OMFG. OpenAI's Educator Considerations for ChatGPT

[Ms. Toad]

16. You might be surprised.

Starting at least a decade ago, at the college/grad school level there has been a slowly rowing movement to ban computers from the classroom.

The argument is that computers encourage students to trasnscribe lectures, rather than synthesize the information being conveyed. Students who wrote were forced to process the information and synthesize it in smaller chunks as they were receiving because it was impossible to transcribe it using pen and pencil. In addition, many of those who aren't transcribing are surfing the net.

I've taught alongside at least one professor who banned computers from their law school classroom.

Personally, as a student, I found the opposite. I took typing in 7th grade, and can type as accurately and as quickly as any administrative assistant I've ever had). This speed allowed me to synthesize the information and organize my notes in a way that I never could with handwriting. But I was in law school (with a bachelor and masters degree under my belt) - and had had years of practice synthesizing informaiton to the best I could with the slow (handwriting) tools I had. So I took the synthesizing skills I already had and used my computer to implement them more effectively.

But as a small counter - I am back in the classroom as a student - in a class in which I am actively transcribing (computer programs being written on the fly by an instructor). During those sessions, I am learning less than the ones in which the professor is teaching - so there is some truth to the concern about transcription rather than synthesis.

ChatGPT may accelerate that largely static movement.