Basic Class Statistics
This is by no means scientific, just a few hand-raising polls I conducted in my class a few weeks ago. My class is ~45 students, mostly freshman majoring in IST.
- 85%+ have Google Accounts. It seems that most of the accounts are used for Gmail. A handful of students are using Google Docs, and after a couple presentaitons on the Google toolset, I think a few more students will begin using Google Docs for team assignments.
- 80%+ have some sort of MP3 player. Seemed like just under 1/2 the class have iPods.
- 60% consider themselves gamers.
- Almost an even split among IE users and Firefox users. A pleasant surprise.
- 5-8% Mac users. That’s about standard.
- Laptops. It seems that most students DO have their own laptops based on the presentations we do. But if they don’t need to present, they don’t bring the laptops to class.
So what does all this mean for me as the instructor?
1. Since most students have Google accounts, the first barrier to entry is already overcome (authentication). One student suggested putting the assignments for the course in a Google Calendar that the rest of the class could subscribe too. Interesting idea, but now I’d be managing the assignments in two different places (syllabus + Google Calendar). Not sure if I’ll change it this semester, but an interesting idea.
2. I’m toying around with Podcasts quite a bit. I try and publish one at least once a week that supports the course, and each student is uploading a podcast assignment to our iTunesU space. We’re having a couple minor problems with iTunesU, but for the most part this is working rather well.
3. Laptops. I don’t know why, but this little piece of information (students have laptops but don’t bring them to class) is what interests me the most. I’ve gone ‘paperless’ for about 2 years now, taking my laptop to every meeting, class, event, or engagement related to work, and use it to take notes and do research on the fly when a question comes up. Personally I think it’s made me more efficient and better organized. Are students using the lab computers to take notes in some networked fashion (Googld Docs? ANGEL? something else?)? Are students taking notes with the ol pen and paper? Do students take notes anymore?
There seems to be a massive disconnect in the way we (educators, corporate folks, the ‘older’ crowd) utilize laptops versus our students and the younger generation. Mabye it’s just the nature of college vs. work life. I’ll need to go find some of our recent grads to find out if they have a laptop tethered to their shoulder now.
No laptops in class is easy:
1. Too bulky.
2. Too easy to damage/lose/get stolen.
3. No place to plug in power.
4. Spotty wireless.
and possibly
5. Too distracting.
No one takes notes anymore. In fact, I’m not sure anyone has ever really taken notes. Seriously, I can’t remember the last time I took notes on anything (class, meetings, etc.).
Taking notes vs brainstorming is a very blurry line for me right now. In meetings, and in the final few classes of my PhD program, I used my laptop initially to take notes, but I found myself writing a few notes, then brainstorming on certain sentences I would write down. It helped me get early jumps on project and flesh out ideas.
I do this in meetings all the time now (which seems to anger some of my colleagues…I’m not surfing facebook or IM’ing, I swear). I’ll write down some interesting thought someone had, then immediately start adding to it.
I’m using a blog to capture notes now (built in archiving, searchable via categories, etc) and I’ll often email a follow-up to meeting participants with the URL of the post. Occasionally, it keeps the brainstorm alive and leads to some great ideas after people reflect on the meeting. I’ve been meaning to write a post, or better yet, white paper on this…no time!