Plugs in lectures

Xhristy

This post has been deleted.

Économiste Monétaire

Depends on the building. The answer would be negative for the Newman building - the ones on the stairs aren't allowed for laptops because people fall over them :pac: (it does happen).

IrishKnight

In Science block, th. A has plugs and ethernet jacks at the back...

Dave!

My laptop can't hold a charge either, so it sucks that I'm in the arts building half the time The other half I'm in Comp Sci, where one would think they might have sockets in the lecture theatre -- but apparantly not.

bnt

In most of my 1st year Engineering classes, outline notes were usually provided. It was less about taking notes from scratch, more of a need to follow the lectures and fill in the gaps, actually, which usually means paper and pen. Still, I have an eee PC 1000 on order, it might arrive in time and I'll see what it can do in lectures.

Pride Fighter

Disabled section down the back has plugs I think, thats your best bet.

Xhristy

This post has been deleted.

Shazbot

Most lecture theatres don't have sockets. The majority of lecturers will post their lecture notes on Blackboard in advance of the lecture. All you have to do is print them off and add notes to them as the lecturer is talking. Some lecturers will put the notes up after the lecture but that's nothing a pen and paper can't solve.

I've noticed some lecturers don't like people using laptops in lectures. I've seen a few stop a lecture and asked the laptop be put away. They said "there's nothing more to take down that can't be done with a pen". Or something like that.

bnt

Xhristy wrote: »

This post has been deleted.

Linux: the standard "eee Xandros" doesn't have half the packages I want (e.g. blender, maxima, unison, LyX), so I'll probably replace it with Ubuntu Netbook Remix.

PS: if you need a Maths package, I can recommend Giac/Xcas, which is made by the same guy behind the CAS (Computer Algebra System) in HP calculators. It's available for Windows and Mac as well as Linux. If I had something like that in Maths exams, life would be somewhat easier... :pac:

Stepherunie

Shazbot wrote: »

Most lecture theatres don't have sockets. The majority of lecturers will post their lecture notes on Blackboard in advance of the lecture. All you have to do is print them off and add notes to them as the lecturer is talking. Some lecturers will put the notes up after the lecture but that's nothing a pen and paper can't solve.

I've noticed some lecturers don't like people using laptops in lectures. I've seen a few stop a lecture and asked the laptop be put away. They said "there's nothing more to take down that can't be done with a pen". Or something like that.

I dislike lecturers who take that approach and call out a person.

I had to use a laptop for a while as I had an injury (ironically from writing too much) which meant I couldn't hold a pen for more than one line of text.

If you're in health sci there's more plugs about but you need to know where to look, if you're in the smaller classrooms it's generally okay - the large rooms not so much.

Xhristy

This post has been deleted.

Thomas_S_Hunterson

Stepherunie wrote: »

I dislike lecturers who take that approach and call out a person.

I think it's fair enough. Their lecture, their rules.

In reality, in the laptop heavy lectures in arts and stuff, most people are just on Bebo. They really just serve as a distraction. Generally, if someone has a genuine need to have one, the lecturers will understand.

The truth is that no laptops are required at the vast majority of lectures.

Économiste Monétaire

btw I just got my offer this morning for Compsci this morning. UCD here I come

Congratulations - any questions just post up

Stepherunie

Sean_K wrote: »

I think it's fair enough. Their lecture, their rules.

In reality, in the laptop heavy lectures in arts and stuff, most people are just on Bebo. They really just serve as a distraction. Generally, if someone has a genuine need to have one, the lecturers will understand.

The truth is that no laptops are required at the vast majority of lectures.

I dislike it purely because I got called out on it by a lecturer and then had to explain the whole injury thing which sometimes you just don't want to do. I tend to prefer lecturers who just say it after to you.

Then again I have small lectures.

jimi_t

I think it's fair enough. Their lecture, their rules.

It really isn't. Regardless of the fact that the college is consistently preening it's 'e-learning' feathers in the mdeia, the notion of 'confiscating' or not permitting laptops in any futher education environment is unthinkable in this day and age. The lecturer would be laughed out of the lecture hall in America, and while a luddite culture of low telecommunications-penetration and lack of IT training at second-level may explain such actions this side of the pond, they certainly do not excuse them.

In reality, in the laptop heavy lectures in arts and stuff, most people are just on Bebo. They really just serve as a distraction. Generally, if someone has a genuine need to have one, the lecturers will understand.

Better to have the disinterested 'tyrannical majority' in Th.L and M on their laptops than throwing bits of paper around and talking. Tbh anyway, the people who aren't arsed with their lecutres generally just don't turn up to them as opposed to turning up with their laptops in tow.

The 'laptop heavy' lectures such as History and English are generally due to the fact that

(a) There are *no* lecturer notes put up on blackboard
(b) There is about twice as much writing done as any other course
(c) ALL work presented must be typed.

rather than because they're full of low points dossers

bnt

jimi_t wrote: »

It really isn't. Regardless of the fact that the college is consistently preening it's 'e-learning' feathers in the mdeia, the notion of 'confiscating' or not permitting laptops in any futher education environment is unthinkable in this day and age.

"Confiscating" would be completely out of the question, of course - a laptop is usually the student's private property. The closest I've seen to that is a lecturer telling the students "you have no reason to have laptops open, please close them".

The USA is different to UCD in another way: there, students are expected to buy textbooks, and work through them. Not having to do that, and having basic notes provided, has been a pleasant surprise, and I think you should all take full advantage of that.

PS: there is a free program for annotating PDF documents: Jarnal. (Don't go spending money on "PDF Annotator".) Jarnal can do text annotations, though it also works well if you have a touchscreen. It is Java-based, so needs a machine with a reasonable amount of oomph.

rainbow kirby

There's very few sockets in the CS lecture theatre, so get a new battery for your laptop if you want to use it in lectures and it can't hold a charge. May have to do that myself this year as my laptop battery life is down to just over an hour.

Stabshauptmann

UCD_Econ wrote: »

Depends on the building. The answer would be negative for the Newman building - the ones on the stairs aren't allowed for laptops because people fall over them :pac: (it does happen).

there are some. At the back of the theatre on the left wall of the projector room (if facing the lecturer). Theres only the one

Économiste Monétaire

Kaptain Redeye wrote: »

there are some. At the back of the theatre on the left wall of the projector room (if facing the lecturer). Theres only the one

Don't be encouraging the new-lings to sit at the back :P

Breezer

Sean_K wrote: »

I think it's fair enough. Their lecture, their rules.

I have to disagree; unless you're playing music out of it or something that would distract other people, I really don't see why it matters. I like taking notes on my laptop because it saves me having to print, write on, subsequently lose and then scavenge notes from other people. You may say I'm disorganised; I say I've found a system that allows me to perfectly well organised and provided I'm not hurting anyone I should be allowed use it.

I've only been told to turn it off once anyway. On that occasion the lecturer had been standing at the back during the previous lecture and had seen several people on email etc. I still don't see the harm, it's our own loss if we don't want to listen, provided we're not distracting others. It was probably me she saw alright, because I was on email, emailing another lecturer about a timetable discrepancy that was going to screw up the whole class and didn't because I alerted them in time. I still managed to take perfectly good notes AND I later caught her giving out herself about how much the previous lecturer had been waffling, but anyway... :rolleyes:

Thomas_S_Hunterson

I don't think a lecturers reasons for wanting people's laptops away are relevant. If they don't want laptops, then so be it. They decide what they teach, they decide how to teach it and if they deem laptops to be unnecessary then they can ask non-compliant students to leave.

Breezer

Sean_K wrote: »

I don't think a lecturers reasons for wanting people's laptops away are relevant. If they don't want laptops, then so be it. They decide what they teach, they decide how to teach it and if they deem laptops to be unnecessary then they can ask non-compliant students to leave.

Can they also decide what kind of hairstyles are acceptable in lectures? For everyone to sit in alphabetical order? This sort of thing belongs in a school classroom (well actually that's debatable, but it goes on there). It doesn't belong in a lecture theatre in a modern university. The lecturer's job is to come in and give the lecture. He/she doesn't have to take any crap from students, and can object to distracting behaviour such as talking, listening to music, coming in late, throwing things, moving around the lecture hall etc. But I fail to see how a laptop can be offensive unless the lecturer adopts a 'because I'm in charge and I said so' approach.

For crying out loud, the university is busy trying to promote computer aided learning left, right and centre! Some courses actually require laptops. There is no reason to disallow them, and in fairness most lecturers seem to have more sense.

spurious

Would it not be a useful study and revision exercise to type your notes up from written notes after the lecture?

Thomas_S_Hunterson

Well lecturers have their integrity, which is one of their most important professional assets. They're not going to damage it by being unreasonable. They obviously have their reasons for requesting that laptops be kept away.

Breezer

spurious wrote: »

Would it not be a useful study and revision exercise to type your notes up from written notes after the lecture?

It could well be, and no one's stopping anyone doing that, but it could be equally useful for people to hand write notes from stuff they've typed. Or to simply do one or the other. Different people work different ways.

Sean_K wrote:

Well lecturers have their integrity, which is one of their most important professional assets. They're not going to damage it by being unreasonable.

Not sure I understand what you're getting at here, sorry

Thomas_S_Hunterson

Breezer wrote: »

Not sure I understand what you're getting at here, sorry

It's in response to your 'because I'm in charge and I said so' comment.

bnt

How about using a little intelligence in deciding the issue? For the first lecture, keep it simple: check out how cramped the lecture theatre is, whether you have power sockets or not, look at the notes, and listen to the lecturer. You could even ask the lecturer's opinion on laptops.

Some lecture theatres are so cramped that you don't want to bring out a typical 15" laptop. One nudge, it's crashing to the floor. The fan may be blasting hot air and noise in someone else's ear. (Yes, that has happened to me.) Don't get me started on noisy keyboards.

Above all: don't do anything that disrupts the lecture, regardless of what you think of the subject, the lecturer, the room, the other students, or laptops. Even if it's something you did a few months ago at school: not everyone goes to university directly from your school. You don't get to decide whether the lecture is important or not. :cool:

Breezer

Sean_K wrote: »

It's in response to your 'because I'm in charge and I said so' comment.

Ah, get ya now, sorry To me, a blanket ban on laptops would fall into that category though, as I genuinely can't see a reason for it. They're a useful tool that have been in common usage in just about every industry for years. Walk into any Commerce lecture in UCD and every student will have one out. Walk into any lecture at all in the States and every student will have one out. The only reason I can see would be a power mad lecturer.

bnt wrote:

You could even ask the lecturer's opinion on laptops.

Good idea, if possible, but not always practical when you've a different lecturer every week and their lecture is squashed between several others, so no opportunity to go and print notes. True, you could print the notes in advance, but that's just wasteful if a laptop could serve the same purpose.

The fan may be blasting hot air and noise in someone else's ear. (Yes, that has happened to me.) Don't get me started on noisy keyboards.

Now that could be annoying, I'll admit that. My laptop behaves itself :P Never had anyone complain about the noise of my keyboard; I can't imagine it being any worse that the sounds of pens scratching, clicking, the desk vibrating as people rub out mistakes, papers rustling or that other chestnut, talking in lectures.

I really don't think it's a problem. I've been here 3 years and have had many, many lecturers lecturing me, and only once was I asked to put away a laptop. And the request only extended to that particular lecture, the same lecturer was fine with people having laptops on other days.

Shazbot

Breezer wrote: »

True, you could print the notes in advance, but that's just wasteful if a laptop could serve the same purpose.

It's not wastefull if it serves a purpose, like learning from it and adding notes to the pages. I'd imagine it would be very difficult to take down a diagram or complex pathway on a laptop. Can't imagine anyones MS paint skills being that good.

Now that could be annoying, I'll admit that. My laptop behaves itself :P Never had anyone complain about the noise of my keyboard; I can't imagine it being any worse that the sounds of pens scratching, clicking, the desk vibrating as people rub out mistakes, papers rustling or that other chestnut, talking in lectures.

I'd find it extremely irritating in small lecture rooms that seat <20 people but thankfully noone in my lectures does it.

Raphael

Shazbot wrote: »

It's not wastefull if it serves a purpose, like learning from it and adding notes to the pages. I'd imagine it would be very difficult to take down a diagram or complex pathway on a laptop. Can't imagine anyones MS paint skills being that good.

Exactly why I stopped taking notes on my laptop. Formulae and Diagrams just got too hard to deal with.

lemon_sherbert

I would have been lost last year in some classes without my laptop to type notes. In some of the Law classes no notes are provided, and in one of my first lectures I ended up handwriting eight pages of notes back and front, which was really just a waste of paper, as afterwards I always write up more comprehensive notes. And the pain in my hands after two solid hours writing!:eek:

That said, I have been asked a few times to close my laptop by Economics and Accounting lecturers, and seeing as I was required to buy a laptop for my course, it can be a little frustrating for those of us with large messy handwriting, when typing notes (which nerdling that I am, I was doing) to have to fumble for paper mid lecture.

Breezer

Shazbot wrote: »

It's not wastefull if it serves a purpose, like learning from it and adding notes to the pages. I'd imagine it would be very difficult to take down a diagram or complex pathway on a laptop. Can't imagine anyones MS paint skills being that good.

But that same purpose can be accomplished on a laptop, which is less wasteful. Admittedly diagrams are complicated with a standard keyboard and mouse, so the paper usually comes out for those, but I don't have to do that very often. The fact that we can use paper isn't reason enough to ban laptops anyway, either option should be allowed.

I'd find it extremely irritating in small lecture rooms that seat <20 people but thankfully noone in my lectures does it.

I'm only in those a couple of times a year for each subject, and when I am I don't use my laptop.

Stepherunie

I'm always in classrooms that sit max 40 and have regularly used my laptop. I've never once had a complaint about it, either from a lecturer or student.

My lecturer just asked at the end did why I used it and I explained I type faster than I write and it's far more legible when you're dealing with scenarios that you might otherwise miss something on.

Only time a lecturer called me out on it was a big one, and he was cool once I explained i couldn't write.

If i have lecture notes from BB then there's no issue, I won't use it, but for ones where I've no lecture notes it's great as I can take down the bulk of the slides to give context to my own scribbles.

Red Alert

Just a bit of advice - Word isn't necessairly your best bet for note taking. Some people say Microsoft Onenote or Omni Outliner for the mac do a better job. You'd have to try yourself and see.

If you're doing lots of diagrams, there's a very good diagram program included with Openoffice. Beats MS Paint for taking 'lecture note' type diagrams. Also check out Inkscape if you're after more 'custom' diagrams.

If you were going to be doing lots of note/diagram taking on one, another option might be a tablet-PC. These are like a laptop but have a touch screen and you can sit them down flat on the desk. They run Windows XP or Linux, rumor has it apple has one in the works too. Personally though you'd probably want either a desktop at home or a normal laptop too. If you've already got a PC at home, another idea might be something like the Macbook Air: a very light machine that won't get in your way in crowded lecture halls.

On the whole thing about banning them, I think it's counterproductive. Back when I was in undergrad, laptops were just starting and nobody used them in Engineering lectures at all. If I was lecturer I'd have absolutely no problem with them. I'd also add that I wouldn't take attendance so if people want to talk or mess there's no penalty in leaving or not coming.

I demonstrate in labs where people actually need to use them to help with the assignment - of course you're going to get people doing mail, facebook and whatnot. But if they're not disrupting anybody else I don't care at all.

Another tip - you should be technically asking your lecturer first - but remember most laptops can record sound too. A good free program to do it is Audacity.

bnt

Microsoft OneNote is excellent for note-taking, complete with diagrams, and I used to use it on a Tablet PC, and it would have been great in lectures. For annotating Acrobat PDFs, there's that free Jarnal program I mentioned earlier. Unfortunately, the Tablet PC wasn't mine, and I had to give it back before coming to UCD, leaving me with a 6-y.o. steam-powered 15" Compaq that I never took to UCD.

If Tablet PCs were cheaper, I would go for one, but they're not. The cheapest one in the pipeline is the Gigabyte M912, which Expansys will be carrying (I asked them) - but it's not a true Tablet PC. It has a touchscreen, not a proper tablet digitiser, and the same is true of some of the cheaper HP TX2xxx machines (it varies, so check). This makes them OK for general work but unsuitable for finer art applications, where pen pressure sensitivity is very useful. So I've resigned myself to doing without a true Tablet PC, and have ordered one (eee PC 1000 in black) small, quiet, and discreet.

I don't think anyone's talking about banning laptops. Even where the lecturer asks you not to use one, it's for a reason, which you can talk to him or her about later. Co-operation is the name of the game. If you don't behave like schoolkids, the lecturer won't behave like a schoolteacher. I'm simply suggesting that you show some sensitivity to the environment and to other people, including the lecturer. :pac:

Breezer

bnt wrote: »

I don't think anyone's talking about banning laptops. Even where the lecturer asks you not to use one, it's for a reason, which you can talk to him or her about later. Co-operation is the name of the game. If you don't behave like schoolkids, the lecturer won't behave like a schoolteacher. I'm simply suggesting that you show some sensitivity to the environment and to other people, including the lecturer. :pac:

I'm not suggesting I don't :pac: I put it away when asked, and as I said it only happened once. If it were to happen repeatedly I would speak to the lecturer privately, of course. I've just spent an entire year during just that with various grievances my class had over absolutely everything you can think of. 'Banning' was probably a poor choice of words. Anyway, I've said my piece, nothing to see here folks :pac:

Tayto2000

Wow. How did anyone possibly get through college before laptops and notes provided on blackboard?

I think the main reason lecturers get pi$$ed at laptop users has been mentioned, some perceive them to be a distraction more than a learning aid. And believe it or not, many lecturers do actually care about whether the people in their lecture are paying attention. It must be extremely demoralising to give a lecture to a class full of people who clearly couldn't give a toss about the subject being taught.

Regarding the lecturer asking people to put away laptops (especially in a class where notes are provided), although they have no power to force compliance beyond throwing the person out of the lecture, I think it should come down to respecting the wishes of the teacher in question, simple as that.