Cell Phones, Browsing the Web, & eMail: Distractions for Teachers?

It’s difficult to fight the urge to check email, text messages, social networks, and/or app info on our cell phones, computers, and other digital devices. Although, schools often have rules against teachers making and answering personal calls while they are teaching, we all know it happens. Browsing the Web and checking personal or school email and messages are distractions we need to avoid while teaching. Some of us are so obsessed with checking our email and smart phones that this “need” interrupts lessons and takes time away from working with students. Administrators who suffer from these digital obsessions are often distracted from the running of their schools.

Peter DeWitt in his Education Week article, “Do You Check Your School E-Mail Too Much”, reminds us that if we read and respond to parent email when we receive it at home, on vacation, late at night or early in the morning, parents “will get the idea” that we are available all the time, “any day... any night”. Of course, sometimes it’s necessary to look and respond, but most of the time it’s better to resist.

 

Monster.com lists making too many personal calls and excessive Web browsing as two of the top ten ways to get fired from a teaching job.

How Does 5683 Sound to Your Students?

Scholar scribe, Matt Kaplan, writes about animals, insects, and technology. The opening keynote speaker at FETC on January 29, 2012, Kaplan says, “predictive texting alters our perception of numbers.” As we text, our brain acquires information, and the more we text, the more links grow in our brains.  When “dialing a number, we may not be aware that the number triggers our mind to the letters as well. That’s why there are feel good numbers that we can dial up on our cell phones.” When we dial 5683, we may not be aware that this spells “LOVE”, but it makes us feel good. 

Kaplan says that companies use this subtle form of advertising when their telephone number spells the company name or a positive adjective that those calling will relate to the number.  In a German study, when volunteers dialed two numbers, one which spelled something positive and one, something negative, participants said they liked the “positive” one better, even though they didn’t know why. This happened only when they “dialed” the numbers, not when they simply read the numbers.  As we move more and more into tech use in our schools, we should be aware, according to Lawrence Shapiro, University of Wisconsin, that “technology influences psychology.”

What to Do with E-Waste

The Funding Factory wants you to know that 70% of the toxic material in landfills is the result of e-waste. You and your students can do something about it by recycling and thinking green. Laptops, cell phones, digital cameras, GPS devices, iPods/MP3 players, laser cartridges, and ink cartridges can be recycled, and the Funding Factory will help you with this effort and give you rewards, too. The program is free; the Funding Factory pays all postage and gives you boxes for sending in what you collect. Rewards are in the form of points that are redeemable for technology, other equipment, or cash. To find out more about the program, register online or call for a Jump Start Kit.

Using SmartPhones in the Classroom?

Harry Grover Tuttle, who teaches at Onondaga Community College, in the Tech & Learning Advisor Blog suggests “5 Ways to Expand Smartphone Learning".  Some of his ideas are: don’t use drill and kill, don’t stick with text, don’t make everything an individual activity, don’t use Smartphones just to find information, and don’t use Smartphones just to learn something. Instead, when learning foreign language vocabulary, “use a QR code to show a restaurant in Lima, Peru”, and then have students study the menu and talk with each other about the restaurant. Use videos and photos along with text when having students work with Smartphones and let them work together as they learn.  Have them use the information they find to create, compare, and contrast. — And why not put their Smartphones to use to keep track of their grades and progress with Google Doc spreadsheet or a Google Doc checklist?

The Terrible Teacher Guide

Vicki Davis, in her Cool Cat Teacher Blog, believes that teaching is a noble calling and that teachers who are always on their cell phones or paying attention to their computers rather than their students, aren’t behaving nobly.  Although she admits that all teachers have TT or Terrible Teacher days when they are overwhelmed with work or complaints, it is at these times when they need to stop and think about putting a positive tone in their teaching. According to Davis, in addition to cell phone and computer use, other indications of a TT are teachers who often lose their tempers or are “predictably dramatic”; who share their students’ private information; who talk too much, especially without expression; who don’t vary their teaching methods; who only teach to the “good” students; who use the same tests and lessons every year; who aren’t consistent and whose words of warning mean nothing; and who don’t actually like their students and embarrass them in front of others.

Policies Educators Don’t Like

eSchool News conducted a poll asking educators what education policies they thought should be eliminated. See if you agree with the top ten that were recommended.

Number 10 - “Creating a single, statewide student information system”

Number 9 - “Teacher licensing requirements”

Number 8 - “Not requiring technology application classes”

Number 7 - “Prohibiting the use of personal technologies or web pages”

Number 6 - “Grade levels based on age”

Number 5 - “Seat-time requirements”

Number 4 - “Rules for auctioning off old equipment

Number 3 - “Unfunded mandates”

Number 2 - “Teacher seniority preferences”

Number 1 - “No Child Left Behind”.

You can go to eSchool News and make your own suggestions about what policies you think schools would be better without.

Evernote App in the Classroom

Teacher/Librarian Buffy Hamilton decided to try the Evernote App with her sophomore students. The students were getting started on a research project in which they had to use different types of sources of information (video, photos, database articles, Web articles, etc.) and needed a way to save and organize what they gathered. She says she selected Evernote because it was free and students could use it on their computers at home as well as with iPod, iPhone, Touch, and Android devices. Besides, they could take handwritten notes and scan them in or take a snapshot of them. They could share notes, and using email, they could add to their accounts when they wanted, where they wanted. Hamilton’s students said the program was easy to use, and most continued to use Evernote for their schoolwork after the project was completed. If you’d like to try Evernote with your students, be sure to make use of Hamilton’s Research Guide.

Read Free Library Books on iPhone & iPad & iPod Touch

With the free Bluefire Reader, you and your students can read eBooks from your public library on the  iPhone, iPad, and iPod Touch. This reader, according to cnet’s Rick Broida, can read ePub, PDF and Adobe DRM formats.  It’s DRM format that many libraries use for their eBooks. To read library books on the digital devices, you need to have an online account from your library and to install Adobe Digital Editions. Bluefire has a help area that will get you started with this application.

Digital Generation Brains: Do They Work in School?

Since the evolution of Sesame Street and its engaging, fast-paced television learning, educators have wondered how classroom teachers can possibly compete with what’s enveloping student minds beyond school. Today the problem is not only beyond school, but in school as well. Keeping students from using digital devices for texting and networking isn’t easy; nor is keeping their minds on school studies. New York Times writer Matt Richtel, in his piece Growing Up Digital, Wired for Distraction, discusses time he spent with students and staff at Woodside High School, California, where principal David Reilly says he’s “trying to take back [student] attention from the Blackberries and video games” and “to a degree, I’m using technology to do it.” In the school there are now Chinese language classes taught via iPad and audio production classes. Reilly hopes to capture the attention of students who can’t seem to focus on schoolwork because they are too involved with digital activities that offer “instant gratification.” A 14-year-old admitted sending and receiving 27,000 text messages a month, while others are up late into the morning hours on school nights playing video games, social networking, and working on digital movies. Not all educators and researchers agree that adding more tech is the way to challenge today’s students to learn, and research studies cited in the article suggest that video games hamper sleep and seem to “override” what students have studied.  Multitasking doesn’t work, and the brain appears to need downtime, not constant activity, to digest what it learns. Although there are excellent points tackled in this article that all educators must think about, the answers are still waiting. The questions remain: (1) Is the answer good teaching, whether tech is used or not, or (2) are some students so intensely involved in their digital lives that they are not able to focus no matter how effective the teacher?

Where Are Teens Getting Health Info?

When teens and preteens are looking for health information, according to the article “Technology Trend: Teens and Online Health Research” in CYFERnet, only about 3% of teens go to sites like Mayoclinic.com, Plannedparenthood.com, and Health.com for answers. Instead they do a Google or Yahoo search, use Wikipedia; check with online friends; and post questions in online discussion areas and confessionals. About half of the teens surveyed said they go online to learn about mental health, sexual issues, and general health. “Their top worries were sexually transmitted diseases, followed by drugs, unplanned pregnancy, unhealthy relationships, depression, alcohol use, eating disorders and cyberbullying.”  These interests differed from a Pew study in which adults said their main medical interests were: nutrition, fitness, specific diseases and treatments, diets, and supplements. Considering the differences in interests between teens and adults concerning health, teen-related health information needs to be readily available to young people and should be in places they are likely to frequent online. (CYFERnet is network that features practical research from leading universities.)