Laptops of little use to pupils in class, forum told

Students should not be using laptops and tablets in the classroom, a conference on education has been told.

Tom Butler, professor in business information systems at University College Cork, said the negative effects of information and communications technology use include sleep deprivation, distraction and multi-tasking, all of which directly impact on learning.

He told the Féilte conference at the RDS, Dublin, on Saturday, he has banned students from using laptops and tablets at his lectures.

“Research indicates that traditional methods of learning through reading and writing on paper-based media provide superior learning outcomes for students at all levels,” he said.

His remarks come in the wake of the Government’s announcement of €210 million funding for technology in the classroom, and also after an OECD report found it was unclear whether students benefit from using technology to work through problems.

Shallow reading

The

Festival of Education in Learning and Teaching Excellence

, organised by the Teaching Council, included keynote addresses from adventurer Mark Pollock and psychologist and author Maureen Gaffney, along with workshops, panel discussions and meetings.

Prof Butler took part in a panel exploring Have We Gone too Far in Our Quest to Make Our Children Technically Literate? He said students who read from a screen engage in "shallow reading".