As I mentioned in the introduction, this seminary is partly about “How to make use of Laptops in big (around 500 – 1000 people) Lectures?”. As more and more Students have Laptops, more of them are bringing them with them to Lectures.
So the first task for us (the participants of the seminary) was to find out: “What are Students actually doing with their Laptop in Lectures?”
The method I used to find answers to this question, was to ask friends and post the question in some Internetcommunities I’m regulary visiting.
The answers were very diverse, here is a Summary of the answers:
– take Notes (easier to organize and sometimes easier to read than handwriting, able to do a quick research on the topics while taking Notes)
– look at the presentation the Professor is holding (because it’s easier to read on the screen)
– surf the Internet & check e-mails
– do a Internetresearch on the topics of the Lecture (e.g. if the professor doesn’t know something or is unsure)
– prepare for upcoming classes or Presentations
– conduct a Presentation
– use the laptop for programming
– look up translations
– work on projects or use the laptop when needed in tutorials
– write silly notes in large font to flash the screen to the people in the back row
– play games
I also asked a pupil from a Laptop Class to answer the questions. The result was similar to the one at universities. And also in schools with Laptop Classes not many teachers are not really able to use the potential of everyone having their laptop with them and being online.
One conclusion the Students attending the Seminary draw after we put all our answers from different methods together was that the Students want to be at the Lectures (maybe because of social contacts;maybe because it’s still better to be in the Lecture and not fully concentrate on it than to not be there) but the usage of the Laptops is mostly the same as it would be at home.
Below you find a good Video called “A Vision of Students today”, which shows some the characteristics and problems of todays students: