Instructor-Trapped Classrooms

Being able to project from a laptop to a screen visible by all in a classroom is a powerful tool. However, most projection units take up some floor space, and screens usually take over white/chalkboard space. More importantly, projectors and screens overly determine where instructors position themselves in the classroom.

As an instructor, you don’t want to be blinded by the projector light, and you are constrained by length of the cord connecting the laptop to the projector (usually very short to insure a good signal). If you are using a portable projector, you are in the middle of the classroom with students on either side. If you are using an installed projector, you are wherever the university electricians put you—sometimes front and center behind a monstrous control panel and sometimes in a corner. If you are taking advantage of the projection ability, you are physically tied to the laptop, which is physically tied to the projector. It’s hard to remember what interactions you want to foster as the instructor when you are physically isolated and in full control of the class’s center of gravity, so I recommending the following strategies:

(1) Move anyway. Once you get the projector projecting one thing, leave the laptop behind. Walk and talk for a few minutes. Return to the laptop. I find that if I stay put, I click more quickly than my students can. I already know where to go and what to do, so I don’t have to scan the screen to find the right link or button or icon or menu option. Try to talk students through the process without clicking yourself.

(2) Surrender the screen for the white/chalkboard. Sometimes the best thing you can do as an instructor is to keep track of the conversation on the board, especially because students can usually view on their own laptop screens what you would be projecting. Using a blank document in a word-processing program instead of the white/chalkboard works well when an archive would be advantageous, but you are even more tied to the laptop if you are typing what you could have been writing on the board (which at least increases the possible range of motion). Asking a student to type is a good option, if you have students who aren’t overly conscientious about their typing mistakes.

(3) Go wireless. Wireless keyboards and mice will solve this dilemma, but they are (currently) expensive and far too portable unless a security system is in place. Plus, I’m not sure if the ability to be everywhere in the classroom would be any more effective in staging better kinds of interactions than circling the desks was. Nonetheless, an instructor who has access to wireless keyboards and mice has more opportunities to intentionally construct the material space in ways that work for the activities and interactions she desires.