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Developing a Digital Etiquette Policy

August 22, 2011, 11:00 am

By Ryan Cordell

etiquette_bookThis week, after reading Lee Skallerup’s excellent post “In Class Distractions Are Nothing New” at College Ready Writing, I sent Lee a message on Twitter that sparked a long and productive conversation among many people about laptops in the college classroom (I’ve embedded that conversation below). In short, I’ve never banned laptops from my classroom, but I will confess I’ve been tempted. My problem with laptops isn’t that they distract individual students—a student who wants to be distracted can do so with pen and paper—but that laptops can so easily distract all those around the students using them.

But laptops can also be valuable assets in the classroom (see Mark’s post about Going Paperless in the Classroom or Amy’s about Ditching a Textbook, for example), and so, no matter how frustrated I get with an individual student’s laptop use, I do not ban them. Instead, each year I hone a section of my syllabus, the “Digital Etiquette Policy.” This policy was developed in tandem with a Electronic Communication Policy like Ethan described in a previous ProfHacker post, and owes much to George’s thoughts in “Five Tips for Dealing with Gadgets in the Classroom.” I borrowed the phrase “digital etiquette” from a colleague because I think it signals a healthy attitude towards the possible pitfalls of technology. When a student visits Facebook in class, for instance, it’s not a technological failure. Instead, it’s a breach of the tacit social contract of the classroom—I expect my students to pay attention to me and their colleagues; in return I concentrate on facilitating their learning while we’re together (and, indeed, beyond our time together).

My policy certainly isn’t perfect. If anything, it’s still too punitively oriented:

Digital Etiquette

Phones &c.: This should go without saying, but let’s say it anyway: you should turn off your cellphone and/or other devices (iPods, etc) before you enter the classroom. If your phone rings once during class this semester, we’ll all laugh and I’ll ask you to turn it off. If your phone rings again during class this semester, we’ll need to have a talk. I understand that your phones connect you with your friends and family, but the classroom should be a place apart, however briefly, from the outside world. You will learn more, in short, if you can concentrate on the course while you’re in the course.

Laptops: You may use a laptop to take notes during this class. Indeed, there will be times when I will call on students with laptops to look up facts &c. during class. Your laptops will also be useful during our Wednesday workshops. However, in-class laptops also present temptations that many students find irresistible. You should not use a laptop during class to follow a game, check your friends’ statuses on Facebook, play Farmville, IM, respond to email, etc. Such activities not only distract you (meaning you will be less able to participate meaningfully in the class’ conversations), they also distract anyone around or behind you. If you often seem distracted by what’s on your screen, I will ask you to put your laptop away.

Computer Workshops: We will occasionally meet in a computer lab to work on your writing. You should use this time to stay on track with our course’s significant writing load. During such labs, you should not:

  1. Check your email (or Facebook),
  2. Work on writing from another class,
  3. Twiddle your thumbs

I guarantee: we will always have some writing project that you can be working on during our labs.

After my conversation with Lee (and others) on Twitter, I plan to revisit this policy and try to help students think through the social and academic implications of the technology they use in the classroom. I particular, I hope to think more carefully through issues of “digital divide”—how to use the technology that only some of my students have to benefit the larger classroom, including those students who don’t have access to laptops or smartphones.

How about you? Do you have a digital etiquette policy, or something similar, built into your syllabus? Can you suggest ways to strengthen such a policy—to address the potential pitfalls of in-class technology without demonizing the tech itself? Tell us about your technical policies in the comments.

As promised, I’ve excerpted my long Twitter conversation about this topic below:

[Creative Commons licensed photo by Flickr user Muffet.]

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  • http://www.facebook.com/people/Nancy-Lovell/574050952 Nancy Lovell

    My policy: “The use of laptops, tablets, etc. during class for purposes other than taking notes (e.g., gaming) can be distracting to other students. Please use these with consideration for others.”

    “

  • drnels

    I think I already talked about this in a ProfHacker post or mentioned it when someone else wrote it, but I say that students can use laptops to take notes.  They just have to email the notes to me after class to show that they were doing so (and I get some great notes that way).  Second, if anyone is being distracted by someone’s laptop usage, they can tell me in person, by email, or with an anonymous note in my mailbox.  I got an anonymous note once, and that was that.

    Many of my students now use their phones to carry the course readings around, which is funny when I ask people to find a quotation, and half the class has to pull out and power up their phones.

  • matt_l

    In my upper level (junior & senior) classes, I use the same policy in terms of phones and laptops. But in my Freshman classes (100 level) I ban the laptops unless they are doing a specific exercise for class. The temptation is too great and the flesh is weak for first semester freshmen.

    On another point, the tweets were kind of interesting to read at the end of the post. I certainly get why you would want to say that a professor is like an entertainer. My own pedagogical model is rooted in theater. Teaching is a kind of performance. But that covers a wide range of things, from singing Icelandic sagas to an audience around the campfire to playing a video game.  My students would much rather do the later than the former.

    I’d also say that sometimes learning isn’t entertaining. I learned German by memorizing flashcards, nightly homework and through doing drills in class with a partner or small group. The first year of learning a new language can be fun, but a lot of times, its hard work, frustrating and kind of boring.

    Sad to say, but parts of learning History, English Lit, or Biology are going to be tedious, boring hard work. As a professor, I try to be a cheerleader and share my enthusiasm for the subject, and hopefully that will make it easier to get over the difficult spots. But learning is hard work and college a strictly volunteer outfit. If you don’t find it interesting, maybe try a different class.

  • drfiup

    I have always describe to mySpecial and General Education students that teaching is a form of acting. Although not always possible, teachers need to be enthusiastic and engaging. Lecturing is not my style – Discussion is a major part of my classes.  When I taught Kids with Special Needs, I would tell them if I was having a hard day or didn’t feel well.  My kids who were low functioning (based on IQ tests) would say “‘my name’ is sick. Be nice” But I also told them that when they were having a bad day to let me know…and I wouldn’t push them because we all have those days.

  • vceross

    After hearing a few students walking across campus engaged in a bitter analysis of a professor who banned laptops, I now ask my students, each semester, to devise their own policy on classroom etiquette (including: cell phones, laptops, eating, talking while others are talking, responding to those with whom they disagree, lateness–mine or theirs).  This works much better than imposing rules, for students discover that other students are in the majority very disapproving of classroom incivilities.  For example, students dislike the smell and crackling of food, the spilling of drinks, the distractions of laptop screens tuned to non-class materials, and the rude, distracting behavior of students and teachers who arrive late for class.  Peer consensus is always far more powerful and persuasive than a teacher’s impositions and, to my surprise, students are always more conservative than I would be.

  • electronicmuse

    To imagine that students will refrain from using laptops inappropriately during class is to be hopelessly näive. The distractions that students can manage by doodling on paper don’t hold a candle to those they can access online . . . the argument that “students will distract themselves anyway” is lame.

    The idea that students should be allowed to use laptops “to take notes” begs the question as to why the teacher is so old-fashioned as to be party to “having students copying the contents of the teacher’s notebook into their notebooks.” Worst case, we have photocopy for that. It’s a lot of work, but I hand out hard copy (at the end of class), or provide online materials that I’ve produced or discovered, having begun this practice when hard copy was about the only viable possibility.

    Kindly read the literature on “multitasking.” Even a cursory exploration should convince anybody that “digital etiquette” is not the issue. Not being party to your students turning their brains into pieces of Swiss cheese is the issue. When you allow your students to multitask in class, you are giving your tacit approval to one of the most pernicious things they can do as learners-indeed as human beings. Again, take a look at the very solid research for yourself . . . 

    To students: show up, learn to focus, interact, question, debate, and then act on the “topic” taught. Leave your laptop (and your rattle) outside the classroom door. I don’t care how addicted you are-not in my classroom. “Resent” away, I’ll not be party to condoning behavior I know is inimical to my students’ best interests-whether they know it or not.

  • oh_richard

    Here’s mine:
    In-Class Multitasking: While it may seem quite odd to include a course policy on this, I find it necessary.  Students who are discreetly listening to music or conducting unrelated work on their laptops during class may feel they are not disruptive, and so are not acting inappropriately in any way.  They are, however, halting their participation in class, which impairs their learning as well as that of the other class members.  
     
    Further, as an instructor, I sometimes present an idea and gage the clarity of my teaching by looking at students’ facial expressions and body language.  It is noticeable in a class of ten students to see that nine show expressions of comprehension (e.g., consistent and focused eye contact, or nods of comprehension, or leaning forward in an expression of curiosity…) while one shows an expression that seems at odds (e.g., a smile and suppressed giggle, or a wrinkled brow of confusion or annoyance…).  I may try to explain the idea another way for that student’s benefit, and then assess that student’s expression again.  I find it is a waste of class time, and I will admit annoying to me, when I realize the student is reacting to something that is unrelated to the class and that the rest of the class doesn’t see or hear.  

    In other words… if you promise that you will not halt your class participation to read your email, text with a friend, post to your Facebook wall… I promise that I will not halt my class participation to read my email, text with a friend, or post to my Facebook wall.
     

  • ftuer

    I have found there are two things that work when it comes to digital etiquette
    1. Co-opt the technology by having students use laptops and cellphones for active learning. They were amazed the first time I asked them to pull out their phone and call/text a friend about their job satisfaction (I teach organizational behavior). This helps relieve the itchy fingers; it’s unrealistic to expect them to go cold turkey. Make consequences explicit in your syllabus for inappropriate use – stern look, private warning, public warning, confiscation.
    2. Gather anonymous comments from students concering their impressions of students in other/previous classes who used devices inappropriately, publish and discuss them in class. Offenders often do not realize they are a distraction to those around them or that they are creating a negative impresssion of their maturity and self-discipline. Most of them care a great deal how they are viewed by their peers.

  • http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100000173694891 Dan Emery

    A laptop ban can have an unintended consequence.  If a student requires technology as an element of a documented disability, most instructors would comply.  However, if this student is the ONLY student with an electronic device in class, we could easily end up in a situation that violates a student’s privacy rights.  The first time a student says “Why does MARC get to use his laptop?” you are in a position of either being a jerk (“Because I said so.”) or violating federal law. 

    Given that eventuality, I’d say technology bans are unwise, if not ultimately unethical.

  • mbelvadi

    I liked your etiquette policy but have a little nit to pick that may help you make it better. “Etiquette” is all about doing (or not doing) things for the sake of other people around you, not yourself. So resist the temptation to throw in the “it’s for your own good” argument into the middle of an etiquette policy, and in particular, delete the sentence, “You will learn more, in short, if you can concentrate on the course while you’re in the course.”  It takes the focus away from concern about others, and gives them room to argue that as “adults” it should be up to them to decide how and when they want to learn.

  • drnels

    This is the exact point that stopped me from banning laptops outright.

  • 11291652

    We are going paperless and my course materials are on line so a laptop in class is not inappropriate. To be honest, I mess around on my laptop during dull meetings. So if my students are fiddling around, I figure it’s because I haven’t captured their attention. I ask them to put phones on vibrate because our campus emergency alert system operates via cell phones and I don’t want to be the last to know that we’ve got a sniper in the tower.

  • 87735501111

    I love writing notes from slides. This is an essential part of how I remember things. N=1, but I remember my courses where I wrote out the notes more than those in which I had handouts of the whole lecture. I like giving this as an option, but the very act of writing things down is part of what embeds them into memory. 

    But aside from that point, I agree with everything else. 

  • electronicmuse

    I thoroughly agree with your point that writing things down ” . . . is part of what embeds them into memory,” and there is plenty of research that supports [our] contention on this. But I don’t think the time for “writing things down” is while the teacher is trying to focus attention on concepts, specific points, relationships, etc. that are flying by as students try to furiously scribble (or type, which I do not allow!).

    I ask students to “outline” (write down) the salient points of any topic-on their own time-from memory, not from the “notes” I give them. I also ask them to get together and try to teach the concepts to each other. There should be many learning modalities, but “note-taking” as such-in my view-should be a vestigial activity.

  • krowe33

    Great post and interesting threads of comments. I think laptops pose a profound challenge to most of us who use them: the same screen and keyboard is where we play, communicate, find entertainment, and work. Managing ones time and attention takes practice, skill, discipline, vigilance… I am coming to feel that teaching these skills is part of my mandate as a college professor preparing students for lives as citizens and professionals in a networked world. To me that means *both* creating space for non-networked, single-focus work (an experience incoming students may have less of than in the past?) *and* creating opportunities to explore the problems and opportunities of networked learning — while sharing best practices.

    With this in mind, my approach is to give up some space early in my courses to this challenge and ask the students to come up with a media-agnostic classroom policy for the semester. I frame it as an open question: we’ve had centuries to perfect the way we use books, pens and pencils in the classroom; we’re still working out how do do this with newer tools: what policies do they need? What rationales will they commit to? They wrangle over many of the issues raised in this thread, though with even more of a sense of urgency. They tend to be reasonably conservative and the process usually generates a strong collective commitment. The policy we draft (which covers readings, mobile devices, laptops, Twitter, etc.) usually begins with a couple of sentences like this:

    “All media in our classroom,
    old and new, should be used for our shared goals of learning and problem
    solving. We expect each other to be disciplined and self-reflective about our uses of old
    and new media this semester. This means…”

    Sometimes we cannot decide on a policy related to a specific tool and the group tends to be especially conservative, defaulting to no until some version of yes can be agreed on. For a recent class, the unsolvable question was: is this classroom Tweetable? If yes, what are the groundrules? We delegated to a subgroup who wanted to Tweet the task of working out a policy. By the time they were done they had argued themselves out of the idea entirely.

    It’s from discussions such as this that I get my best strategies. A freshman turned me on to Steve Lambert’s Self Control App — http://visitsteve.com/made/selfcontrol/ — which can have great traction in this context.

  • wassall

    It’s not clear to me what a homicide which occurred in 1978 has to do with “profit motives” and “the Market.” The issue is that allegedly one of the “investigative journalists” illegally recorded a conversation with a person related to the case. Why wouldn’t the prosecuter go after the journalism class’s investigation in this instance?

Copyright 2012. All rights reserved.

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