Attention Spans

Though Marcovitz and Son (2008) debate the two sides of technology's effect on student attention span, they both essentially agree that the students of today are "wired differently because of technology" (p. 9), and that this new wiring results in kids who want fast input and immediate rewards. Where these two educators differ is in how they view this phenomenon: Son is wholeheartedly excited at the educational opportunities technology affords while Marcovitz is wary about its effects, and worried that we aren't seeing the downsides of its constant use. As a digital immigrant who still sees much to gain in realtime interactions, I fall a little more under Marcovitz's way of thinking.

I will not deny the gifts technology brings us, and I'm learning a lot of wonderful applications that I plan to use in my classroom, but, like Marcovitz, I worry that "the kind of deep thought and attention to important matters is what is absent in the fast-paced world of educational technology" (p. 9). It seems to me that the instant-gratification engendered by educational technology is great for learning facts and processes but less great for encouraging the kind of thinking skills that, by their nature, require time.

My question is, have any studies been done about this generation's reasoning skills? Is it possible that students' intellectual development is being stunted by dependence on electronic media? Can we balance our use of technology with activities that foster unhurried reflection and grappling with conceptual complexities? To me, that seems to be the best way to blend the old ways with the new, and reap the benefits of both.

Marcovitz, D.M., Son, J.D. (2008). Is Educational Technology Shortening Student Attention Spans? Learning and Leading with Technology: August, 2008.

Cyberbullying

Cyberbullying can run the gamut from simple unkind remarks about someone's hairstyle to threats of physical harm, encompassing the myriad opportunities for racist, sexist, and homophobic content that fall between these two extremes. It can happen via emails, text messages, instant messages, websites, and blogs, which means any time someone logs on or checks their messages there is the opportunity for a negative interaction. With traditional bullying the victims were often able to feel safe at home, but bullying in the digital world takes place wherever the victim is logged on, be it in their bedroom, the computer lab, or an internet cafe. Cyberbullying is often anonymous and it is thought that this anonymity contributes to the viciousness of some online harassment: the harasser doesn't witness his or her victim's immediate reaction as might happen in real-time harassment, which makes it easy to take the abusive actions to higher levels. From the articles I read, cyberbullying seems pervasive.

I've had very little experience with cyberbullying. The closest I've come is having a guy I had met online but not yet in person get angry when it took me two days to answer an email from him. I immediately told him I was no longer interested in meeting him and suspended my account at the online dating site at which we had met. I never got more emails from him so perhaps I blocked his email as well--I can't remember. It was a small but angry interaction that really bothered me, and I can see how ongoing harassment any time one was online could really affect one's state of mind.

Unfortunately the law shackles schools from being able to do much about cyberbullying, especially since most of it happens off school grounds. The only time they can step in is if the bullying is disruptive enough to affect the functioning of the school. In fact, the only way schools could even know if a student is being bullied is if that student or a friend or family member comes forward to report it. I sincerely wish that schools had the authority to step in as soon as online bullying happened because I think it can do a lot of damage to teenagers who are psychologically vulnerable, but I also believe that our legal system is important in spite of its shortcomings. I think schools need to have resource information available to pass on to students and their parents as soon as it's known that cyberbullying is occurring, and I think they need to educate the student body about its effects and its consequences.

I think the best strategy is a proactive one that makes expectations clear. Part of my classroom management strategy is to create an environment of kindness and acceptance as well as a classroom identity that unifies students as a group. I plan to model positive interactions and I will not stand for bullying and harassment in the classroom. Even if my classroom expectations aren't enough to preclude cyberbullying outside of class, I hope that at least students will feel safe to come to me and let me know when they're being violated online, so that I can do whatever is within my power to remedy the situation. It's not a perfect answer, but it's better than nothing.

You'd Better Behave

I found that having a boring life is very helpful when it comes to protecting my reputation as a future teacher. A google search of my name came up with my linkedin profile and nothing more, though there is apparently an artist with my name who has lots of links on the Internet. The pipl search also came up with my linkedin profile as well as information about my address and phone number, but nothing more personal than that. Nothing came up for my email address in either search and my username "noelle01" only came up with my Twitter account in pipl. I've never been arrested. I've never posed for Playboy (or anyone else). My Facebook photos are wholesome and clean, should they be accessible through my friends, though an image google search turned up nothing. Clean living has its perks.

I would love it if my address and phone number weren't so easily accessible on the net, since there may come a day when a student gets angry with me and is tempted to come throw things at my house or make angry phone calls. I've worked with emotionally disturbed kids for the last thirteen years and for that reason I made sure my address and full name weren't listed in the phone book, but that's not so easy to do in the digital world. I can only hope that my relationships with my students are positive enough that none of them will feel inspired to track me down online.

I am wrestling with my opinion on how accountable teachers should be for the things they do in their private lives. My first instinct is that teachers shouldn't have to live by stricter standards than anyone else does, and that if they're doing nothing illegal then that's all that matters. But at the same time I can see why parents would be concerned about the moral character of the people who have such a huge impact and influence on the lives of their children. I do also see how a teacher's professionalism can be called into question if they live by very different rules of expression in their private lives, whether it be using profanity on a social networking site or posting photos of themselves enjoying alcohol a little too much. I can't come up with a definitive answer on this, though I'm glad teachers are challenging negative outcomes in the legal system; I hope this will help us iron out some sane standards.

One of the things I found most interesting about the googling-the-teacher article is that teachers who had negative repurcussions occur in response to their private lives seemed to be unaware that such repurcussions were a possibility. I would think they would have had an inkling that certain practices, even if done outside of school hours, might raise the ire of the community, because so many people want to believe that teachers are nun-like and pure, sacrificing their privacy and outside interests to the greater good of children. It shouldn't have been a shock to them that some might not approve of everything they did, and that those people often feel that it's their obligation to monitor certain professions.

I am not a person who does much that might draw negative feedback from the members of my community--I didn't make a conscious choice to live a clean life in order to protect my reputation--that's just the way I happen to live. But I do worry a little about my writing life eventually being open for criticism. Right now I'm unpublished, and that may certainly be a state that I remain in, but I'm an English major for a reason, and the things that I might someday attempt to find a publisher for might contain language and sexual situations, for example. Does being a teacher mean I have to publish under a pseudonym? Does it mean I don't publish anything unless it will make me enough money to quit teaching? Am I only allowed to write happy, sunny fiction for five to eight year olds? I do feel like I will have to do a bit of censoring of myself, both in my writing and in my life, and I find that unsettling at the very least.

Google Search Results:
www.linkedin.com/pub/noelle-allen/15/498/70b

Pipl Search Results:

http://twitter.com/noelle01

http://www.spokeo.com/search?q=Noelle%20Allen,%20Portland,%20OR&g=name_pipl_scd_city01#:1347489037

http://www.peoplefinders.com/search/searchpreview.aspx?searchtype=people-name&fn=Noelle&mn=&ln=Allen&city=Portland&state=OR&age=&utm_source=pipl&utm_campaign=noresults

Digital Natives and Digital Immigrants

I am a digital immigrant. I am functionally literate in the digital world, using email fluently, banking online, successfully completing online college courses, subscribing to vlogs on Youtube, and keeping in touch with friends through social media, but I prefer the 3-D world and my “digital immigrant accent” (“Digital Natives, Digital Immigrants”, 2001, p. 2) is apparent. I printed out the syllabus for this class. I wrote down the assignments on a piece of paper. I don’t engage with reading on a screen as well as I do with reading I can touch. And though I see there are tons of interesting websites and podcasts and blogs and god knows what else online, I spend a pretty small amount of time accessing them. I missed the digital revolution by a few years. I remember rotary telephones. I remember the rise of FM radio. I remember film strips and audiotapes, and a time when video cassette recordings were cutting edge technology. So, though my daughters are immersed in the digital culture, to me it still feels like a novelty, a passing fad, a footnote to the real world of face-to-face, hard-copy existence.

I graduated from high school in 1986. There were six people in the extracurricular computer club, and I wasn’t one of them. Most of the students in my school took typing classes when they wanted vocational credits, and the computer class that was offered was an oddity that most didn’t make use of. We did our research in encyclopedias and at the library. We wrote our papers long-hand or painstakingly typed them out if we were going for the gold. I had no idea that our weird little computer lab was the beginning of a revolution and that computer technology would improve so drastically in just a few short years. In 1986, according to my yearbook, “ the newest development in the [computer] club, which had everyone on their ears, was being able to communicate with other computers”. And look where we are now.

I consider myself fortunate to have had a husband who likes electronic toys and who taught me how to use a computer. I went back to get my BA in 2005 and my knowledge was strong enough that I could pretty much figure out how to do research, access data bases, construct word documents, and do good quality class work. I’ve met other adults who are not so lucky. Some of them struggle and sweat to do the most basic of digital tasks, and others fight the technology, even when it’s been made clear that embracing it is an expectation in their workplace. My generation does pretty well in the digital world, but someone only ten or fifteen years older than me might find themselves regularly stymied by a world that is moving too fast for them. Of course digital technology has improved my learning experience immensely, giving me instant access to a wealth of information, but for many, it´s more a source of frustration than enlightenment.

Marc Pensky’s articles make good points about the digital environment that is shaping the brains of our youth, but I feel like there’s an alarmist bent to his arguments, an all-or-nothing declaration that insists these students are incapable of learning in any way that has nothing to do with electronics. He expresses this belief strongly in his article “Do They Really Think Differently?”, writing:

Digital natives accustomed to the twitch-speed, multi-tasking, random-access,
graphics-first, active, connected, fun, fantasy, quick-payoff world of their
video games, MTV, and Internet are bored by most of today’s education, well
meaning as it might be. But worse, the many skills that new technologies have
actually enhanced (e.g., parallel processing, graphics awareness, and random
access)--which have profound implications for their learning—are almost totally
ignored by educators. (2001, p. 5)

Pensky is so insistent in his beliefs that digital technology is the only way to reach this generation of students, that I find my suspicions aroused. As the creator of interactive, digital learning games, isn’t there a conflict of interest for him? Wouldn’t we be wary if the Nike corporation came out with a study showing that the Nike brand of athletic shoes were the only ones to fully serve the athlete’s needs? And would teachers be fully serving their students if they threw out the old ways of teaching and went wholly digital? The workplaces of our world require human interaction. The families of our future require real-time interfaces and the kind of extended contact that builds intimacy. I plan on incorporating technology into my teaching strategies, and I look forward to learning innovative ways to do so, but I would feel more comfortable about Pensky’s point of view if he were an advocate of balance between the old ways and the new. As it is, his feverish insistence that we are feeding our students knowledge that is “for the most part, stale, bland, and almost entirely stuff from the past” (“Engage Me or Enrage Me”, 2005, p. 62) feels unnecessarily incendiary to me, creating divisions instead of connections, and engendering guilt in those who still subscribe to the old school rather than offering them a way to integrate the new school.

Introduction

My name is Noelle Allen. My endorsement and subject areas are middle school math and high school language arts. My favorite specific animal is my cat, Mac. He looks nothing like this cat but I can't access photos of him from this computer so I chose this one instead. He's pretty silly, just like this kitten, and he's always happy when I get home.