Here’s this argument again. Read the comments. They’re fascinating. I don’t have any problem with dictating that students close their laptops on occasion, but banning altogether is ridiculous. We need to keep working to find a way to engage the technology and our students. And you gotta just love the nostalgia of this quote:

students used to know how to pay attention, even when the lecture was boring, and still managed to learn something. Adding cell phones, ipods and laptops for todays students who were born for the “short attention span theater”, is throwing water on a grease fire. Students seem to no longer have the skill to be able to focus on one thing at a time. Blaming the lecturer is the lazy persons copout.

I would say so is blaming the students.