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Have It Your Way: BYO Laptop Program Earns High Marks at NC State

Stan Gibson | Date: 03-18-10 | Comments

Researchers find that students using their own laptops in a pilot project classroom tend to be more focused, perhaps because of their familiarity with the equipment they are using.

Word processing has revolutionized the teaching of writing across colleges and universities to the point where at many institutions, writing classes are now given in computer labs. But that approach is costly, and at a time when belt-tightening is the rule at campuses everywhere, building new computer-equipped classes doesn�t add up.

North Carolina State University, in Raleigh, N.C., has been trying a different approach via a pilot program, in which some first-year writing classrooms are festooned with electrical outlets and served by WiFi networks. The goal: to accommodate the nearly 80 percent of students who bring their laptop computers to college with them and offer loaner laptops to those who don�t. The results so far are earning high marks.

�Students were taking their work with them outside of class�this was qualitatively different than doing work on a desktop PC and then saving it,� according to Dr. Susan Miller-Cochran, associate professor of English at NC State.

NC State, like many institutions, wants to avoid mandating that students purchase a computer in order to attend school. That has led the university to spend heavily to computer-equip certain classes. Although costly and unwieldy, a roomful of uniform desktop systems and software does assure that papers will be written in the same format, and comments and corrections added in a consistent manner. But the computer labs require constant care and updating, which increases the cost of an education.

The BYO approach, although solving these problems, does give rise to the need for all participants to use compatible word-processing programs and to submit and review documents in common file formats, such as .rtf or .pdf. To work with students in overcoming these hurdles, some teachers needed to be trained in Windows, Macintosh and Linux environments, the three operating systems most commonly used by students.

Despite concerns that students would become distracted�checking their Facebook accounts during class, for example�the researchers found that students using their own laptops in the pilot project classroom tended to be more focused, perhaps because of their familiarity with the equipment they were using.

The pilot project was launched in fall 2008, and was composed of 28 class sections taught over three semesters. The researchers hope to increase the number of classrooms with similar capabilities in the near future.

The project demonstrates that it�s no longer essential to build computer labs on campuses. �It�s not the best use of resources. People prefer to use their own technology, and it�s better to train teachers to work with different [computing] environments,� says Miller-Cochran, who co-authored with NC State doctoral student Dawn Shepherd the report, �Teaching Writing in Blended Learning/Space(s).� The paper will be presented at the Conference on College Composition and Communication in Louisville, Ky., on March 18.