Driven to distraction: How to help wired students learn to focus — from eschoolnews.com by Larry Rosen
Excerpt:
A recent Pew Internet & American Life Project report surveyed 2,462 middle and high school Advanced Placement and national writing project teachers and concluded that: “Overwhelming majorities agree with the assertions that today’s digital technologies are creating an easily distracted generation with short attention spans, and today’s students are too ‘plugged in’ and need more time away from their digital technologies.”
Two-thirds of the respondents agree with the notion that today’s digital technologies do more to distract students than to help them academically.
Mind you, we are talking about teachers who typically teach the best and brightest students and not those who we would generally think of as highly distractible.
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From DSC:
If I’m an educator or a trainer and I can’t get through the gate (i.e. get someone’s attention), I have zero chance of getting a piece of information into someone’s short-term memory/working memory — and then ultimately into their long-term memory.
Also, from my own experience…
Especially in regards to information in a textual format, I know that I’ve grown increasingly impatient when someone doesn’t get to the point. When drinking (information) from the firehose, I seem to be almost forced into this type of situation/perspective.