There's no uniform policy around here for using cellphones and laptop computers. Some profs seem to have no rules at all. They seem not to notice them even when the phones go off and people even talk into them, or when a bunch of people get round a laptop and start laughing at something -- obviously nothing at all to do with the lecture. That's a mistake on the part of ... well one prof in particular. She goes fast. You have to work hard all through the lecture to understand all of what she's saying and make adequate notes from it. And these ... people with their phones and their laptops first of all make it hard to hear, and second distract you when your tiny brain tries to process everything. I wonder why if they're not going to pay attention to what's going on, and I find myself getting mad at them for being so distracting and inconsiderate and at her for not stopping it. It's a vicious circle: being mad makes it even harder to concentrate and that makes the anger even worse. Is it supposed to be some kind of psychology experiment or what?
Then there are the profs who go completely crazy the other way. If they hear a text ring, they explode, and one even comes round and physically grabs the phone. He grabbed someone's phone one time when he was near it, and answered it, not too politely either. We all laughed that that, trying to imagine the person at the other end who made the call. But he keeps going around the room and turning off peoples' wi-fi as well. He says people can't resist email and facebook (true) and he needs everyone to pay attention. It's better than just letting chaos develop like in the other class, but it's still really distracting; it takes both his mind and mine off what we're supposed to be there for.
Fortunately, most of the profs are pretty reasonable. If something distracting does develop, they see it and ask the people who are doing it to consider everyone else and stop. After a couple of times, the problem just goes away. People are still texting and emailing and so on, but they keep it to themselves and it doesn't disturb anyone else. I guess this technology is just too new for some of the older profs, and they'll need a few more centuries to learn to handle it.
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There's no policy here either. But there's a strong informal rule, backed by extreme peer pressure enforced by people turning and glaring at the offender. You can do all the texting, emailing, twittering, facebooking, surfing, whatever, that you want. But no-one must be able to see or hear you doing it.
ReplyDeleteThe professors are pretty chill here. If your phone goes off, they'll just ask you to turn it off. If it continues to happen, then they will talk to you.
ReplyDeletein terms of computers, profs know that sudents are doing other things, but as long as you're not disrupting the class, they could care less.