For all the effort and great intentions that go into new
technologies to be used in the classroom, it’s a shame that there’s no way to
overcome students’ natural abilities to uncover EVERY distraction they can find.
Apparently even the mighty Apple can’t quite counter these tendencies, as the
article above reveals. As simple as they make it to disable and restrict all
dangerous or unproductive apps and websites, students quickly found out that
using iMessage can’t be blocked in any way!
Such a small loophole now means that usage of already
purchased iPads will have to be severely restricted and monitored, and in many
cases would prevent districts from purchasing iPads. The risk for cheating or
even just unnecessary chit-chat outweighs the possible benefits of implementing
all the educational tools an iPad can bring to the table. Apple clearly wants
to be marketable and have the iPad be the tablet of choice for the classroom,
so it probably won’t be long before a proper set of tools are released to
ensure that this won’t be a problem any longer.
The real shame in all of this is that lower and lower
attention spans are the source of both the need of new technology and the risk
of implementation. The reason that devices like laptops and iPads hold so much
potential is because students overuse them recreationally and are, quite
frankly, bored when engaging technology isn’t present. Then, given the tiniest
opportunity to exploit distracting and entertaining non-educational aspects of
the technology, students unravel the devices and ruin what could have been the
engaging classroom experience they needed.
I personally think there should be more emphasis on
encouraging maturity in the utilization of technology at an early age. In the
market, devices seem to generate the most appeal (even for adults) in the
potential they hold for keeping us far, far away from boredom , and it’s no
surprise that all of us are now programmed to be distracted and entertained at
every moment of the day. When we have a class full of children or teenagers who are wired this way, it's not fair for us to try to master the balance of giving them enough tech to stay engaged and restricting the access they have to avoid distraction.
What can we do as educators to overcome this and hold
our students to higher standards of behavior and maturity?
In my TFL class we got a chance to interview students and they said that if you give them the chance, they will take advantage of you. Apparently this is true with tech also.
ReplyDeleteTotally - and I think even a lot of our peers do the same. How often do we see our classmates goofing around on facebook during a lecture? Granted, at our age we take full ownership of our learning and personally face the consequences if we miss something important.
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