As Cornerstone students, we delight in the gray techno wonders that offer unlimited YouTube, facebook, and e-mail access, in addition to their other (minor) functions like assisting us with our homework.

We speak of the Dells, of course.

The question that we Herald editors are asking is whether those laptops are a help or hindrance to students in the classroom setting. Can we really multi-task in class?

John Duff, assistant professor of Bible, said that it depends on what is meant by the phrase “multi-tasking.”

“I can enter grades and watch a news program at the same time,” he said, “but I can’t read a book and watch a news program at the same time.”

Jeanette Banashak, professor of youth ministry, agrees with Duff about the multi-tasking question.

“College students are very prodigious when it comes to doing many things at once,” she said. “I just don’t want them to hone that skill during class.”

Duff said that in his experience, the laptops provide temptation for students to escape from class. Even if students are able to do several things at once on the laptop and still focus on the lecture, he observed that they often distract others by toggling between windows.

For this reason, Duff generally does not allow his Christian Foundations classes to use their laptops for note-taking in class.

“How did students take notes before laptops?” he asked, smiling. He asks students to take notes by hand, just like they did before laptops.

Lauren Bronkema, a junior who took Christian Foundations I and II with Duff, said that his laptop policy at the time was to allow them only when necessary.

“I didn’t mind it,” she said. “Sometimes I still broke the rule, but at the same time I knew that it was better if I didn’t use them for anything besides notes—not for ‘multi-tasking.’”

Bronkema also added that she believes the professors who ban laptops do so because they care about their subject matter and want students to learn it thoroughly.

We’re sorry if you are a student who thinks the “no laptop” rule that some professors enforce is harsh, but we have to side with the professors on this one—at least in theory, if not in actual practice.

It’s time to spill.

As Herald staffers we are just as guilty of playing “instant messenger” over e-mail while in class. (If you read this semester’s first issue of The Herald, you’ll remember that Laurie Hekman is getting a degree in e-mail—or should be).

Sometimes class time seems like a perfect opportunity to plan out the day, or to banter back and forth with friends about this morning’s latest inside joke. (Just now I heard someone’s conscience cry, “Guilty!”)

Maybe what we really need is to change our attitudes. The question isn’t whether we can use our laptops, but instead, why are we fighting so hard for this issue?

Can’t we take notes by hand and then type them up after class, if it is really about the convenience of saving notes in folders?

Maybe what is really at stake here is the attitude in which we come to class. Do we really want to be there? Here is a phrase to consider that most of us have often heard Doc Carroll repeat: “Study is worship.”

Think about it.