4 ms·

Why? As a student, giving me access to a laptop improved my ability to get things done by orders of magnitude. I always struggled with messy writing, and being

by icepat 4y ago

Why? As a student, giving me access to a laptop improved my ability to get things done by orders of magnitude. I always struggled with messy writing, and being distracted easily. Having a laptop let me pay better attention, because I could work on something and passively listen to the class. My notes were also legible, meaning I could take meaningful notes for the first time ever. I could also combine photos of the chalkboard with captions on days I was particularly distracted, or record important sections of the class and review it later. If I had to sit with just a notebook, and listen to the class only, I'd rapidly become sidetracked and check completely out. Then when it came to writing things down that were important, I'd have to check back in, and quickly jot things down that were illegible. Massively improved my retention, and overall ability to function in class. The "no computers, computers bad" mentality in schools is a major limiting factor for people with different learning styles, and neurodivergent children.

dr-detroit 4y ago
[dead]
logifail 4y ago
> I could work on something and passively listen to the class (This is a genuine question) What were the benefits of being in class if you're basically doing something else and not actively listening? Compared with, say, sitting in the library (or indeed at home), working on the same thing, without the potential distraction of what the rest of your class was doing?
- icepat 4y ago
  Active listening is something I'm completely incapable of doing in a traditional way. When I have an activity in front of me, for example code or an interesting task, I listen better and am more engaged. When I was younger, I had a specific teacher who'd assume I was not paying attention, and ask me to answer often. Much to his surprise, I was fully engaged and able to respond. It's just a different learning style. I'm actively listening, but in a more passive way than normal, if that makes any sense. > Compared with, say, sitting in the library (or indeed at home), working on the same thing, without the potential distraction of what the rest of your class was doing? In University I'd often skip class specifically to do this. Worked far better for me than sitting in a lecture hall. Let me work at my own pace, take breaks, walk around, ect. Classes with mandatory attendance were the bane of my existence. Intentionally designing courses to require attendance by not providing complete notes, or incomplete textbooks, also caused me issues.
  - logifail 4y ago
    > I had a specific teacher who'd assume I was not paying attention, and ask me to answer often. Much to his surprise, I was fully engaged and able to respond In school I spent many (un)happy hours gazing out of the windows of the class due to sheer boredom. Q: Are you able to comment on how the pace of learning is for you? Too slow / just right / too fast? Once I got to University my learning style quickly evolved into "take notes on everything the lecturer said", with pen and paper. Hard to tune out of a lecture when you are literally writing everything down, at speed. For me at least it was definitely a most effective way of learning (and then revising). Writing stuff out, over and over and over again.
    - icepat 4y ago
      > Hard to tune out of a lecture when you are literally writing everything down, at speed. The issue here is what I mentioned above: illegible handwriting. The more pressure I am under, the higher my stress levels, the harder is becomes to take clear notes. In these situations I would end up with incomplete, illegible, useless, scrawl on pages. > Are you able to comment on how the pace of learning is for you? Too slow / just right / too fast? All over the map, really. The lack of consistent tempo in most lectures was the issue. If the class was too slow: zoning out, forgetting to take down critical parts. If the class was too quick: overwhelmed, unable to take clear usable notes. The duration of a class was always too long as well, but that's not just a me issue. Empirically, there's a infinite amount of time that someone can stay actively engaged. I don't recall exactly how long, but I do remember all university lectures lasted very generously longer than that. My highest scores in class were always courses where there was an excellent textbook (or where I had found a supplemental textbook), or where I could effectively teach myself the material. IE: philosophy courses where, instead of attending, I could just read the selected writer's works. One of my highest marks was in a class I never once attended.
    - blitzar 4y ago
      > Hard to tune out of a lecture when you are literally writing everything down, at speed. Hard to actually consume the contents of a lecture when you are frantically trying to reproduce a powerpoint slide and transcript of what someone is saying in real time.
- scrollaway 4y ago
  I'm not the person you responded to, but when I was in school, if a class didn't captivate me, it wasn't going to be any better if I "paid more attention". It was either I'm listening and actively learning, or I'm bored. We didn't have laptops back then. Now when I do learn, with the benefit of experience and technology, it's a mix of videos + active research / googling. And I often enough just leave educational videos running in the background while doing something a little more mindless if I'm not in the mood to fully pay attention. People learn differently. I want to stress this: There really are different types of learners, and applying one method to everybody means some people lose out. That said (and this is completely anecdotal), the smartest hands-on "easily distracted" learners I know run massive circles all the meticulous book learners I know.
  - icepat 4y ago
    > There really are different types of learners, and applying one method to everybody means some people lose out. You get it -- this is exactly what I'm getting at. The second issue here is that many people grow up thinking they're bad at a lot of things, when in reality they just were bad at learning it in the prescribed way. My favorite example is the one computer science course I took, I failed. And I failed it hard. This was a course in a programming language I'd been actively using for a year, as a contractor, working in data engineering. Needless to say, I was baffled.
    - folkrav 4y ago
      > many people grow up thinking they're bad at a lot of things, when in reality they just were bad at learning it in the prescribed way. I spent half my life convinced that I was bad at mathematics. My math grades in high school dropped sharply the second we hit algebra, and they never really recovered. When I decided to reorient my studies towards programming approaching my mid 20s, this led to me missing some HS prerequisites. Long story short, we have 3 levels of math classes in the last two grades of high school here, I passed the mid-level of 4th grade, needed mid-level of 5th grade at least. So I enrolled in remote HS for this one class. All it took was me sitting down with the teacher once and grilling him with all my questions for everything I misunderstood as a teen to finally click. Working on exercises on my own terms, and actually having the opportunity to understand _why_ things work the way they do rather than just learning obscure formulas and applying them, let me realize "well shit, this stuff's actually easy". I aced the class, got my prerequisite, and got in my CS program. The rest is history, I've now been working for almost 7 years, stepped up from junior to leading my own team. I'd wager I'm far from alone in this situation. The one-size-fits-all approach to education is IMHO doing more harm than good.
- folkrav 4y ago
  > What were the benefits of being in class if you're basically doing something else and not actively listening? I can only speak for myself, but back in school, I've always found actively listening in to class to be extremely laborious. There was seemingly just no way for me to focus on someone talking without additional stimulation for more than 20-30 minutes at a time. I typically just read the teacher's slides or was done grasping the base concept faster than the rest of the class, then lost focus the second things started to get repeated or re-explained for other students. Bringing in a laptop helped me stay focused as I could Google stuff the teacher/speaker talked about, tag my notes, insert links as relevant, etc. Basically, it let me go at my own pace rather than forcing the class' pace on me. I could use the time to do further research on the subject as I was taking my notes instead of relying on me going back to them (which realistically never happened). In the end, it turned out to be undiagnosed ADHD/PI, for which I've now been getting treated for the last 6 months (which helps tremendously!). Not pretending like it would be beneficial for all kids, but there's a case to be made that not everyone learns in the same way.
kzrdude 4y ago
Not everyone benefits, the computer is just a huge source of distractions and it can really set people back.
- icepat 4y ago
  That's why I'm not saying to it for everyone. Reverse that logic, and apply it to the regular teaching style. It cuts both ways.

by icepat 4y ago

dr-detroit 4y ago

[dead]

logifail 4y ago

> I could work on something and passively listen to the class (This is a genuine question) What were the benefits of being in class if you're basically doing something else and not actively listening? Compared with, say, sitting in the library (or indeed at home), working on the same thing, without the potential distraction of what the rest of your class was doing?

icepat 4y ago
Active listening is something I'm completely incapable of doing in a traditional way. When I have an activity in front of me, for example code or an interesting task, I listen better and am more engaged. When I was younger, I had a specific teacher who'd assume I was not paying attention, and ask me to answer often. Much to his surprise, I was fully engaged and able to respond. It's just a different learning style. I'm actively listening, but in a more passive way than normal, if that makes any sense. > Compared with, say, sitting in the library (or indeed at home), working on the same thing, without the potential distraction of what the rest of your class was doing? In University I'd often skip class specifically to do this. Worked far better for me than sitting in a lecture hall. Let me work at my own pace, take breaks, walk around, ect. Classes with mandatory attendance were the bane of my existence. Intentionally designing courses to require attendance by not providing complete notes, or incomplete textbooks, also caused me issues.
- logifail 4y ago
  > I had a specific teacher who'd assume I was not paying attention, and ask me to answer often. Much to his surprise, I was fully engaged and able to respond In school I spent many (un)happy hours gazing out of the windows of the class due to sheer boredom. Q: Are you able to comment on how the pace of learning is for you? Too slow / just right / too fast? Once I got to University my learning style quickly evolved into "take notes on everything the lecturer said", with pen and paper. Hard to tune out of a lecture when you are literally writing everything down, at speed. For me at least it was definitely a most effective way of learning (and then revising). Writing stuff out, over and over and over again.
  - icepat 4y ago
    > Hard to tune out of a lecture when you are literally writing everything down, at speed. The issue here is what I mentioned above: illegible handwriting. The more pressure I am under, the higher my stress levels, the harder is becomes to take clear notes. In these situations I would end up with incomplete, illegible, useless, scrawl on pages. > Are you able to comment on how the pace of learning is for you? Too slow / just right / too fast? All over the map, really. The lack of consistent tempo in most lectures was the issue. If the class was too slow: zoning out, forgetting to take down critical parts. If the class was too quick: overwhelmed, unable to take clear usable notes. The duration of a class was always too long as well, but that's not just a me issue. Empirically, there's a infinite amount of time that someone can stay actively engaged. I don't recall exactly how long, but I do remember all university lectures lasted very generously longer than that. My highest scores in class were always courses where there was an excellent textbook (or where I had found a supplemental textbook), or where I could effectively teach myself the material. IE: philosophy courses where, instead of attending, I could just read the selected writer's works. One of my highest marks was in a class I never once attended.
  - blitzar 4y ago
    > Hard to tune out of a lecture when you are literally writing everything down, at speed. Hard to actually consume the contents of a lecture when you are frantically trying to reproduce a powerpoint slide and transcript of what someone is saying in real time.
scrollaway 4y ago
I'm not the person you responded to, but when I was in school, if a class didn't captivate me, it wasn't going to be any better if I "paid more attention". It was either I'm listening and actively learning, or I'm bored. We didn't have laptops back then. Now when I do learn, with the benefit of experience and technology, it's a mix of videos + active research / googling. And I often enough just leave educational videos running in the background while doing something a little more mindless if I'm not in the mood to fully pay attention. People learn differently. I want to stress this: There really are different types of learners, and applying one method to everybody means some people lose out. That said (and this is completely anecdotal), the smartest hands-on "easily distracted" learners I know run massive circles all the meticulous book learners I know.
- icepat 4y ago
  > There really are different types of learners, and applying one method to everybody means some people lose out. You get it -- this is exactly what I'm getting at. The second issue here is that many people grow up thinking they're bad at a lot of things, when in reality they just were bad at learning it in the prescribed way. My favorite example is the one computer science course I took, I failed. And I failed it hard. This was a course in a programming language I'd been actively using for a year, as a contractor, working in data engineering. Needless to say, I was baffled.
  - folkrav 4y ago
    > many people grow up thinking they're bad at a lot of things, when in reality they just were bad at learning it in the prescribed way. I spent half my life convinced that I was bad at mathematics. My math grades in high school dropped sharply the second we hit algebra, and they never really recovered. When I decided to reorient my studies towards programming approaching my mid 20s, this led to me missing some HS prerequisites. Long story short, we have 3 levels of math classes in the last two grades of high school here, I passed the mid-level of 4th grade, needed mid-level of 5th grade at least. So I enrolled in remote HS for this one class. All it took was me sitting down with the teacher once and grilling him with all my questions for everything I misunderstood as a teen to finally click. Working on exercises on my own terms, and actually having the opportunity to understand _why_ things work the way they do rather than just learning obscure formulas and applying them, let me realize "well shit, this stuff's actually easy". I aced the class, got my prerequisite, and got in my CS program. The rest is history, I've now been working for almost 7 years, stepped up from junior to leading my own team. I'd wager I'm far from alone in this situation. The one-size-fits-all approach to education is IMHO doing more harm than good.
folkrav 4y ago
> What were the benefits of being in class if you're basically doing something else and not actively listening? I can only speak for myself, but back in school, I've always found actively listening in to class to be extremely laborious. There was seemingly just no way for me to focus on someone talking without additional stimulation for more than 20-30 minutes at a time. I typically just read the teacher's slides or was done grasping the base concept faster than the rest of the class, then lost focus the second things started to get repeated or re-explained for other students. Bringing in a laptop helped me stay focused as I could Google stuff the teacher/speaker talked about, tag my notes, insert links as relevant, etc. Basically, it let me go at my own pace rather than forcing the class' pace on me. I could use the time to do further research on the subject as I was taking my notes instead of relying on me going back to them (which realistically never happened). In the end, it turned out to be undiagnosed ADHD/PI, for which I've now been getting treated for the last 6 months (which helps tremendously!). Not pretending like it would be beneficial for all kids, but there's a case to be made that not everyone learns in the same way.

kzrdude 4y ago

Not everyone benefits, the computer is just a huge source of distractions and it can really set people back.

icepat 4y ago
That's why I'm not saying to it for everyone. Reverse that logic, and apply it to the regular teaching style. It cuts both ways.