Students mark their ownership.

Student-owned laptops are customized machines. Students have the authority to configure their computers in ways that suit their learning styles and preferences. But, this customization has interesting and deleterious consequences.

Private/Public Space
The interesting consequences surface when the private space of a student-owned laptop becomes a public space in the classroom. Instructors are constantly looking over students’ shoulders not only for surveillance, but also to help troubleshoot. Groupmates work in close proximity and confer frequently such that individual screens become the workspace of many. Desktops that feature prom pictures or roommates or musicians or actors/actresses are identity constructions that matter in wireless classrooms. Flaming situations also occur; in the same ways that students’ language in online discussions can be offensive, their personalizations can be insulting. Several strategies can make students aware of what is appropriate and inappropriate:

(1) Make personalization a task. Require students to create a user account that they will use to log into their computers during class time. Have students customize this user account according to the public space rules the class or their group determines. For instance, one group might decide that no personalization is best, so everyone will select one of the default desktop and screensaver options for the user account; another group might decide that personalization according to music preference is acceptable. The value in this task is that students maintain their private personalizations on their privately-owned laptops, yet they also act intentionally to create a public persona that is sensitive to the social space of the classroom.

(2) Analyze the personalizations. Dissecting personalization on a computer can be a very practical and relevant way to stimulate critical thinking about identity construction and social norms. What is “too personal”? What is “offensive”? Who gets to decide and why? How do you negotiate differences in a social space that is full of them?

(3) Establish a course policy. Sometimes a more democratic, exploratory approach to the rules of personalization is impossible given the time-frame or the trajectory of the course. In such instances, making a rule that clearly identifies appropriate and inappropriate personalizations and attaches consequences to infractions will suffice. Even so, I think it is important to communicate to students why this rule exists at all and why it exists in these particulars (whatever you decide those particulars are).

Computer Maintenance
The deleterious consequences of personalization involve system, program, and file management. You don’t have to know a lot to be able to download something from the Internet and make it work. However, this seamlessness creates quite a few snags in wireless classrooms. At my university, pop-up blockers don’t interface well with particular features of Blackboard, a course management portal; so, students who try to shield themselves from the evils of advertising are also prevented from participating in online chats through Blackboard until the pop-up blocker has been disabled (which very few students know how to do, in my experience). Spyware—programs no one means to download—also interferes with encryptying programs like SoftwareSecure that are useful for timed exams or for limiting access to the Internet. These problems aren’t pervasive, but, when they occur, they are show-stoppers.

You also don’t have to know a lot about how a computer works to be able to make it work most of the time, but knowing a little can make a huge difference. Deleting cookies and the history in the temporary internet files of all the browsers used can free up more memory; setting the history to clear automatically every day or so is not a bad idea. Overloading the C: drive with data files instead of storing them in the D: drive can slow the computer’s performance and instigate a crash. Saving files in clearly identified folders with short filenames makes finding them easier. Scheduling an automatic disk clean-up and defragmentation for midnight every Friday night is worthwhile. None of these procedures are obvious, so students—especially those who are new to owning a computer—have to be told to do them. Herein lies the central conflict instructors in wireless classrooms face: How much explicit instruction must I provide in computer maintenance and how much can I expect students to take care of on their own?

Answering this question largely depends on the institutional support available and the kind of boundaries you want to set as an instructor. If students have access to an infrastructure of technology support in the institution, point them in that direction as specifically as possible (e.g., name of organization, location, what to say when they get there); if they don’t, be prepared to provide that support or delegate it. More than likely, some students in your class or colleagues in your department are willing to be resources for particular problems. This network of expertise is invaluable, particularly if the institutional infrastructure is weak. No matter what, set boundaries and patrol them for ways in which you want to be available to students as a technology consultant.

These strategies and boundaries are useful:

(1) Minimum standard setting. Include in the course policies all the hardware and software students will be expected to use in class. Indicate where students may download or purchase such hardware/software. Refer to the university computing policy. Also, in the course policy, indicate the minimum functionality expected (e.g., a battery that will last the whole class period, wireless connectivity).

(2) Recommended practices. The network of colleagues at your institution might develop a list of recommended practices for system management (with detailed instructions) that are tailored for your classrooms. Post this list as a downloadable handout and as a webpage for easy access. Include a reference to this list in the course policy.

(3) Foreshadow it, test it, use it. Tell students that X software will be used in the next class period, so they must prepare by doing Q, R, and S steps. In that next class period, just test X software: Do not make the lesson plan contingent upon X working. In the third class period, use X software. An alternative to this three class-period plan is to set-up an out-of-class activity whereby students can send you proof that X is working or that they know how to work X. For instance, I teach students to use Microsoft Word’s commenting features by having them work through an online module I designed; they post the file they modified according to that module in our course space to get participation points and to be admitted to class on the day we start online peer review.

(4) Specify filenames and locations. Particularly if file sharing will be an important part of the class, include the filename format for every assignment and remind students to save in two places (a network drive and a harddrive). It is helpful to start the filename with numbers so that organization will be preserved. For example, “1.3meeks.doc” in my class means assignment 1, draft 3 written by Meeks. If students are using “save as versions” option, then the file will contain the original drafts by Meeks as well as the versions saved by peer reviewers. If saved versions in the same file makes you or your students crazy (and it might), specify a second filename for peer reviewers (e.g., “1.3meeks.graham” means assignment 1, draft 3 written by Meeks and peer reviewed by Graham). Whatever your system, make it systemic.

Recommending Reading:
Stuart A. Selber’s article “Reimagining the Functional Side of Computer Literacy” in College Composition and Communication 55.3 (February 2004) answers the question about explicit instruction by offering parameters for what a functional computer literacy might address and how it might be taught. He builds from Thomas Barker’s distinction between computer-mediated users and empowered users, replacing the latter term with “functionally literate users.”