Laptops banned in colleges

I found the article "Laptops in the classroom: Mend it, don't end it
Teachers: Step down as the sage on the stage and learn to be the guide on the side"
By Justin Reich extremely interesting. I can't believe that at the college level professors would not allow laptops in the classroom. Even though professors say that laptops "turn students into stenographers instead of critical thinkers, or, more often, distract them with online shopping or e-mail" the college requires their students to purchase them. The fact that colleges would even sconsider doing this distrubs me. Aren't colleges suposed to be places for free thinking and higher education? How can we expect our students to be better global members if they can't even use their laptops in class?

I think that teachers want to ban laptops from the classroom as part of the implied teacher and implied student syndrome. Reich states,

. Computers can transform the way students learn only if instructors change the way they teach.

"As a teacher, I can confirm that most of us love to be the center of attention, and laptops threaten our fiefdoms. For years, we have pointed the desks toward us and shut the window blinds to maintain our monopolies. When we punish the class clown, it's not for being funny; it's for being funnier than we are. Admitting laptops into the classroom means facing the reality that in the competition for attention, our best lectures can't even beat solitaire."

Teachers are not banning laptops from the classroom because they are not beneficial to the students; they are doing it because they want to be the central focus. Professors need to reconsider their rule because it should be the students at the center focus of the classroom.

Furthermore, Reich states, "To productively use laptops in the classroom, teachers need to be willing to surrender their supremacy. Students no longer need us for the facts because facts are instantly available on the Internet. Instead, they need us to help them figure out what to do with all that data." This quotation reminds me of Friedman's text. Our student no longer need us for imformation. They need to learn to become composers.
I think that teachers should be stopped from banning laptops in the classroom. Professors should know how beneficial technology is to students and they must encourage its use in the classroom.