Courageous conversations around Attention and Distraction

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I was tagged on the following post which gave me cause to reflect.

 

In Social LEADia, I share information about Howard Rheingold, a social media scholar and instructor at the University of California Berkley and Stanford, and his five “social media literacies”. One of the most important he suggests is attention:

the ability to identify when focused attention is required and to recognize when multitasking is beneficial (Rheingold, 2010)

Amanda Chapman’s response is one worth sharing:

Ms. Morphet asks, “How is this not a detriment to their learning?” And while I believe this is an entirely valid question, I would like to take this opportunity to ask a few more questions:

  • Where are students learning the necessary skill of attention or other social media skills? Should this be part of what media literacy entails today?
  • What role do we see social media play in literacy today?
  • Do students see their smartphones as a powerful tool for learning as well as a tool to connect them to their friends and/or funny cat videos?
  • If we did the same study of teachers during a PD session or staff meeting, what might the result(s) be?
  • How many of the apps that students are being distracted by actually “blocked” by the District? What further questions do we have about that?
  • How many of the email notifications are from Google Classroom?
  • What is the conversation that ensued AFTER this picture was taken? What are the student reflections? If students did this for a week and were given the opportunity to make changes to their learning habits, would they and what would they be? Could students devise consequences for themselves and the class?
  • Here are some questions posed by @mycampusgps as a follow up

I feel like we need to address the issue of distractions, but we also need to ask critical questions which will help our students develop the skills they need for the future. Courageous conversations need to trump assumptions.

What experiences and conversations have you had with your students about notifications and distractions? What has helped? Would love to hear about them.

*Source credit corrected to Mary Kate Garza

Reference:

Rheingold, H. (2010). Attention, and other 21st-century social media literacies. Educause Review,45(5), 14-24. Retrieved June 12, 2016, from http://er.educause.edu/articles/2010/10/attention-and-other-21stcentury-social-media-literacies

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