Distraction On The Internet

According to the [American Association of School Librarians], schools top three filtered content
areas are social networking sites, instant messaging and online chatting, and games. Such
activities arent (necessarily) inappropriate or illegal, but they are big honking distractions, and if
we want our young people to learn anything during the school day, they must be kept away from
these sites.
A growing body of evidence from cognitive science and psychology shows that the divided
attention typical of people engaging in media multitasking the attempt to pay attention to two
or more streams of information at once produces shallower, less permanent learning. And lets
not kid ourselves: when students are free to roam the Internet in class or in study periods,
divided attention is the result.
Is it possible to use Facebook and Twitter in educationally appropriate ways? Sure but as
technology and education specialist Michael Trucano points out, tech enthusiasts often focus on
whats possible to the exclusion of whats predictable and whats practical. What is predictable is
that young people, given the chance, will use the web for social and entertainment purposes;
whats practical is to remove that temptation during the school day.
via http://hechingerreport.org/content/schools-efforts-block-internet-laughably-lame_16588
This article misses the point. Its fearmongering and control-driven and feeds the
misbegottenkids these days are bad narratives that are so prevalent in older generations. Its
yet another example of were not knowledgeable enough to think of any useful ways to utilize
these tools so lets just block them.
The myth of digital natives has been busted time and time again. Research is very clear that
while our students are increasingly savvy at using technology for gaming and social purposes,
theyre much less proficient at using technology for academic and other productive work
purposes. Of course they will not get good at using technology in these ways if we simply block
the technologies instead of using them more productively.
Unlike what is stated elsewhere in this article, the real world is digital. The real world is
technology-suffused. People everywhere use social media and other online tools all the time to
accomplish their work. How are educators supposed to prepare students for our new technology-
infused information, economic, and learning landscapes in analog school environments?
As my supervising principal said every day of my administrative internship, Classroom
management stems from good instruction. The issue here is not the technology but rather our
unwillingness as educators and citizens (and pundits) to rethink learning, teaching, and
schooling.
http://dangerouslyirrelevant.org/2014/07/filtering-social-media-in-schools-because-its-a-
distraction.html