I have grown up in the age of technology, we are called the computer generation. I have never been without a television, VCR or some type of gaming system. When I was seven years old I had beaten the game SPYRO on my sega. I find it very funny that students in school that think they are very good at multitasking when they perform even lower than those students that do not multitask. This was due to the fact that their attention spans were lower than students who don’t multitask.
I also found it shocking that on opposite sides of the world the technology problems are so different. In South Korea they are trying to reduce the amount of time children use on computers by teaching computer etiquette in younger grades. Also they have venues where people can go just to play on the computer, and some people died from excessive gaming. Far away from South Korea in North America they are introducing computers in the classroom to fix troubled students. Also every college is filled with students walking around texting, carrying laptops, and talking on the phone.
I tried being a super multitasked my first year of college, this caused more failures than benefits, and I often left class not knowing what was discussed. I agree that as teachers going into this new age of students we need to prepare ourselves for students with lowered attention spans due to over stimulation from technology. I disagree that laptops should be allowed in the classroom, due to the tendency of young minds to wander in class. Being a college student I have first hand witnessed students surfing the web, and barely paying attention to the teacher. When I hear that those students that multitask are not benefitting from multitasking if confirms my beliefs about not wanting laptops in my classrooms.
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