What’s a Prof to Do When Students Text and Surf in Class?

EL PASO — I do not want to be a technology police officer in the classroom yet I sometimes feel like one. I am troubled by the number of students using cell phones to text and laptops to surf the web during my lectures. This seems to be even more of an issue in larger and bigger classrooms. As UTEP’s student population grows (over 20,000 at the start of this academic year), each semester there seem to be more students enrolling in my lecture classes, and more instances of technology disrupting my classroom teaching. Early in the semester, actually on day one and week one of each class, students and I go over the course syllabi and we review the goals and objectives for each class. This is the time where I usually explain expectations in my courses, including the use of technology.

The New Classroom

The high-tech gear at Herman Seufert’s fifth grade class classroom is not just for show. Students use the computers to post blogs, create their own photo slideshows, and even talk to classes in East Texas. The blogs range from a private journal of thoughts to homework assignments. Everything the students do is eventually posted on a wiki page so that the world can see it.

Knights Set the Bar for High School Journalism

Hanksmedia.com is the first fully-operational online high school newspaper in the El Paso area. It is the digital version of the student magazine Scriptoria and like all online publications it is updated daily.