ClappingTree’s Web 2.0

STUDENTS, DO YOU GO ONLINE while attending a face-to-face (f2f) class? Where do you surf and what do you use? So far, has going online helped or hindered you (the learner), other learners and/or the instructor? What happens when your phones have Internet access too?

Most likely, your class is NOT going to be as exciting as this one (left), where the professor gamely laid on a bed of nails while someone else tried to break a cement block on him with a sledgehammer! In such a case, you are likely to be distracted by a backchannel.

As Chris Lott put it, “…regardless of what a participant has at hand– a backchannel, a laptop, a cell phone, a book, or a set of Legos– they are not and never will direct 100% of their attention forward and they will find ways to create the attention cycles that characterize engagement. I was able to ignore… incompetent teachers just fine back when the only thing digital [we] had access to was a watch.”

ON JUNE 9, ELLIOT MASIE posed a similar question to teachers and learning designers on LearningTown and received over 80 responses. It’s interesting to observe how Masie kicked off the etivity with a great “spark” (italicized emphases are mine):

Initially, some of the respondents expressed concerns of “how do we know where they are”, and that “It is distracting to the trainer and students sitting near you”.

Then one respondent Ray Eisenberg turned the tide by quoting George Siemens (”ERN - Social Media, Theory and Practice, Backchannel, Laptops in Classrooms” May 31, 2008):

“When I don’t have a laptop at a conference, I learn differently, not more. I learn what the speaker is saying, rather than the resources she is citing. When I have a computer, I don’t play solitaire … I use the opportunity to find related resources, follow up on information presented, and generally enlarge the sphere of what would often be a single-perspective presentation. I’m sympathetic with the concerns of laptop mis-use. Yet I wonder if the problem isn’t partly with our lack of modeling proper technology use. Perhaps we ought to utilize these tools for academic purposes, rather than continuing lecture models and seeing laptops as add ons to learning rather than a key contributor. “

Eisenberg then added, “I agree with Siemens. In a standard lecture, sage-on-the-stage format, there are probably going to be issues. If you bring the internet to center stage then I think that we will be able, as architects have long been successful in doing, convert a problem into a feature.”

Personally, some time last year, I’ve observed the same professor teach the same lesson to two classes of students in two different settings. One class was in a tutorial room while the other class was in a computer lab. The attention the students in the tutorial room gave the professor was much more. As a result, the professor’s level of confidence and energy in the tutorial room was correspondingly higher, and he managed to speak much more fluently and crack a few more jokes in the tutorial room than in the computer lab.

As for myself as a participant, I’ve often gone online while attending lectures and seminars. I’ve noticed that I’m able to add notes online and check out related resources quickly. However, I would often miss a few words here and there. If the speaker is a boring one, most of what he said would have escaped me.