To think that peoplecould abstain from using their iphones and blackberries during lectures?

[hoovercraft]

Bloody facebooking though the whole thing....so rude!

Maybe they were taking notes? [hopeful]

Are you on my old course?

YANBU. This morning I was sitting in on a colleague's lecture and one numpty student walked in half an hour late, got into his chair by jumping over the back of it () and then spent the whole lecture on his Blackberry.

I used to have a colleague who would stop talking and bark 'Turn that OFF please!' when she saw phones

The worst is under the table in seminars/ classes.... That is really rude.

I have a tutor that takes it off you as if you were in primary school. It works!

YANBU, makes me mental too. Also people talking on their cellphones on the bus as though they were in the cone of silence, HELLO IDIOTS we can all hear you talking about your drug deals/last nights party/boyfriend's shortcomings ( HA! no pun intended there)/abortions/piercings/tacky tramp tats/etc etc etc.

I HATE all those cellphone techie type devices.

why then do they even bother going to the lecture? this annoys me to and im a student not a lecturer. why do some people think mobile use is excluded from normal rules of basic etiquette? my pet hate is people using them at the table.

in this case for the sake of FB they are wasting money and opportunity and it will come back to them in the end when they can't get a job because they barely passed their degree because they never paid attention in lectures.

I agree. It is rude, inappropriate and such a self important thing to do. I have a friend who is constantly sending and receiving unimportant texts on her mobile. She does this when she is in company with other people and makes them feel superfluous. She wouldn't even switch the wretched thing off during the Christmas play at school. I felt like asking her what was so important that it couldn't wait until afterwards. She doesn't work for the emergency services and her nearest and dearest were with her.

YADNBU. Hate it. I also hate when they leave it on 'silent' on the desk, so that when they get some inane text saying 'LOL pyshcology gurlz 4 eva luv uuuuuu xxx' the phone buzzes and jumps around. Not disturbing at all. I'd chuck them all into a bucket of water [bhmm]

I tell them I won't tolerate it at the start of the module now, pointing out that I have my phone on the lectern because I use it as a clock. I suppose they could be doing the same but nope, usually they are texting their mates with Willf is a cow or whatever.

I would love it if someone on Mumsnet actually admitted that they were one of these people and enlightened us as to what on earth is so important. I could take or leave my mobile. I have a great social life that is organised over the 'landline' phone within 10 minutes. I don't believe that anyone has that much of an eventful life that a mobile call every 5 minutes is necessary or vaguely interesting!

I take notes on mine And if I have a deadline for work I have been known to check emails and things. Admittedly I wouldn't do this if most of my class weren't mind numbingly stupid.

If they've paid for the course and not causing a disruption so what?

More rude to leave a lecture after the break and bugger off as happened today.

I also leave it on silent on the desk too But then I am 30, wasting my own time and money and I need to know if ds has had an accident or the nanny's had an emergency.

What's wrong with leaving a lecture katiemiddleton? Rather that than snore, chat, text or eat.

The total inability to use litter bins gets to me too.

It does cause a disruption: when I'm pursuing a line of thought I use visual feedback from the students to judge how well they are understanding it. This helps me to gauge whether to slow down, speed up etc. If someone is busy texting then it distracts ME because I think - do they care? Are they getting this? Are they paying enough attention?

And frankly, it's fucking rude if I have spent hours preparing something to teach you and you're not listening...

Taking notes, fine, but I'd expect good students to confirm with me that this is what they are doing.

Just cos you're paying it doesn't mean you know best about how to be educated I'm afraid... it's a community of learning, and what I think goes too...

YANBU at all. Can I also add live comedy shows- or any other theatre performances- and the cinema to the list of inappropriate places to use iPhones etc. We went to a comedy show on Friday and the person in front was updating facebook the whole time. I wish the comedian had seen it and given them a good heckling.

Well leaving and not coming back when the lecturer has specifically taken down one of your points to discuss is bloody rude!

An entire row of quite distinctive women left at the break and never came back.

Now. I do like the idea of mobiles being used as learning aids. In fact I'd quite like students to text me questions (like Jack Dee makes up does in his shows )

But that would involve me giving them my phone number, which would not be good AT ALL.

I use mine in lectures, can be quite useful at times. I add deadlines on calendar too and the best thing is when we had a really tough lecture and i logged onto uni library website and reserved the recommended text. So i use it as a computer as I cant be bothered to carry laptop on tube and worry about loosing it when my phone does the same stuff.

But loads of our uni stuff is online, so at times I download the lecture slides on my phone, cheaper than paying to print them out. I can then recap on the train home

But I understand there is a huge difference between students using their phones to study and those facebooking.

Actually I have cleared my iPhone use with the course director and I actively participate in the lecture making appropriate visual clues, asking questions etc.

Agree with littleducks. I'm not facebooking (does on facebook?).

I do object to this idea I will print reams of paper off to take to lectures when I can view the slides online, on the board where they're projected, take notes on my phone and download straight to laptop. But mainly because any paper I have invariably gets re-filed by my toddler.

Technology changes. You have a choice to adapt or not. In my field you have to adapt.

We dont have to 'clear' use of anything except dictaphones, other students have laptops for same purposes (and are more likely to be surfing the net as they can have more than one window open!)

One lecturer says no phones, but she says no laptops too due to the practical nature of her subject and because she doesnt want people googling answers. She doesnt upload her lecturers in advance though, so gives out FREE paper copies of the slides

Does one facebook

I didn't have to clear it. Just polite to IMO.

I try to behave in the class room the same as I do in the workplace but it is hard when everyone sinks to the lowest common denominator. I loathe students who waltz in late and then are up and down like a yo-yo. Now that's distracting.

The students in question were most certainly not workingf. Facebook and text were running hot.

Can you get your powerpoint presentations on your phone?