Posted on 03/30/2006 3:21:01 AM PST by martin_fierro
Law Professor Bans Laptops in Class
Wed Mar 29, 8:21 AM ET
MEMPHIS, Tenn. - A University of Memphis law professor has banned laptop computers from her classroom and her students are passing a petition against it.
Professor June Entman says her main concern is that students are so busy keyboarding they can't think and analyze what she's telling them.
Students have begun collecting signatures on petitions and tried unsuccessfully to file a complaint with the American Bar Association.
Student Cory Winsett says if he must continue without his laptop, he'll transfer to another school. Winsett says he won't be able to keep up if he has to rely on hand-written notes, which he says are incomplete and less organized.
The students should just bring small tape recorders to class and tape the lecture. Then they could type out their notes afterwards.
Yes, and then you have to "turn off" legal writing mode for everyday communication.
I've been known to confirm lunch arangements by responding to an e-mail:
"Yes, let's proceed as set forth below."
I'm not even a lawyer, but I do a lot of drafting. I really scared myself that time.
Which they are free to do or not do as they see fit.
If the university is a good vendor, it will instruct this wayward employee to give the customers the convenience they expect.
Alternately, they may back up their employee, agree that different teaching techniques can be useful and that she may have a point about their education being better doing it her way and the level of competency of the graduates will lead them to higher compensation and ultimately to increased business for the school. Long view verses short view.
Education is generally inconvenient in my experience.
Just a different view.
What a great idea!
Fair enough - but good vendors usually like to make things comfortable for clients who are spending large amounts of money.
I agree.
Which makes me think of another question. Who actually is spending the money? The "clients" in the class, or the parents who are actually paying the bills? Getting their reaction might be more pertinient.
Hard to say. My wife paid for her law degree through personal loans, and I would guess that most of her classmates did as well. There were certainly some whose parents wrote a single check as well, though.
Now if we could only get some of the deadbeats among them to pay their student loans,,,,but that for a different thread......
That would be a Class 3 felony in Illinois, unless the professor and every other student in class gives permission.
Proabably most worried about those recording the lecture to MP3.
Agree. I seldom took "extensive" notes in class preferring to pay closer attention to the instructor. After class, I would refine the notes. I also got into the habit of reading a chapter and then immediately going back and outlining it in my notes. For me, the act of "writing it down" firmly implanted the material. When it came test time, just going back over the notebook rather then cramming from the textbook worked like a charm and saved a lot of time.
When it came test time, just going back over the notebook rather then cramming from the textbook worked like a charm and saved a lot of time.
They were transcribing, not listening.
I think most people still say typing, but all the classes are called keyboarding, since you are learning how to type on a keyboard I guess!?
Yep - and they seemed to absorb little.
My folks helped me get through college (key word, helped), but I'm responsible for the law school, in the form of loans (federal and private), grants, and somehow even a scholarship (don't ask me how). That's not to say they don't send some $ now and again, but it is I who am looking into the vast gulf of financial debt.
Even the prosecutors I know are making damn good money.
Hopefully. I am fully prepared to sell out.
What I remembered was that in honor of Abraham Lincoln, Illinois was the one state where a law degree was not required. It may be that WAS the case up until some revision of the law. Admission requirment chage and it's hard (at least via Google) to track their history. And the ABA -- hey they are greedy for a tighter franchise, perhaps they are Stalinesque too -- maybe the memory banks are scrubbed. Carthage is erased from the face of Terra.
For an example of the ABA reaching -- in Illinois in some recent year hey changed the law to require ONLY law degrees from ABA Accredited law schools. How -- incestuous well, monopolistic.
Very few states now allow law degrees from "rogue" law schools! And only two or three allow admission to the bar without a degree, but Illinois doesn't seem to be one of them.
Thanks for calling out my mistake! I do appreciate it.
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