James Drogan

On Friday, June 13, from Smart Mobs, comes a post by Howard Reingold, "Attention, Multitasking, Learning," that fits quite well with Carr's piece quoted in The Mind Changes.  And it is disturbing.

"Over the course of a riveting 75-minute discussion of the birth of Gandhian non-violent activism, I found myself becoming increasingly distressed as I watched students cruising Facebook, checking out the NY Times, editing photo collections, texting, reading People Magazine, shopping for jeans, dresses, sweaters, and shoes on Ebay, Urban Outfitters and J. Crew, reorganizing their social calendars, emailing on Gmail and AOL, playing solitaire, doing homework for other classes, chatting on AIM, and buying tickets on Expedia (I made a list because of my disbelief). From my perspective in the back of the room, while Dalton vividly described desperate Indian mothers throwing their children into a deep well to escape the barrage of bullets, I noticed that a girl in front of me was putting her credit card information into Urban Outfitters.com. She had finally found her shoes!"

This cited a post by Josh Waitzkin referred to by Reingold; " this post on “Multitasking and the End of Learning,”

I find myself sketching the following in my diary.

The task teachers have always had is to capture the attention of the student.  Some do it better than other.  With all that is going on in the world, and with all that is available almost instantaneously and almost anywhere and at almost any time, this task of capturing attention has become more critical and more difficult.

I noted to one of my teaching colleagues:

"Bill, summer, in my experience, brings on increasing waves of ennui.  I'm noticing it in my graduate class.  It's hot.  The beach and the beer call.  The course is intense.  It takes the strong-minded to keep in step."