This reminds me of the concept of a "teachable moment." The concept here is that you can really only teach someone something when you're hitting them with something that's within their zone of understanding and zone of interest. Frankly, much of the time spent by anyone in a classroom will fall outside of one of both of those two zones.
How often do (or did) you find yourself zoning out during a lecture when the topics moved to something too rudimentary to keep your attention? Or, what happened when things moved a bit too fast for you to keep up? In either case, you probably found yourself in a situation where you were no longer learning.
Motivated students will make the most of their time by supplementing what's going on in the classroom with additional materials from their textbooks or online. Or, in cases where students are stuck with professors who are poor at presenting material, they'll supplement the professor with relevant information from the web or their readings.
The thing that scared me the most in this video was watching 200 kids sit in a classroom without power outlets. That may be find for a one-hour lecture, but what happens when that's followed by another hour and another hour after that?
Somewhat related: Stephen Dubner has an interesting interview with an economics professor on the Freakonomics blog who's created an interesting career out of teaching online introductory economics courses for colleges across the country. From what Prof. Gladfelter explains, it sounds like his web based students may be more motivated than students who've dragged themselves away from their computers to stare at a chalkboard.
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Comments
1. Posted by: schmidt205 on October 16, 2007 4:58 PM:
I feel that facebook is a factor that inhibits attention during class. I'm a culprit of it, you sit through these long classes that don't catch your attention or it feels like what's being said isn't of any value or will pertain to life later so you disreguard it and move onto myspace and facebook to make the time go faster. I think that upgrading in technology in the classroom rather than blackboard/whiteboard working would help to keep attention on most cases. In an online class I'm currently enrolled in we work out of an online textbook that'smuch easier to grasp and retain knowledge from instead of the stiffness of textbooks that we spend hundreds of dollars on to use only to the extent that we need them and inevitably get nothin else out of. Today's workd involves a lot of technology in itself, and to not evolve at all with these constant changes will be detrimental to student work and later capabilities.
2. Posted by: Isabella on October 21, 2007 8:03 PM:
This really is a great video, it really shows what today's generation of students go through. I'm a college sophmore and I won't lie, I'm on facebook/myspace all the time and I check my email about 50 times a day. I do not take my laptop to class because I know if I did I wouldn't pay attention in class unless the topic really, really interested me (something that's happening less and less often recently). I'm taking an online class right now but I get distracted by the internet when I'm trying to work on it. It's easy to say I'll take a 5 min. break and then come back 30 mins. later when you're on a computer. I don't believe I'll take another online class.
I'm studying to be a future teacher and I wonder what I'll encounter when I finally do start teaching. I hope to teach elementary school, and a couple years ago I would have said that I wouldn't need to worry about my students being distracted by technology but more and more younger students are using the computer and more and more students are electing to watch TV rather than do homework. It's really sad that a student can get away with not doing homework simply because their parent/s don't care.
Technology may be our future, but what kind of future will we have?
Isabella, I'm a teacher who is trying tounderstand and adpat to a new generation of learners like those in the video. Would you be willing to help me understand if and how your involvement facebook and myspace intersects with your studies?
Thank you!
- Doug Flather
4. Posted by: Isabella on October 23, 2007 10:36 AM:
Speaking from personal experience, I must admit that online sites such as Facebook and Myspace do compete with academics/education. Signing into the sites has almost become somewhat of a second nature to me. I open the computer to start a paper, and I immediately open up a new window to get on Facebook. I know for a fact that I am not the only one guilty of this. I think the sites are wonderful as a means of staying in touch with friends, but I am concerned with all of the new "applications" being added that are addicting. Now, I know the obvious response to my comments would be to say, well duh... just don't log in! Honestly, these sites really do become a habit. A habit that has made its way to classrooms in a multitude of universities. I never thought I would say this, but I really think the site has gone too far. With all of the technology advancements taking place, we seem to forget the beauty and benefits of going outside or having face-to-face conversation. It's a shame...
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1. Posted by: schmidt205 on October 16, 2007 4:58 PM:
I feel that facebook is a factor that inhibits attention during class. I'm a culprit of it, you sit through these long classes that don't catch your attention or it feels like what's being said isn't of any value or will pertain to life later so you disreguard it and move onto myspace and facebook to make the time go faster. I think that upgrading in technology in the classroom rather than blackboard/whiteboard working would help to keep attention on most cases. In an online class I'm currently enrolled in we work out of an online textbook that'smuch easier to grasp and retain knowledge from instead of the stiffness of textbooks that we spend hundreds of dollars on to use only to the extent that we need them and inevitably get nothin else out of. Today's workd involves a lot of technology in itself, and to not evolve at all with these constant changes will be detrimental to student work and later capabilities.