Newswise — Walk across the back quad at Roanoke College in Salem, Virginia, or through the dining hall at Loyola University in New Orleans, and students " sunning themselves between classes or grabbing a snack " will still have their minds plugged into the World Wide Web.
And that's a good thing, or a bad thing, depending on who you ask.
"Wireless technology brings the internet to the discussion no matter where they are," says James Dalton, executive director of information technology at Roanoke. "The barriers to where you use the internet have been broken. The domain of internet connectivity is extended to the entire campus. Students can do research, check email or send instant messages while they are eating lunch, working in the library or sitting outside."
Since the late 90s, college campuses have been installing palm-sized antennas around their campuses. Nova Southeastern University in Fort Lauderdale was a pioneer, outfitting wireless areas in 41 buildings in Florida. Its law school was the first in the nation to go wireless in 1997.
Now nearly every college campus has at least a few wireless areas, resulting in increasing numbers of students toting laptops to class.
The new technology has been an academic boon to most students and faculty. Students can access course materials, do research and contact professors. But it also permits " or even invites " a style of multi-tasking unavailable just a few years ago. Students can play video games, instant message friends and even watch movies " all while faculty are lecturing.
"In the last couple of years it's become an issue that none of us were expecting," says Lisa Smith-Butler, law library director at NSU, who directs a program the law school has been using that lets professors monitor their students' Internet use more closely.
"A fairly typical scene in one of my classes might look like this," says Dr. Gerald Smith, professor of religion at Sewanee: The University of the South in Tennessee, "A young woman is sitting with one leg folded under the other, shoes on the floor, with her cellphone on waiting for a text message, her iPod is draped around her neck and during class she may insert her ear phones from time to time.
"On screen, she is surfing CNN, but has open another page for the Speedo bathing suit site, and she is typing a quick email note to her mother to let her know she got back alright from Atlanta last night. She will respond to three quick questions from me by jumping to the Google page she already has open " and before the end of the hour, she will have asked me a couple of questions."
Opinions differ on how extensive digital doodling has become. Smith argues that "goofing off" is a highly-charged token in the ongoing inter-generational culture wars.
"Basically, the problem over wireless in the classroom comes down to " as trite and commonplace as it may sound " a generation gap," he says. "My faculty colleagues, as a rule, do not download music, play computer games, play with Gameboys, Xbox or Game Cube, do not blog, use ICQ or IM, do not text message on their cellphones, and seldom surf the 'Net for fun. More importantly, they do not bring these things into their classrooms or into their instructional styles."
"Profs simply do not know how to relate to someone who is looking at them, typing, and listening to music at the same time they are lecturing," he says. "They simply cannot believe that people can learn while doing three or four things at the same time."
He sees only opportunity to evolve a new style of teaching that adapts to the digital environment today's students are used to. For instance, he asks his students to use their computers a dozen or more times in class " asking them to "Google" answers, look up illustrations, take notes via an email they'll send to themselves after class, and surfing the 'Net for news.
The wireless trend may tread a fine line between asset or distraction, but without it, today's digital generation "would have been bored to insanity by now," says Smith. "Wired or wireless is all the same; it is the recovery of learning and its redemption from the drudges."
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