get better
results that way, but then again, the whole class isn't getting compensated by
you, so why should you expect anything from then in return? It is indeed a
tragedy of the commons.

~~~
TheOtherHobbes
The elephant (ha!) in the room is the fact that lectures are as good at
passing on facts as any other method, but very bad for softer teaching goals,
including debate and inspiration.

Here's an informal article:
[http://www.timeshighereducation.co.uk/news/lectures-dont-
wor...](http://www.timeshighereducation.co.uk/news/lectures-dont-work-but-we-
keep-using-them/2009141.article)

And formal research:
[http://isites.harvard.edu/fs/docs/icb.topic38998.files/Bligh...](http://isites.harvard.edu/fs/docs/icb.topic38998.files/Bligh_Ch1_and_Ch3.pdf)

I'd guess Shirky's classes are more about promoting debate and asking
questions than plain 'learn this' science/math/engineering lectures. So the
lecture format - even with discussion - probably isn't very efficient for
teaching anyway.

Whether people are distracted by devices seems secondary.

Perhaps it would be more useful to students to (say) work out a way to
dramatise the effects of device addiction or some other Internet experience,
so they can discover it for themselves and make their own decisions about
distractions and cognitive loading.

Banning devices might have some of that effect by accident. But I'd guess
teaching a class on internet sociology while taking notes on paper is going to
be kind of weird.

(Full disclosure: I always used to hate writing paper notes. It's not unusual
to lag behind the content, and it certainly never helped me understand what I
was supposed to be learning.)

------
hawkice
My first semester in college, in a general chemistry course, a professor
eventually was tired of seeing all the kids on laptops, almost all of them
assuredly playing solitaire, etc.

So he told the entire class to stand up and turn around, and took every
computer and pulled out the battery.

Now, let me be clear: this guy was a great educator. I would show up an hour
early every class and talk nonsense about chemistry, science, sometimes news-
of-the-world. And he was literally the last full time Chemistry professor at
the school, so he was invaluable as well -- if he left then they would have to
scrap the chemistry major.

After this event, I took a considerable amount of effort to make sure the
event wouldn't be replicated, including a multipage report on failings and
missed opportunities to the head of math and sciences.

He was fired one semester later, the chemistry program shut down.

I have no regrets. I honestly cannot imagine I was even the only one in the
class to do anything.

This is all by means of saying: be careful about your use of power. In the
end, being right or wrong on that one issue is meaningless if your compulsion
to exercise control over others is too rough or invasive.

~~~
Crito
You, a freshman, got a chemistry department shut down because a professor
pulled the battery out of your laptop?

Bullshit. Which university was this?

