I’ve tried to write it so that it handles Unicode characters, but I haven’t had much to test it with yet.

Thanks!

I found a little bug, the converter (it seems) can’t handle Unicode. Some japanese characters gave me this exception :

“Exception in ^^XX attempt: ‘ascii’ codec can’t encode character u’\u307e’ in position 0: ordinal not in range(128)”.

But as in all contracts, their must be “value offered” on both sides.

And the STUDENTS’ side of this contract, as I see it, is to be attentive in class EVEN WHEN THEY FIND WHAT’S GOING ON AT THAT MOMENT BORING!

NO meaningful presentation can be entertaining during 100% of its duration! (This is not an assumption but a conclusion:) For a presentation to be “meaningful” it must relate to something the student ALREADY knows, either,as at the start of the term, from her/his previous experience, or, once the course is well-started, from the work s/he has (we assume) done earlier in the semester.

But for this to be educational there must be a time when the instructor is EXPLAINING how the presentation is related to the other material, and this explanation, being a “META-concept” (i.e., at a level ABOVE the levels of both the presentation and the prior experience, since it necessarily considers each of them as an object and then shows the higher-level relationship between them) WILL, for at least some of the students (especialy those who have NOT done the earlier work and so, regardless of how interesting they find the presentation in itself, are incapable of grasping its relationship to the earlier material, since the latter does not exit in their minds) be UNinteresting.

But typically each student is physically closer to other students in the class than s/he is to the instructor at the front of the room. Therefore the other students’ behaviors have the ability to distract even the most serious neighboring student from what the instructor is saying/doing.

And it is NOT part of the serious instructors’ job to compete with students in the course for the other students’ attention: rather it is one of the obligations of each student in the course to NOT act in ways which distract other students. (I tell my students, for example, that they are permitted to eat in class provided that they do so without distracting others - no food that goes “crunch”!)

And my experience has been that the students who are least interested in a presentation are generally those who have NOT doen the work assigned for that class (since what is being presented will be less meaningful to them) and that they are therefore more likely than the more interested student to perform behaviors which are unrelated to the lesson and thus distract other students.

I believe that as the person in charge of how the time in class is used, the instructor has an OBLIGATION to those students who HAVE done the work and are therefore most interested in the lesson, to prevent those who have not done the work from interfering with the presentation.

So I oppose the use of computers in the classroom.

That said, I more-than-admit that my experience also leads me to the conclusion that the great majority of instructors who ooppose the presence of computers do so for less noble reasons. I’ve known of instructors who do not allow students to record the lessons’ my suyspicion is that those instructors are afraid that something they say (or the generally low quality of their presentations) may later be used as “evidence” of there being somethig “wrong” with their teaching.

But, unfortunately, that does not make their position on the use of laptops in class incorrect. For the reason I explained above, that position is, in itself correct, regardless of an individual instructors’ motivation for invoking it.

Students’ recourse is to not attend classes that are so boring that they need to amuse themselves during class. If attendance is required, the students can select the same course with a “better” instructor. And if the course is taught ONLY by the one instructor, the students can (if there is consensus among a large-enough group) approach first the instructor, and, if still unsatisfied, the department head, with their feedback and a request for improved teaching. I recognize that this takes courage and in many cases will be of little use. The only alternatives I see are to NOT take the course OR to “put up with it” as part of the price of earning that degree at that college.

One other useful thing students can do (which I suspect they will NOT readily see as having as powerful an effect as it in fact does) is to make sure they communicate TO THE ADMINISTRATION, IN WRITING, their positive experiences with instructors they believe are EXCELLENT. Reinforcing desired behaviors is MUCH more effective than punishing undesired behavior.

But the bottom line is that I agree that, although it may be of some slight benefit in some cases, the use of laptops should NOT be permitted during lessons.

Interestingly, the total number of calls I’ve received has dropped significantly. I still get a few wrong numbers, but they give up after I shunt them to voicemail.