Author: Sabrina Shyn, C’13
In my sociology class today, a girl did a strange thing. She took a photo of the professor’s PowerPoint slide with her phone. Yes, her phone. She raised her arms, held the phone way up, and snapped a photo of the screen.
At first, I thought that was a
bit strange. Then I thought that might be genius; it gets rid of the need to quickly write the notes down while also trying to listen and write down what the professor is saying at the same time. But then I realized that it was taking technology a little too far, especially since the girl had her laptop open in front of her.
We all know technology has come a long way – even in the classroom. Gone are the legal pads and pencils that may have once been ubiquitous in lectures. Some people do still take notes in notebooks, but the majority of students today take notes on their laptops.
The Olden Days
Some have those smaller portable laptops just for note talking. And a few students use iPads. Of course, some don’t take notes at all. During class today, while I was furiously typing away to get all the notes down, the girl next to me was fu
riously typing away to Gchat with three different people. The guy next to her was reading a sports articles, two other guys were watching a basketball game, three girls were online shopping, and four hundred people were on Facebook.
So many of my professors comment on how technology has changed. Every week, at least one professor mentions some object or TV show prefaced with a joke of either “I don’t want to age myself but…” or “Do you guys know what [whatever the obsolete object] is?”
“We listened to records – do you know what records are?”
“I know you don’t have to memorize phone numbers these days…but in the ancient past…you had to actually remember digits.”
I bet in the ancient past they never imagined students taking notes with their phones.
Frankly Penn 