Ross , nice post- I agree with a number of things you posted and I’m glad that you too caught the statement that people read more now than they did before. For me, I have never been a person who read books for fun, so when I evaluate how much I read before-to how much I read now (and I am not talking graduate school, research or required books), I mean random news, “Do it yourself” projects, or read about any number of topics online-I still think I am reading way more for some one who does not enjoy reading novels and magazines. Also I am well informed on what is going on locally, nationally and internationally. Technology allows me the ease of quickly looking up what I want to learn, connect with family who are abroad and I believe that I have become better at managing my time because I use these avenues to help me be better and not give them more power then they deserve (finding the balance).
Bottom line is that I don’t believe that technology is the devil or that “Google is Making Us Stupid”, I think it is us, as individuals who lack the discipline, self control and realizing when something is too much. My parents always said “too much of anything is not good” and I feel like that is what is the problem is with multitasking, or abusing social media or gadgets.
Thank you Yujun for sharing. It is interesting to know that the professor you worked with made the students know that the usage of laptop in classroom lowers that test scores and this strategy did not last very long. It may due to that the lowering of scores is not significant or horrible, or the entertainment on laptop is too attractive.
Thank you for discussing the use of labtops in classroom. I still remember in primary school, parents bought a computer to children to help them learn, but most of us used it to play video games or chatting 90% of the time. Apps or settings that can prevent students from entertainment when they are studying.
Hi Kristine, I agree with you that whether technology is good or not depends on how we use it. Thank you for bringing up the phone. I used an App called Moment to track how long I will be on my phone each day, and the results surprised me. My phone did a great job on making communication much more convenient, but I also wasted a lot of time on it.
Hi Kristine, I guess you nailed it with the sentence: “it depends”. I definitely agree with you, and would add a little asterisk right next to this sentence: digital literacy education is a must in contemporary world. Thanks for sharing. Cheers, yesim
Hi Ross, I can relate to your ideas about smart phones. A couple months ago, I gave my galaxy note 4 to my sister and started to use a nokia 6300 I found at home –and since then my life has been changing dramatically: no obsessive mail checkings, facebook stalks, instagram pictures, daily recipe ideas, trendy dress-up offerings,, nothing -unless I go ahead and check them on computer.
I agree with you that blaming technology is not an efficient way of dealing with it. I stopped using smart phone because I am digitally illiterate and I did not think that I was able to deal with the level of distraction I was getting my smart phone. On computer, it is more manageable for me. I am learning.
Thanks for sharing.
Hi Alex, I agree with you that being aware of yourself, including distractions, stress level, and current state of mind. is the key to be able to keep attention on track. Thanks for sharing these tips.
To me, disconnecting is an option, but only as accessible an option as you're willing to grant it. If you make a conscious effort to put the Internet on the backburner, it is feasible. Sure, one of your students in last-minute-panic mode that emails you at 3 a.m. with a question you've already answered in class may not get a response until the next day. Your twitter account may go unupdated. You may not know what your freshman year roommate had for dinner. You may have to take a break from looking up pieces of research that will still be there when you get back online. But is that stuff so important you can't function without it (research aside, because that answer is clearly YES - that last statement is geared more toward the dinner thing)?
I was at a Smashing Pumpkins show over the summer – I had decent enough seats, but was still several rows back. As soon as the show started, the sideways phones went up. It was so bad I was forced to watch the opener through the screens of the phone in the hands of teh people in front of me that were so concerned with capturing a crappy video with horrible-quality audio that they missed out completely on the show itself. After a fairly heated exchange and an overt threat to confiscate phones and start slinging them onstage, they put them away.
Why would you pay an exorbitant amount of money to sit in a dark room in front of a live band if you can’t peel yourself away from your phone long enough to enjoy, well, sitting in a dark room in front of a live band?
I do like the curiosity-as-virtue concept. It is certainly something that resonates within education – I also like how it focuses the desire to learn on the shoulders of the student. It is the student’s curiosity that drives it to seek out knowledge, and it is the instructor’s job to recognize that curiosity, feed it, and point it in the direction in which it is most likely to achieve satisfaction.
