by Ren S.

Created on: July 30, 2008

One common practice in law schools across the nation is the use of laptops by law students during class. Students use them to take notes, as well as to pull up notes they typed the night before about the legal cases and principles they read. However, they also play games, read sports headlines, chat with friends on instant messenger or even complete work for another class once they realize the professor is probably not going to engage them by calling on them to participate in class. And, not to suggest anything special about law students, but if law students are doing this, imagine what college and high school students allowed access to laptops in class do.

I know about the distractions because I have been that student. I have done all of the above during my law school classes, and then some. Admittedly, I didn't graduate from law school with the greatest GPA, and I can't say that was all because I didn't pay attention in class due to having my laptop with me. However, it's true that there were numerous times when the professor said something important that I either completely missed or only caught the tail-end. I almost never listened in class, and, frankly, I felt that most of the time the professors and the students weren't saying anything worth listening to. I still believe that. Yet, somehow, students who were more engaged in class and more active seemed to enjoy law school more, as well as make better grades. I hated law school, and, at one point, I told myself that, though I took it for granted and didn't know it at the time, college was clearly the last time I was going to see an 'A' in a class (this turned out to be wrong, but still).

My law school really tried to prevent some of the issues I've mentioned. They tried blocking internet access during class time, but it became too expensive for the school and technologically crafty students found ways around the block anyway. Even without the internet, we could still play games that came with our laptops, such as solitaire-and we did. One professor even went so far as to ban laptops from the classroom. This was probably one of the livelier classes I had in law school, and I do think banning laptops played a role. After all, neither the professor nor the subject matter were any more interesting than other law school classes, and there was no real incentive to participate voluntarily. I'm pretty sure I listened more in that class than I did in most. There were several classes in which I did nothing but surf

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