But the level of use is astounding. You look around campus common areas, by the lake and in class - people are working on them. He acknowledges that sometimes he suspects students in his class may be checking their e-mail rather than typing notes. Indeed, in one business classroom, a lecturer expostulates about marketing while several students send e-mails and one surfs the Internet to the Smithsonian, where he spends the rest of class clicking on modern art. But on a recent day, Mr. Travaille pops his laptop into a docking station and begins critiquing an essay by one of six students in the advanced writing class - projecting his computer document on an overhead screen.
Students can also follow on their laptops.
It means my classroom is more dynamic. Students can communicate with each other and collaborate in a way that's not time dependent. Travaille's classes are all paperless. Students attach their assignments to an e-mail. Travaille opens it, makes comments, saves a copy, and sends it back.