A few weeks ago, I watched the video documentary called Growing Up Online which was about multitasking and technology in schools. Frontline created a follow-up to this documentary titled Digital Nation.
The documentary was very interesting. It focused not only on the children that have grown up with the information overload of this century, but also on the adults that are currently learning to adapt to all of the new technology of today. The chapter titled "South Korea's Gaming Craze" was eye-opening. It is difficult to believe that as a society we have gotten to the point where chronic gaming is now a health-crisis. Not only do student just social network, but the internet is where they create relationships and live virutal lives in virtual worlds on sites such as Second Life. For students, the internet is a way of life.
As a teacher I will have to be aware that students will need to be stimulated in the classroom at a level that they haven't before. Even though my students will claim that they are great multi-taskers, I know that science will back me up when I disagree. It will be a challenge to teach students that are used to having the entire world literally at their fingertips. However, as discussed in the chapter titled "Distracted by Everything," the performance of students goes down once multitasking and distractions start to pile up. It's important as teachers that we find the balance between integrating technology into our classrooms and permitting information-overload.
No comments:
Post a Comment