Why I Just Asked My Students To Put Their Laptops Away Analysis

431 Words1 Page

In the article, “Why I Just Asked my Students to Put Their Laptops Away,” by Clay Shirky, he explains that the reason he does not allow the use of technology in his classroom is because pop-ups or Facebook alerts are distracting to the students. Instead, they have class discussions and are able to stay focused on the topic and their ideas and conversations flourish. He believes that the use of devices and being distracted with personal alerts or interesting, not relative advertisements is like drunken multitasking. There is actually much that I agree on in this text. From personal experience, I myself or a friend have constantly guilty of this distraction. While reading Shirky’s article, I looked over my laptop several times to watch a murder trial on television, and it was not until I “finished” the article that I realized I gained nothing from it. I honestly thought it was an article bias to books because Shirky was old fashioned and until I actually read it a second time did I realize the irony of the situation. …show more content…

“Students Can’t Resist Distraction for Two Minutes… and neither can you,” an article provided by Bob Sullivan offers support in this claim. He states “Brain researchers say that what many people call multitasking should really be called “rapid toggling” between tasks, as the brain focuses quickly on one topic, then switches to another, and another.” When students are doing work on their own, it is impossible for them do keep their phone out their hands any more than two minutes, thus there is a gap or murmur when trying to process information; we think we are reading a passage in a book, but in reality we will only remember or think about the image most interesting to us; a friend tagging us in a photo on

Show More
Related

  • Annie Murphy Paul's You Ll Never Learn !

    691 Words  | 2 Pages

    I have always found ways of doing my homework assignments while doing something else; mainly due to the fact that I am bored or not totally engaged with the subject. I feel the need to fill the empty space that was revolving around in my mind. When I went to high school there were not any type of digital distractions allowed; we had complete and total silence while completing assignments at school. However, when we got home we turned on the latest episode of “Home Improvement” and did our homework with our TV dad Tim Allen. This was a favorite distraction back then, now the cell phones have become a constant in our lives. “Given that these distractions aren’t going away, academic and even professional achievement may depend on the ability to ignore digital temptation while learning” (Paul 720). I have not owned a cell phone in over five years; even though I do not own one, I have seen numerous people in the classroom setting pop in and out of their messages and social networks. I thought to myself while seeing this, how are people focusing on the assignment before them? I still don’t get it but to each their

    Read More

  • The Epidemic Of Media Multitasking While Learning By Annie Murphy Paul Analysis

    938 Words  | 2 Pages

    In the article,“Multitasking is actually kind of a problem for kids and adults” by Hayley Tsukayama the author went into detail about how parents and their children view their personal media habits. One of the ways that the parents and children viewed their media habits as was feeling the need to respond to texts and notifications immediately. “More than 1,200 parents and teens surveyed, 48 percent of parents and 72 percent of teens said they felt the need to respond to texts and notifications immediately, almost guaranteeing distractions throughout the day” (Tsukayama). This article can be connected to “The Epidemic of Media Multitasking While Learning” both of the articles discussed the different factors of media multitasking among individuals. The article from The Washington Post website gave great insight on multitasking and rather it is bad for students when it comes to learning. I believe that the issue being discussed is very relevant because if students are easily distracted by technology while in their learning environment it results in them not learning

    Read More

  • Analysis Of Samuel Freedman's New Classroom War: Teacher Versus Technology

    892 Words  | 2 Pages

    Students are becoming more distracted in class because of technology resulting them to do poorly in education. In the story, “New Class(room) War: Teacher Versus Technology” by Samuel Freedman is about a teacher name Ali Nazemi that created a policy regarding no technology because the students are not paying attention anymore in class. Freedman’s states that, “Their perpetual war of attrition with defiantly inattentive students has escalated from the quaint pursuits of pigtail-pulling, spitball-lobbing and notebook-doodling to a high-tech arsenal of laptops, cellphones, Blackberries and the like”

    Read More

  • Reading and Thought by Dwight MacDonald

    871 Words  | 2 Pages

    Students may easily lose their attention and concentration with easy access to such incredibly rich store of information. With such new technologies as television, internet and social networks, people nowadays tend to multitask more often as they have easy access to a large amount of information. However, such easy access may sometimes be a distraction. Study “Your Brain on Computers” reports that heavy multitaskers perform up to 20% worse on most tests compared to performance of light multitaskers. Working efficiency of people, who multitask, is claimed to be significantly lower. The same is with concentration. (Crovitz 353) As a result, they are not engaged in working process. Students tend to be easily distr...

    Read More

  • Essay On Shut Down Your Screen Week

    540 Words  | 2 Pages

    According to Nicholas Carr, in the article “Is Google Making Us Stupid?” from The New York Times Upfront, “When we use our computers and our cell phones all the time, we’re always distracted. ”This sentence stated by Nicholas Carr contributes to my claim of participating in “Shut Down Your Screen Week.” For instance, when students are at home using their electronics they get distracted from doing their homework. This is a way technology is affecting many students. This article by Nicholas Carr supports my argument of participating in “Shut Down Your Screen Week” because many students do get distracted while using electronics causing them not to do their work.

    Read More

  • Why I Just Asked My Students To Put Their Laptops Away Summary

    699 Words  | 2 Pages

    Media technology is helpful in so many ways; on the other hand, it can be disruptive too. In the article “Why I Just Asked My Students to Put Their Laptops Away,” Professor Clay Shirky claims that students are not able to focus on the lesson and easily get distracted with their laptops, leading him to ban the use of technology devices in his classroom. Similarly, in article “Our Photoshopping Disorder,” fashion reporter Erin Cunningham addresses the topic about the use of photoshopped images in advertisements creating unrealistic standards causing harm to people’s health and well-being. Both article oppose the bad habits that people get by using media technology. Shirky and Cunnignham completely agree in their assessment

    Read More

  • Does The Internet Make You Smarter Analysis

    827 Words  | 2 Pages

    He compares the YouTube videos and novels. They are both and not alike at the same time, because both were an overproduction of information. He included a quote from Edgar Allen Poe saying "The enormous multiplication of books in every branch of knowledge is one of the greatest evils of this age; since it presents one of the most serious obstacles to the acquisition of correct information." Not only does this affect the average quality and intelligence of all materials but it also makes it harder to find accurate information. Today’s age’s version of this is YouTube by providing so many videos while most of them are purely for entertainment and do very little to benefit your knowledge. The problem with this view is that the internet is not just YouTube. There are so many uses for the internet and other tools of this world such as cell phones, cars, etc. Making learning easier is not going to make people “dumber.” Each and everyday there are new things to use technology for. The advantage of having technology is making us smarter as individuals and as a society by making information more accessible. Towards the end of the article Shirky begins to pull the readers in to show how “we are all living in the largest expansion of expressive capability.” Using the internet for education and other day to day activities will expand our society and create a new more adaptable cultural to live in. Our society has increased the freedom of creativity which is overall leading to the expansion of

    Read More

  • Technology in the Movie Wall-E

    915 Words  | 2 Pages

    The Pew Research Center focuses on technology-related things and conducted a survey for 2,462 teachers. Ninety percent of those teachers believed that technology was causing their students to become more easily distracted with shorter attention spans. An article on Huffington Post mentioned a study that showed that students could not focus on their homework for more than two minutes before having to look at some kind of electronical device like their phone or television. The Kaiser Family Foundation found that about half of students from the ages of eight to eighteen do their homework while using some kind of electronical device. Technology has affected our focus so much that we can't even focus on the little things for too long. Studies have even shown that people who use the internet at work change tabs or check their email about thirty-seven times an hour! All this multitasking can cause us to become more distracted. Sometimes, we can even become distracted towards the people around us.

    Read More

  • College Students and Multitasking

    623 Words  | 2 Pages

    Moreover, “The human brain works more efficiently on a single task and for sustained rather than intermitted or alternating periods of time” (Multitasking 758). So, this does not mean that the human brain can’t handle multitasking; it could, but is not as accurate or efficient as if it was performing one task and concentrating only on that task; consequently, students’ brains would work more efficiently and accurately if students were only focusing on one task.... ... middle of paper ... ...

    Read More

  • The Laptop Ate My Attention Span Analysis

    1001 Words  | 3 Pages

    In “The Laptop Ate My Attention span”, Abbey Ellin describes the advantages and disadvantages of the internet being used in the classroom. Although she does include different types of schools, the author focuses in on business school students. She explains to us that an increasing amount of college campuses are choosing what students can or cannot do with their laptop while in class. Ellin describes what students do use their computer for in school and while some students are starting their own business others are chatting away or just not spending their time wisely. With it being that these are the future leaders of america and the people with access to a higher education, Ellin would expect them to have some sense of manners when it comes to what they are using their computer for during class time. The author gives us an example that a student knows better than to walk out of a

    Read More

  • Summary Of In Defense Of The Igeneration

    1182 Words  | 3 Pages

    Multitasking with non-course material results in a student’s attention being diverted from the course material that is being taught. This can result in errors in memory for the student and also a more difficult time learning the information outside of the classroom (Kraushaar & Novak, 2010, p.1). The University of Vermont completed a study in order to determine the impacts of multitasking with a laptop during a university lecture. Through the experiment they were able to determine that “students with a high [and long] frequency of software multitasking during lectures will exhibit lower academic performance than students with a low [and short] frequency of software multitasking” (Kraushaar & Novak, 2010, p.6). This shows that repeated and lengthy multitasking with technology in particular laptops during lecture times can cause extremely negative results in a students academic performances and

    Read More

  • Technology As A Tool For Education

    1211 Words  | 3 Pages

    Technologies like computers or iPads (or anything with internet access for that matter) in the classroom could possibly distract students from their work. Classroom administrators seem to forget that the majority of students really don’t want to be in the classroom.. I remember when I was in highschool, whenever a teacher would bring students into a computer lab, or bring class sets of computers, or bring iPads into the classroom for a lesson a large portion would go onto twitter, or onto any unblocked flash game website whenever the teacher was not looking, try to access anything for them to “escape” the classroom. When there are a large majority of children and/or teens that do not want to go to school, and are given tools to be rebellious so easily, what is going to stop them? Aside, who really wants to sit through the same autonomous paper typing over and over again...

    Read More

  • The Negative Impact Of Technology On Children

    813 Words  | 2 Pages

    In the article, How Technology is Changing the Way Children Think and Focus, author Jim Taylor , emphasizes“…students who were allowed Internet access during class didn’t recall the lecture nor did they perform as well on a test of the material as those who weren’t “wired” during class” (par. 10). Children have become so brainwashed that they drown everything out around them and put what little attention they have, on their devices, leaving the individuals completely oblivious to their surrounding environment. From a teacher’s standpoint, it is already hard enough trying to maintain the focus of 32 wondering minds, some with ADD and learning disabilities, the last thing he or she needs is a handful of students not paying attention because they are playing on their devices. Children unable to focus on certain activities not only damagingly affects themselves, but also their fellow

    Read More

  • Cell Phones in the Classroom

    648 Words  | 2 Pages

    Cell phones may be the top of devices those distract students in class. The ubiquitous problem originates from the cell phones. I’m also a high school student, I can see some of my classmates use it for texting every day in class instead of listening to the teacher. Students also use it for playing video games, listening to music, watching videos. And definitely, while you are playing with your phones, you will not be able to absorb the lesson that the teacher is trying to teach. It’s not easy to do two things at the same time, except you are super. Have you ever tried to draw a circle by your left hand and draw a rectangle by the other hand simultaneously? When you do two things or more at the same time, your brain will just focus on one thing and naturally ignore the other. As Peter Bregman wrote in the Harvard Business Review Blog Network that multitasking can reduce productivity by as much as 40%, increase stress and cause a 10-point fall in IQ.

    Read More

  • Research Proposal: The Attention Span of Students During Class

    919 Words  | 2 Pages

    A 1976 study conducted by two Indiana University professors proves that assorting a teacher’s lectures and having a 3-5 minute interval would regain the students’ attention. The study was executed long before the era of texting and social networks so the immediate generation of students have even shorter attention and more impaired by distractions. The professors conducted another study in 1985 in which they tested the students’ memory of reminiscing facts from a 20 minute lecture. T...

    Read More

More about Why I Just Asked My Students To Put Their Laptops Away Analysis

Open Document