Digitivity » Internet access

Should Laptops Be Banned from College Classes?

Digitivity — Wed, 10 Mar 2010 18:34:47 +0000

More and more professors are banning laptops from their classrooms. This is coming at a time when more and more colleges are also requiring students to buy laptop computers.

The problem is that students are checking their emails, Facebook, or other websites during class instead of listening to the lectures.

But beyond that, some professors don’t like the fact that laptop users are just producing word-for-word transcripts of lectures as opposed to listening, understanding, analyzing, and summarizing. Interesting, most students surveyed after a laptop ban agree that their participation in class increased.

In fact one chem professor went to the extent of freezing a laptop in liquid nitrogen and shattering it dropping it on the floor to demonstrate his no-laptop policy:

Some schools are are dealing with the problem by allowing professors to turn off wireless Internet access on a per-classroom basis. (Is the range of Wifi so low that it only extends to a single classroom?) Others, like Villanova, are turning off wireless Internet in classrooms from 8-5.

On the other hand, some students say that they’re the customers in the whole situation since they’re paying the tuition, and they should be able to do whatever they like.

On the subject of tuition, the Above the Law blog thinks people think that if a professor can’t be bothered to be more interesting than a blog or some random website, what’s the point of the hundreds of thousands of dollars in tuition the students are paying?

What do you think?

Cory Doctorow for Net Neutrality and an Open Internet

Digitivity — Wed, 20 May 2009 18:20:10 +0000

Cory Doctorow, the Canadian blogger and science fiction writer, has come out against ISPs’ increasing efforts to throttle and control bandwith and Internet accesss.

He argues in the Manchester Guardian that:

ISPs are censoring sites that they don’t agree with for whatever reason, including striking workers’ sites. It’s also outrageous to allow a service provider to block or reduce customer access to its competitors.
ISPs are complaining about high bandwidth users requiring them to implement download and other limits, but the real intent behind such limits is to reduce access to sites such as Hulu and YouTube which are competitors to the cable and media companies that also have ISP divisions.
Download limits will make users hesitant to try new things on the web.
Besides, you don’t know how much bandwidth a given link will use until you click on it.
Telecom firms have been massively subsidized by the public in the form of rights-of-way and monopolies. They owe it as a public trust to provide free and open Internet access.

The story is being discussed on Slashdot here.

Some interesting comments there:

One poster comments that, in the web host he works for, the bandwidth usage varies for specific users, but is very constant for all users combined, as would be predicted from statistics. It’s very easy to plan bandwidth needs from month to month.

Another commenter says that, instead of having private companies own the data lines in the ground, the government should contract with companies to bury the lines, pay them, and then own the lines, just as it does with roads.

Finally, Japan is providing Internet access at an amazing 160 megabits per second for $20 a month. So how come they can do that and Verizon and the like can’t?

I have to say the Doctorow’s arguments are persuasive. Given the rise of sites such as Hulu and Youtube, it’s not just a few users who are downloading illicit movies who are hogging bandwidth. ISPs who slow access to such sites or impose limits are at war with their own customers.

Obama Proposes $44 Billion Universal Broadband Plan

Digitivity — Thu, 25 Dec 2008 13:01:30 +0000

President-elect Obama has called for spending $44 billion on broadband, according to the story being discussed on Slashdot:

Slashdot | Universal Broadband Plan Calls For $44 Billion

I think it’s about time that the U.S. got its broadband act together. Everytime broadband is discussed, someone brings up the excuse that that U.S. can’t have as good Internet service as other countries for the reason that it’s more geographically dispersed. The problem is no one can explain why the most important city on Earth, New York City, doesn’t have broadband at the level of rural Scandinavians.

The second interesting part about this plan is the “universal” aspect. As we become a more and more digitized society, it makes sense that Internet access be provided to everybody the same way that phone service is. Granted, you don’t need a phone to live, but you do need one to live well. So too for Internet service.