I can recall, throughout my law school career, only a few occasions where I used the Internet during a class. On those occasions it was a query from the professor that was looked up on-line, quickly and directly keyed to the subject at hand. It provided me with the authority to back my additional commentary in the class, hopefully benefiting everyone. Other than those few instances, I found the Internet to be too great a personal distraction and so refrained from using it during classes.

But the distraction issue is the real crux here. Regardless of whether there is Internet access or not, any extraneous, non-focused activity can prove a distraction to learning. Not only to the student, but to the surrounding classmates and the professor. One of the reasons I sat in the front row in all my classes was so I did not have a slew of “minesweeper” games in line of sight while I listened to the professor’s lecture.

Of course my perspective is that from a self-confessed “shooter” and I participated in the class discussions more than most. Now that I am standing at head of the class in different shoes I see the range of interest that students naturally present to a professor. In my two classes I have, luckily, only had to wake one student up- because his snoring was disturbing the students around him. It is a struggle to keep the entertainment level high enough without obscuring the true education exchange that should be the primary focus. My hat is off to anyone who even attempts it.

If my old law school makes that decision to cut off the Internet in the classrooms, it will be one less temptation, but, only one. I hope you see some benefit from less competition in class. I learned a lot while sitting in your lectures. But I only did so, because I fought off the distractions vying for my attentions.

Good luck keeping their eyeballs.

Your former student,
Christopher Schiller

Most students that I see around me in classes who use computers during classtime do limit their computer usage to activities directly related to the class, such as notetaking, outlining, organization, time planning, flowcharting, looking at case briefs they prepared, etc. But Internet usage is a different story entirely. It is exceedingly, obscenely, ridiculously rare (I really can’t overemphasize this) to see someone using the Internet for something that is even remotely related to class. Sure, ubiquitous classroom Internet access looks good on paper as a selling point for our school. But do the benefits of classroom WiFi outweigh the huge distractions that they bring along with them? No. Not yet, at least.

I recognize (probably more than most people) that technology is one of the most prominent driving forces in our society and that it is revolutionizing education, even in law schools. And I have no doubt that law school professors will one day find all sorts of creative ways to enhance the learning process by taking advantage of wireless Internet connectivity in the classroom. But that day is not today.