The view from the back of the classroom

Posted by admin on Mar 10, 2010 in Academy | 0 comments

“Are you getting on Facebook while I’m interviewing you?”

“Yes.”

Cara Libro (not her real name), a TWU grad student, gets on Facebook one or two times per class, but she says that only accounts for about 10 per cent of her non-class related activity. At least not related to the class she’s in, which also gets about 10 per cent. The other 80 per cent is spent doing work for other classes. “That’s the real purpose of bringing my laptop,” she says.

“When I’m engaged in class I’m not on Facebook, says Libro, who blames her Facebook use and other activities on a general lack of concentration.

Linguistics professor Dave Jeffery says Facebook is like modern doodling, but with wider-reaching effects. “The problem with Facebook is that it spreads,” he says. Elbows are nudging, giggles are being stifled, and one sidetracked person can divert the attention of a whole class.

TWU’s mandatory first-year IDIS course is infamous for its sea of open computers, with every screen: “Facebook, Facebook, Facebook,” as second-year Trevor O’Brien recounts.

Second-year student Bekki McCoy usually sat in the front of the class, but she arrived late one day and sat at the back. She remembers thinking, “Wow, you don’t see this from the front.”

Professor Michael Goheen, who teaches the class, has since implemented a ban on laptops in the course.

“I think it’s a testament to our addiction to constant contact,” says third-year Colin McFarland, one of a dwindling number of students who doesn’t use Facebook in class.

McCoy agrees. She only briefly checks notices and messages, but she understands the constant pull. “If you know you’re out of the social world, you start to panic… It’s sort of a relief that you know exactly what everyone’s doing.”

The laptop-in-class phenomenon is not limited to keeping in contact with friends, though. “I know someone who watched a guy she didn’t know looking at her Facebook page in biology,” says fourth-year student Ashley Chapman. “We’re not talking casual perusal here either; we’re talking a click-through of her 353 tagged pictures,”

Students will also keep up with sports while in class, whether watching just the scores or a live feed of the game. Libro once noticed a guy watching a hockey game in class. “And how much of that game did you watch over his shoulder?” I ask.

“I didn’t watch any,” she replies. “I was on Facebook.”