I'm absolutely supportive of using blackboards & paper and pen over computers.
What I'm saying is that making unsubstantiated claims like "you'll hear the lecture again when you read it" is completely detrimental to making that point, because it's entirely unsubstantiated and doesn't make any relevant point you couldn't make in a well-supported way instead.
It worked for me. Have you tried it?
> given the quality of college lectures
I attended a university where that wasn't a problem. Prof Daniel Goodstein, for example, turned his lectures into a video series "The Mechanical Universe". But, frankly, I liked his in-person lectures using the blackboard and chalk better.
I have. It doesn't work that way for me - but that hardly matters. More importantly, there's plenty of research around inner monologue and sensory replay also pointing out that this isn't true for most people.
> I attended a university where that wasn't a problem.
You were blessed :)
> But, frankly, I liked his in-person lectures using the blackboard and chalk better.
That's not something I'm arguing against :) I think they're a great teaching tool.
My objection is that making a specious but unsupported, and often easily anecdotally invalidated point to support a case that's actually got a ton of solid evidence in support is detrimental to making that case.
Physical note taking, and being actually present for a lecture are tremendously important. Laptops are hugely problematic for learning. And those points are important enough that we should make solid arguments in favor of them, not easily discredited ones. Because we also know that many students are very muched biased to discarding these points given half a chance.
There's currently a related post on the home page: "Good ideas do not need lots of lies in order to gain public acceptance (2008)"