lauren's library blog

There was a really interesting article in the New York Times today: Minding the Meeting, or Your Computer?

The article talked about how (particularly among employees in their 20s and 30s) laptops are now practically fashion accessories at meetings. From there, the Times article’s discussion of employees started to sound a lot like a Chronicle article about students.

Apparently, bosses are starting to see problems with their employees the way that instructors have been noticing problems with their students: they bring their laptop, but then goof off.

I constantly read and hear about people banning laptops in classrooms (which I don’t like), and now I wonder: will there be a point in time when laptops in meetings are banned? How will I get anything done!? How will I contribute if I don’t have access to the facts that I store on my computer rather than in my head?!

My general stance has been that if folks are doing things on their laptop rather than paying attention in class, perhaps the course should be restructured. If you ban the computer, students will come up with other ways to distract themselves. To cut to the root of the issue, we should think about how to make the content relevant to the students’ lives and how to make the presentation of that information interesting.

And now, it seems, it’s time to start thinking about that for meetings. The questions might be more along the lines of how do we run a meeting, who really needs to be in the meeting, and is an in-person meeting the best way to work on the project? Which, of course, is something we’re hearing about a lot these days, laptops or no.

Related posts:

1. computers in the classroom
2. PLCMC Technology Summit on Library 2.0
3. Today’s Technology Trends, or, “What Do I Do With That?”
4. Field Trip to App State University!
5. Emerging Technology Committees