Learning with Laptops: Information Technology and the Transformation of an MBA Program

Laptop computers and wireless networks are becoming part of the landscape of many MBA programs, finding their way into the innermost sanctum of academia: the classroom. The consequences of introducing information technologies in the educational environment, however, are far from clear. Through the lens of Bourdieu’s theory of practice, we explore how a mandatory laptop program was woven into the institutional fabric of an MBA program and the means by which information technologies altered student practices. We attend to how IT was implicated in a struggle between the students and the faculty for control of classroom use of laptops and networks. In revealing the variety of interests at stake and the different logic deployed by students and faculty in this confrontation, we hope to open a space for the mutual recognition of opposing viewpoints and for the possibility of joint ownership of the problem.