Laptops may have become ubiquitous in lecture rooms worldwide but one lecturer at the University of Malta has put his foot down, banning the devices from his classes.

It is not the era of clay tablets and papyrus. If you don’t get that, then you shouldn’t be lecturing

In an e-mail to his students, entitled Laptops Banned in EMP1010 Lecture, Antoine Vella lambasted them for not paying attention, placing the blame on laptops.

EMP1010 is the code for an Environmental Management and Planning module called Dynamics of the Earth: Earth’s Living Systems.

“It is clear that laptops are not helping you focus on the lecture but quite the contrary and they will therefore not be allowed for next Monday’s lecture,” Dr Vella wrote.

Dr Vella added a touch of humour: “You may take notes in any old-fashioned way: write on paper, cardboard or anything else you want – parchment, papyrus... even clay tablets if you wish. But not on computer.

“You might also want to note that the lecture room is also not the right place for napping, flirting, snacking, gossiping and catching up with the latest news,” he concluded his e-mail.

One student, who remained anonymous, reported the e-mail to a student blog called Tea and Rain.

The student told the blog the ban followed an “excruciatingly boring two-hour lecture” where Dr Vella sat at his desk giving a power-point presentation from his own laptop.

Calling the lecturer’s e-mail “pathetic”, the student said his peers could not be blamed for finding websites like Facebook, Tumblr and Miniclip more interesting, when even “a buzzing fly” could have sparked more enthusiasm than the lecture.

“I’m sorry, but if you see that your audience are bored out of their wits and are finding every other excuse to distract themselves, despite the fact that they know they might be examined on what you are blabbing away about, then it must hit you that you must be doing something wrong, very wrong.”

The student did not find Dr Vella’s suggested alternatives very amusing either.

“It is not the era of clay tablets and papyrus anymore. If you don’t get that, then you shouldn’t be lecturing... In this modern day and age, most of us use some sort of portable device at university, namely iPads and laptops.”

When contacted, Dr Vella did not back down, even though he acknowledged that laptops need not be banned across the board.

He said he had several classes where laptops were not disruptive at all but in this particular class many of the students were not using them to take notes but chatting or playing, affecting those around them.

“I’ve been lecturing for over 20 years and know when someone is paying attention or not,” Dr Vella added.

He said the student writing on the blog had admitted the laptop was being used as a distraction, not for taking notes, but rebutted the claim that his lectures were boring.

“I do not read off the presentations – each slide contains only a few words and is abundantly illustrated. I comment on the subject of the slide without reading... Even if I say it myself, the lectures are not boring,” he said, attaching a colourful 116-page presentation on ecological interactions as proof.

“There’s nothing old-fashioned with writing by hand... journalists do it all the time at press conferences, for example, and students have to do it during exams,” he added.

University encourages use of technology

In a reply this evening, the University said it encouraged the use of technology in the lecture room, whether by the lecturer or by the students as it couldenhance the whole teaching/learning experience.

However, behaviour in the lecture room is the responsibility of the individual lecturer and decisions on the matter were the lecturer's prerogative.