I find this chapter to be very very interesting (not that other chapters weren’t, in fact they have been oh so ever helpful, but we are touching basis with the student body).  Reading the articles and chapter and watching the youtube links was very interesting and fascinating because it is something we are in constant contact with: our student population.  I, myself, have to admit I am “guilty” of multi-tasking.  Just the other day I was commenting with my friend how ADAHD we are becoming in the sense that if whatever it is we are downloading/uploading we expect it to process in a nano second.  Otherwise, we jump to another task and therefore divide our attention at risk of becoming less (or perhaps more) productive.  It was interesting to read the article and note there was no continental/cultural difference in the students surveyed.  They all admitted to multi-task and move on to “faster” things.  As noted in the research findings written by Jakob Nielsen, students (and sometimes ourselves) “are enraptured by social media but reserve it for private conversations”.

In the beginning of this semester a student came up to me and wanted to comment on one of her observations.  She told me she grew up in a generation where technology was the way of communicating, creating and learning and that it was weird to her that one of the students in class asked her a technology questions in regards to the class.  She was thrown off by this question.  She said she assumes everyone of her and younger generations are familiar with computer softwares and programs.  It raised an important issue, we cannot assume students are familiar with programs.  Hence we have orientations in the beginning of the semester to get students familiar with the programs we will be utilizing in class.  I have created my SurveyMonkey.  Thank you 🙂