Nov 1, 2009
I am so distracted!!!
As we read through the article entitled “Multi-tasking” it is clear that many of us aren’t aware of the constant bombardment of information most of us have become engaged in and how that has incrased our need to be “connected.”Mastering_Multitasking. Communication channels are growing and the question is “how do we manage it all?” My question is do we need it??? I belong to over 10 social networking sites and oftentimes the task becomes daunting as I try and figure out who gets me tonight? It has opened up so many more opportunities for me personally and as a professional but I can’t find the time. When I sit in the car (as I did for 4 hours coming home from Boston) I am wondering how I can get online to at least “catch up.” There is no idle time. It is filled with “I wonder what facebook is up to, or are the 5 conversations I am having in Ning all straight in my head and am I a contributor or only the one that “nudges” it along. I am not sure we can really communicate deeply or with meaning when the audiences and venues have increased. We are becoming a society of speaking in sound bytes!
The article talks about how much our brain can actually handle. It is clinically telling us we can only handle so much. So are we really staying in touch or just scratching the surface where conversations occur more often but not as intensely? We have been critized for teaching a curriculum that is a mile wide and inch deep. It appears our communication strategies have followed suit.
Does this have an impact on indepth analysis and the ability to actually synthesize information (Blooms)? The article outlines strategies to teach our students so we can embrace what is currently the rage and help it become manageable. But how do we teach it if we don’t use it? I can honestly say I do but can most teachers say that. And again how it is impacting teaching our students to think, be patient, and have conversations that are meaningful.
We have spent a lot of time working with our students that are ADHD. Somehow society and its communication opportunities have pulled the rug from under us! Oh well I am ranting but actually I love the social networking atmosphere. It has been great but overwhelming at best. Am I physically gardening or blogging about it, am I actually using that treadmill or joining an exercise group in second life, am I improving my diet or spending time researching new immune system fighters on the web???? I guess my archair and carpel tunnel will be the judge of that!
I do not personally belong to any social group not even Face Book or MySpace. I prefer to stay off the computer if it is not for class or looking for great lesson ideas. I have found that in society today so many of our kids are so distracted from the video games and answering their parents as they play the game. I have found that the kids have learned to filter out information because their mind is all over the place. I think we need to focus on one event topic and activity to devote all of us to it.
Remember to think about our kids. I know it might not be right for you but does that take the responsibility away from us in teaching and learning whether we use it as a tool or we teach them how to manage it.
I agree with Laurene. Nowadays kids are multitasking so much that they filter out important information. I feel a focus on one topic is beneficial as well. I too do not belong to facebook or myspace. I do see the value in it but prefer to pick up a phone and talk to people. Multitasking is something we all do. We have been doing it for years and after reading the statistics on how much information we consume, we need to be able to. It is something that needs to be learned. There is a time for it and and a time when all energies need to be focused on one thing. As educators you need teach children when it is appropriate to filter things and consume many things at once, but we also need to teach them to turn off and tune in. There are so many blogs and networks to be a part of, so when multitasking remember you can’t do it all. choose what is most important and keep with that. Adding so much to your plate will put you on overload. We need to teach children to to use all these technologies in portions, so they still have room on their plate to learn and breathe. All this can be taught. One way is to show children how you can do more than one thing at at time, and then explain sometimes we really need to focus our brain on one thing. If they get this language and modeling from a young age they will be able to decipher important information from not so important information and they will be able to multitask when necessary.
So what are you going to do tomorrow in your classroom
I resisted the social networking sites for a long time. I didn’t want another thing to have to “check.” I have a personal e-mail account and a work e-mail account. I don’t even read half of my mail as it is. There just isn’t time. So when my friends were hounding me to join Facebook, I was totally against it. I finally broke down this summer because I was desperate to see pictures of my wedding that my friends were posting. What I’ve noticed about Facebook is that it really isn’t about relationships at all. It’s about the individuals. When people change their status, it’s just about them. Sometimes there are responses and you’re starting to have a conversation, but still it’s for everyone to see, so how personal is it usually? If you’re using the messaging part, you may as well e-mail. So, my feeling is that Facebook is nothing more than people speaking their mind, not forming or keeping relationships. I don’t think that there is anything deep or meaningful here. Still, I do love looking at people’s pictures!
I was with Mindy on this whole “Facebook’ thing. I resisted, and I resisted well.. until this summer. I never felt that I had the time, nor the desire to join a Social Network. This summer I found myself with a bit of time and I created an account. I thought it would be a good way to keep in touch with some of my friends, and being that we were all planning a wedding together it would be an efficient way to get some planning done. I def. don’t think that I do the Social Network thing “right”. I barely go on and when I do, I see tons of friend requests that I barely know their names. Maybe I had a high school class with them? I also noticed that some people post every little movement they make. This is not fostering relationship building.. this is more of something to do while I wait for my game to load up, or my washing machine to stop running, let me multitask. The comments are superficial at best , and honestly who cares?! The friends that you wanted to keep in touch with .. you did , and the ones that you lost contact with .. you found on Facebook and now have their phone number. I think that students today are encouraged to become multitaskers. While they can do many things at once , the quality of their performance has greatly deteriorated. Facebook is just a microcosim of our digital world. We, as a society, are only scratching the surface.
I recently joined facebook too. I like it b/c it allows me to keep in casual contact with people that I’d otherwise lose track of. My friends and I often have meaningful conversations that carry over into our everyday lives. I do find it annoying that people post their every move, and I think it’s inappropriate for people to post some of the photos they do (ex: drunken weekends). So how does this concern my students? I feel that I need to know about things of this nature so that I can offer up my 2 cents in the classroom. I do not use any of the applications in the pyramid with students, mainly b/c I don’t know how to fit it in. As far as multi-tasking is concerned, we do it all the time. Some students function best when several things are going on at the same time b/c that is what they are used to. Folks need to be wary of the dangers though…like texting and driving (which is why it’s now illegal in NY). Parents and teachers alike need to instill the importance of real person-to-person interaction (which I do daily). There is more to life than the abbreviations in a text message. I remind children to unplug and listen!
Right on
First of all, who thinks of these things. I’m actually worried that my brain exploding from all of the information I take in on a daily basis. I actually sit with a desktop and laptop and use the simultaneously while at work. There was an article in the Times Herald Record that I found interesting (go figure) about student’s lives revolving around their cell phones. That many of today’s student sleep with their cell phone, that they just feel the need to always be “connected”. I can’t even begin to count the amount of times I check CNN, NY Times, and the Times Herald just to see if anything happened in the past hour. I always wonder if it was my want to know as much as I can or the fact that technology has made it so easy for me to keep up to date that I am obligated to keep up to speed. Although I am not that much older than my student I can see a distinct difference between myself and them. My students constantly use “AIM” talk, both written and verbally. It is unbelievable to me that they continue to practice a behavior that should not be accepted in society. I will admit to texting in such a language but I am aware of when it is appropriate to not use it. I understand that technology is the way of the future and our students need to be aware of what technology exists but at what cost. I would never encourage the use of cell phones or IPods in my classroom. Why can’t student learn how to talk in a face to face conversion, why cant student’s be called on to answer question instead of using Senteos for those students who might be fearful. I just feel that our education system is walking on eggshells around those students that have been labeled. Obviously these types of students existed 50 years ago, what happened to all their stories?
Don’t be fearful. Embrace it and figure out how we CAN use it
I’ll admit that I’m totally guilty of multitasking. As I’m writing this I have 11 different Firefox windows open as well as Winamp (although music isn’t playing). The firefox windows consist of mostly forums and news sites, which I’ll open up and refresh from time to time to see if anything new is posted. Oh yeah, my facebook account is open as well. Ok after I just took the time to wish happy birthday to friend on facebook I can continue writing this.
I’ve multitasked (task-switched) for my entire life. I feel that there are advantages and disadvantages. I like it because I can keep track of many different things, which is particularly useful when I have a short time to check out my favorite news sites/forums. However, as the article mentioned it certainly can be distracting when trying to focus on a task that needs more long term concentration. At the same time, it is nice to be able to take short breaks when working on a long paper or other project so I don’t get burned out. I think I’ve been able to find a good balance between multitasking and focusing on one thing when necessary. I certainly work differently when I have a paper to write then when I’m just surfing the web. When I’m writing something I will write in longer bursts, and take breaks by checking stocks, news, and forums. When I’m aimlessly surfing I will jump back and forth between an endless amount of web browser windows and various other software.
What does this mean in the classroom? I think that more research will be done on this topic in the near future. In the mean time, I believe that we need to accept that it will happen and try to incorporate strategies into our teaching that will allow it. The same goes for cell phones…they are a distraction now but they are certainly the future (and very engaging to students) so we need to use their power and features to help teach our students.
I have to admit that I too am guilty of getting sucked into Facebook and my Google Reader. I could literally spend hours reading about breaking science news, chatting with friends, looking at pictures… and much more. I do think we, as educators, should be up-to-date with what our students are using/doing online so we can incorporate it into the classroom. There is a time to use this technology in the classroom…and there is a time when we should take a break from it all. I used to teach outdoor and environmental education (all outside!), and I also see the value in unplugging and ditching all of the distractions. Technology is important, but we also need to teach our students that life goes on with or without technology. We certainly don’t want this next generation to be completely dependent on technology…we just want to make sure they know how to use it, and when (and when not!) to use it.
FYI – I recommend the book “Last Child in the Woods: Saving our Children from Nature Deficit Disorder” by Richard Louv. It’s a great read and it really opens your eyes to the importance of “unplugging”.
When I was reading through the article, I thought it was interesting how it mentioned that many online students print out the reading materials. At times I often find myself doing this because I cannot help but browse the web while I should be focusing on my work. I definitely feel at least for myself, that everything takes so much longer when I try to multitask, and it takes even longer for me to bring back my focus onto the task at hand. Prior to reading the article on multitasking I had never really thought about bringing this topic to the attention of students through discussions or experiments. I have always felt like the best learning experiences come from those where the students can construct their own meanings. I really think the idea of students making a comparison between the quality of their work while multitasking vs not multitasking would be an interesting experience for students as they learn and discover how their own processes of learning and retaining information is affected. While multitasking does not work for myself, it is always important to remember that all students are different. For example, while I like to complete work in silence, others are actually more focused and alert when they are listening to music simultaneously.
I personally do not belong to any social networking sites. My preference is to interact either face to face, or through phone calls or emails. I can see the value of keeping in touch through these sites, but it is not used by my friends or family members. I realize that many of todays kids are very much into these sites, and if there is a way to appropriately incorpaorate their use in the classroom, then I would be willing to try.
I am also concerned with how much time we spend indoors in front of a computer screen for hours at a time. I think you lose something when you don’t spend time outdoors. I teach Earth Science and I am always stressing that students go outside and look at the ground, the weather and the night sky. I ask them to take what we learn in the classroom and apply that understanding to what they see ouside. I also see value in spending time by yourself – thinking about things – using your imagination – daydreaming. All of this constant multitasking seems to leave very little time for these activities.
The mulitasking studies that I have read about do not paint as rosy a picture as this article does. Anything that I have come across has basically said that if you are doing two things (or more) at once then you are not doing either one very well. I like the article’s suggestion to teach students about the pitfalls of multitasking. Students need to realize that at the very least they may be compromising their ability to learn something.
I feel that I am a huge multitasker. There is so much going on in my life right now that I don’t know if I can handle another thing to look at everyday. I have several email accounts, a delicious account, and that is pretty much it as far as the technology goes. I have resisted joining Facebook and MySpace simply because I do not have the time. Previously, I thought that these sites were for personal use only. I just realized that these tools could be utilized in a classroom to create an online community. I would love to be involved in something like this, unfortunately I don’t think that I would have the time to put my heart and soul into it. And when I do anything for my students I want to give it my all. Maybe when I’m done with my grad classes will I have the time to commit to something like this.
Multitasking only works if you know how to do it and a skill like this does not come easy. There is no doubt that there are so many distractions for students out there. The problem is that many do not know how to prioritize. I can’t help of think of the concept of Opportunity Cost, when evaluating this scenario. According to the law of Opportunity Cost, there are is a finite number of hours in a day that individuals can spend on certain activities. In other words, if you have 6 hours to study and you spend 3 of those hours on Facebook than you have now lost 3 hours of your studying time. I often hear students who receive a poor test grade say, “how can that be I studied for 4 hours”. This may be true, but more often they are listen to music, watching TV and texting their friend all while the study. With so much stimuli how much of the information are they really absorbing. I agree that many of the things in the triangle could helps students learn, but they need to be monitored to allow students to focus on one task at a time. I feel that multitasking is something that comes with age and experience and at the middle school level, multitasking is something that needs to carefully evaluated and monitored. If I have students completing more than one task it is usually done in a collaborative setting, where students work in pairs or teams. I have yet to use anything in the Triangle because I’m not exactly sure how to implement them or if my students can be trusted.
A day does not go by without multitasking being a major part of it. It has become a way of life as the article agrees with and students now are more in tuned with this as they tend to IM as they do their work usually with a radio or TV playing at the same time as they wait for the next text message. The problem with this, from an educational standpoint is that those five different sensory stimuli are just that, different. I say feed into this maybe doing a few things at once is a good thing if those things are related to the topic at hand. If using computers as students take notes or work on a task maybe they get an IM with an equation to solve or a definition to fill in. Maybe it is an issue that a student is always moving. Have them put problems around the room on paper or maybe something like sitting on the floor as they work.
One interesting area discussed was the transition time between tasks. When students are involved in many areas at once as they switch from IM to work they may also check a sports score or a movie time. But again if this is the practice of the student have transitions in class that appear off topic but maintain instruction. This tends to promote the inclusion of real world examples or tasks to the math class, something different, but part of the topic.
It is a world of ADHD so why not distract students with distractions related to the very thing they are distracted from? Some will argue that this is limiting the depth the students can go in a given topic but its all on how it is arranged.
I feel vindicated, and no longer alone. I am not the only one who is not a member of the social networking phenomena. Maybe it is because I am paranoid of Big Brother, which, in my humble opinion, should be mandatory reading for all. But, this is not about me, or us. It is about our students.
Our students learn while and by multitasking. In my opinion, there is a definite relationship between the way a student multitasks and learns. Multitasking and the multimedia bombardment which accompanies it, perhaps unwittingly addresses the different modalities/multiple intelligences, and the way a student learns. We are encouraging and support multitasking when we ask students to do more than respond at Bloom’s lowest level, when we ask them to blog, or create almost anything which is technology based. Yet, from my observations over the years, it seems that the students learn the process of multitasking more rapidly and more thoroughly than the content they are supposed to learn. Hmmm. Does that mean we have to go back to a more traditional academic environment, if we want students to learn at a faster pace? Do we, once again, need to adjust our teaching methods. There is an interesting article on how well students learn when multitasking in the October 13, 2009 issue of the New York Times.
I am multitasking as I write this, participating in a superintendent’s conference day program on working with the ESL/LEP/ELL student population. I look around the auditorium. Almost every other faculty member is working on secondary materials as well (multitasking). There are several working on grading papers, others are playing games on their personal communication devices, almost all accompanied by a security blanket of caffeine. Yet, while they are doing this, they are also whispering, discussing the information being presented to them by their colleagues in the front of the room. In the old days, say, ten years ago, it would have been considered extremely rude, and there are still people who would consider it so. Ten years ago, when I was teaching HTML at Mount Saint Mary College, I fought a battle trying to keep my students from running background programs during class. The students would have several programs open in the background. These programs were usually Napster, AIM, and email. My reasons for wanting the programs closed were two fold—The first was that I felt they were not paying attention to the materials I was presenting in class, and therefore, not getting what they were paying for. The second, was that the programs were eating computing power, and that was needed for what I was teaching. I lost the battle. It took three years, before I realized that if I left them alone, and did not waste class time playing cat and mouse, trying to get them to shut down, that they were giving me the same amount of attention while they were multitasking, as when they weren’t. In fact, at times, I felt their attention was more intense, because they were taking in the information in blocks. Since as teachers, we tend to repeat, both verbally, and in presentation, the students would hear or see the new material once in the modality they use to learn it, and tune out everything else until new material was presented. The students questioned authority, but they also had the answers or solutions. It was up to me to make the change.
That leads into a question about employing differentiation in the classroom—If we differentiate/multitask, and we present using multiple approaches, how much time do we lose, and how much student attention do we lose, until everyone in the class gets “it”? Possible solution—smaller classes and creating classes where the student learning styles match the teacher’s teaching style. Otherwise, we run into issues of fairness from a student perspective. If we allow all students to multitask, and some are successful and some are not, what do we do when the students who can’t deal with multitasking insist they have the right to do it because the rest of the class is doing it? On the other hand, what happens when the more successful students seek the right to do the “easier” work because it will give them more time to multitask?
Link to the NY Times Article I mentioned in previous post. I thought the hyperlink would embed, but it seems it did not.
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/13/health/13klas.html?_r=1&scp=3&sq=multitasking&st=cse
To answer the question Do We Need It? I would have to say no we don’t need social networking. Mankind has survived for years with basic communication such as the telegraph and the land line phone. Another question is Do We Want It? I would have to say that most people that are up to speed with technology would answer yes to this question. Technology has change the way people work. Many companies that deal with networking or web support are on the computer all day within their own social networks making a living and accomplishing their given tasks for the day. Other corporations are on a social network having a conference. So social networking is part of our lives and part of how we live today.
After reading the article Mastering Multitasking I would agree that kids these days multitask all the time and it is part of who they are. I have noticed in my classroom that students who do try to multitask do take longer to accomplish the given task than other students who focus on one task at a time. At times there is no other way to get things done in the time you have other than multitasking. I personally cannot multitask if I am reading a book I need it to be quiet. If I am writing a paper I need no interruptions otherwise I lose all concentration. I believe with all the technology out there today and student multitasking all the time it is hurting their education and student do not learn how to focus on one given task and accomplish it. I believe that this is hurting their education because if a student is not able to focus their attention on one thing at a time they lose interest in subjects very easy and need to be doing more than one thing at the same time.
Multi-tasking is a fact of life and it is here to stay. What we need to teach our students is how to manage the tasks efficiently and effectively. Since I teach special ed, it is very important that my students are focused on what I am doing and nothing else. Many of them have ADHD, ADD, or are just distracted way to easily. It is our jobs to teach students strategies to deal with all the information they obtain in one day. One strategy that I use that was discussed in the article, is chunking. I pull out the necessary information and chunk it together for them. Other strategies we use as a building are CRISS strategies. Some of these strategies are ABC Brainstorming, graphic organizers, webs, selective underlining, etc. Even though digital natives may not use these strategies while using the computer, it teaches students how to organize information, so that it can be used later. There is no sense of fighting city hall, so teachers need to discuss the positives and negatives of multi-tasking and show students how and when to use it. There is a place and a time for everything.
I believe that multitasking is a good thing, but like anything it has a time and a place, and needs to be done in moderation. One of the key things I found in the article is that multitasking is good for older teens. I teach middle school where students need to develop skills such as organizing their time – having a class, or several sessions of a class to help them develop these skills would help tremendously – but my school discontinues all formal technology classes after 5th grade. Middle and High School students would benefit greatly from tech classes that should them how to maximize the technology that they have.
Another aspect of this that seems to keep coming up is administrative policies. Having an 8th grade social networking site so that students could help each other on homework or projects or just what’s going on in school would be great – but many administrators are overcome by negative aspects of a technology (like cell phones and social networking) rather than embracing it. They are more reactive than proactive.
My final point, which may be a little off topic – I would think social networking is good for the teenagers who may be self-conscious or shy because they can communicate without the feeling that everybody is looking at them.
Don’t know how relevant that was.
But in conclusion, I find that middle schoolers are very quick to embrace new things, particularly technology, but they need to find a balance in order to figure out the BEST way to incorporate it into their school lives and their everyday lives. Rather than banning every new development that comes down the pike, educators and administrators needs to take the lead in finding ways to embrace the technologies and use them to our, and our students, advantage.
There certainly are an overwhelming number of different social networks that exist, but I think it is great that each of these networks have different functions and features. Many of them fall into their unique niche, and we are only just beginning to see where the potential of technology will bring us. I was listening to one of the original creators of the Internet on NPR this morning and he was discussing how they had anticipated using networked computers strictly for sharing data and resources from one computer to another, and never imagined that networks would be used for communication from one person to another.
Making the communication that does occur much shorter than it used to be (for example, twitter only allows 160 characters per post) may have some negative impacts. In the past, writing a letter that had to be mailed was only worth the trouble if it was at least several paragraphs long. With the quick exchanges that occur now, there is no longer a need for complete sentences or even writing in paragraphs. I can’t imagine how these brief exchanges will ever improve a student’s writing ability. It is important for them to still practice writing traditional pieces, as you need to be a competent writer for nearly any profession.
Social networking sites offer a great opportunity to really communicate and bond with our students outside of the classroom. If we manage it well it could be a useful tool for communication.
Student often feel that its uncool to be “friends” with your teacher. There is a fine line that can not be crossed, but I feel that if we were to create a space such as a facebook math league page it would be part of the classroom environment. Our students would learn to become fans of the topic we teach and motivate to learn more. Online network sites help students feel comfortable and they bring a different perspective to the subjects we teach.
The obstacles I foresee in the middle school(where I teach) is that parents may not want their children on these sites because of the dangers of different predators. Moreover the lack of technology in the home is an obstacle and access to the technology in the classroom is another obstacle.
Basically, every free minute I might have during the teaching day, I’m at the very least checking my 2 different emails. When that’s not grabbing my attention enough I check my text messages and tweets on my cell phone. Next, I check the one or two blog sites I follow. My last stop is to actually check on my class and see if any students need my help.
When I’m home it’s much worse. When I’m home, twitter and facebook aren’t blocked and I lose hours sometimes. Fortunately, I do my best to try and limit how often I check these sites. But it’s getting harder and harder to monitor myself. It’s possible the only reason I consider trying to use them in the classroom is so that I have access to them for my own use…