I do not think I am alone when I say I get easily distracted by my phone, especially when I have an important but boring task at hand. I am better about it in classrooms as I tend to usually just shut off and pack my phone; I may be able to pay attention, but it is not as easy for others. So…what do we do? How did we get here? Where’s my phone? What? Do we ban phone use in classrooms entirely? No, definitely not. Picture this: you’ve made it. You lived out your goal of being a teacher […]

Mobile Phones are a new phenomenon for teachers and dealing with them is a complex topic that many teachers disagree on. My generation has practically grown up with technology and phones so to me many of the points talked about in this weeks readings were seen from a students perspective not as a teachers. As such I’m glad to see that these articles recognized the potential in smart phones as a way to further a lesson. Rhett Oldham’s article “4 Ways to Integrate Smartphones into your Classroom” brought up some great examples on this topic. One of them examples I […]

In this post by Rob Sterner from Teaching Quality, the idea of devices in the classroom being a test of willpower is introduced. Sterner talks about how students can learn to exercise and develop willpower by allowing phones in the classroom, but expecting them to stay away rather than completely banning phones from even entering the classroom. This provides an opportunity to teach important skills for academics, and life, without even needing to take time out of a lesson. Outside of school there is rarely an entity telling you to leave your phones at home, and you can even be […]

Before going into what I learned from these articles I want to go into some background information. I may be horrible with technology, but I enjoy when new things come out that are useful to humanity and hope that I can figure the new tool out. I also think cell phones are a useful tool in everyone’s personal lives due to the connection you have with people and the entertainment value. With that being said I do not believe cell phones belong in the classroom, they are a distraction. Now that’s out of the way, I will be going through […]

The importance of technology in a classroom has never been more obvious. In the modern age, we have gone from seeing computer lab days as exotic treats, to having a computer permanently attached to our consciousness. This leads the way for many exciting opportunities in the classroom, but also for hurdles that teachers are going to have to find their way around. James Lang writes an excellent piece on distractedness and the impact that it can have on a classroom and the educator in charge of the classroom, with an in depth look at what being distracted does to your […]

I find it very hard to concentrate on school work and even in class sometimes due to distractions like getting a notification or email for something. My freshman year of college was an extremely bad year for me to focus on schoolwork without being distracted during class or even after. When you have the whole Internet at your fingertips it is hard to focus. Even reading small articles can be difficult to focus on when there is so much going on outside of that one computer tab.  James Long in his article, “The Distracted Classroom” makes a statement that really […]