This article also appears on Edutopia at this link
In a recent post on Edudemic, author Leah Levy suggests “7 Ways to Deal With Digital Distractions in the Classroom.” I appreciated her ideas, and wondered if anyone in our community has other ideas for things that work?! So what do you think? Have you tried something that works?
Personally, I am not keen to “fight the fight” that many of my colleagues choose – not that I blame them, nor am I suggesting that they are wrong to do so. I simply don’t have desire to spend the time or the energy to stop the cultural shift toward tech devices in every hand, 24/7. I may be guilty of the same thing anyway!
Rather, I prefer to accept that the devices are in hand and in class. I have decided to lay out a set of common agreements, which we all must embrace, including me. We don’t hide them under the table. We use them out in the open in honest, appropriate ways, for academic purposes. I tell my students that I am choosing to trust them, and that if they want me to continue to do so, then we need to keep our agreements. For most students, this works very well, but I must admit, there are times when it does not and I am disappointed.
Then again, there has never been a time in my 32 years of teaching that everything went perfectly 100% of the time! Why should things be any different today? And are the technology devices really any more of a challenge than things in the past? I really rather doubt it.
Your turn now. What have you tried that helps you keep your cool, and your sanity? No ranting here, please, just frank discussion about how we can “psyche” ourselves into shifting in good ways, so we stay the course.
I look forward to your thoughts!
Cheers,
Don
Project-Based Language-Learning 