Legal Commentary

Jacqui Lipton at Faculty Lounge flags a comment from Jonathan Adler's Volokh Conspiracy post on laptops in the classroom (a debate now stretching into the undergrad level). The commenter, who identifies herself MBA student, offers to give up her laptop if professors agree to give up PowerPoint.

Now, I will take this deal in a heartbeat. But, of course, I am on record as loathing PowerPoint for just about all purposes (job talks, paper talks, lectures) that do not of necessity require charts, maps, and graphs. But the commenter has a point. PowerPoint has become the analogous crutch (I vaguely recall Dan making that point here a few years ago) for many professors that laptops have become for students--each can provide structure and make things clearer and easier to follow, but at the cost of spontaneity and engagement. Makes sense--if students are less engaged when they are taking dictation (an argument that David Cole makes and with which I agree), some professors are likely to be less engaged in presenting the material when moving from slide to slide.

But I am surprised that the quid pro quo offer came from a student, given my experience that students want (indeed, often demand) both laptops and PowerPoint. I use the dry-erase board extensively and put everything up there that would find its way into a PowerPoint slide (although the board is more interactive than the slides). Yet I receive on average three comments per class proposing that everything on the board should be put on slides and the slides made available in advance.