Driven to Distraction?

Today's Class

I am teaching a unit on "The Impact of New Media". This week our guiding question is "has the evolution of new media been a detriment?"

We watched "Distracted by Everything" a section from Digital Nation, a PBS documentary on how technology is impacting our lives.



My Questions

After watching the video, I asked my students:

"Would you be able to give up Facebook, gChat or BBM if you KNEW it would make you at least 2 times more productive with your work?"

100% of my students declined and said they would not give up their technologies even if they knew they could produce higher quality work in less time.

I then followed with:

"If the work was more engaging, would you give up your distractions?"

This time I got a resounding "Yes!"

This made me think.

My Reaction

The technologies that are available enrich our lives. This will only become increasingly more apparent.

That being said, in my mind, our challenge lies in the fact that the technologies that are currently distracting our students are doing so because our teaching has not evolved with our students.

I do not believe that the content we teach is necessarily wrong or that we should change to keep up with a technology but if our students are willing to be distracted, should we not reconsider how we teach that content?

My goal is to find that happy medium. Create curriculum that meets the benchmarks of a particular school while investigating the use of technology and differentiated learning to engage our students and ensure that they don't feel inclined to be distracted.

I have a challenge for everyone reading:

As we near the end of the year and begin planning your curriculum for next year.  Create learning opportunities that are more individualized, more authentic and that support student involvement and inquiry.

If we can do that, I think we'll be well on our way to pushing aside these distractions.

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