Teaching Thursday: The Device Free Classroom 3

Over the course of the semester, I’ve been ruminating on the idea of a device free classroom. This is a nation wide trend that often begins with faculty abandoning devices such as the dreaded “powerpointer” (and embracing slides), avoiding enshittified Learning Management Systems, and not using phones in the classroom. Eventually students are drawn into process by leaving their phones and laptops in their bag and engaging more fully in the learning process while thinking more critically about how devices increasingly mediate and surveil education. Recently, faculty have started to pull back from one of the most nefarious devices in the modern educational arsenal: email. To be clear, I’m not an email hater. I appreciate how email allows me to maintain a network of friends and colleagues around the world. I also often prefer email communication to endless meetings. That all said, I do think email has become a quasi-anonymous way for us to communicate — often in bulk — with our students.…