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Exploring Technology & Learning Connections

Join us in exploring a world of technology & learning connections that can help all students excel! Our goal is to help all schools and teachers to develop a universal, differentiated core curriculum based on the Common Core State Standards in a multi-tiered system of supports (MTSS). Every school is different, and how you use these technology tools depends on your local needs. Hopefully this CD and the resources here will help you realize that there are so many possibilities. This is a wonderful time to be in education!

We are the Technology & Learning Connections Team, a part of the Problem Solving/RtI Project at the University of South Florida. Below are some links to online MTSS resources, followed by a few of our resources.
MTSS Online Resources

Technology & Learning Connections
www.tlc-mtss.com

Florida's MTSS Projects
www.florida-rti.org

Myths and Truths about RtI and a MTSS
http://www.florida-rti.org/educatorResources/myths/index.htm

Florida's MTSS Technical Assistance Contacts
www.floridarti.usf.edu/contact/mtss_ta/index.html

Problem Solving/Response to Intervention Project
www.floridarti.usf.edu

Florida's Positive Behavior Support Project
http://flpbs.fmhi.usf.edu/

4 & 8 Step Problem Solving - a quick overview of these two problem solving processes

TLC Resources

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Join us in exploring a world of technology & learning connections that can help all students excel! Our goal is to help all schools and teachers to develop a universal, differentiated core curriculum based on the Common Core State Standards in a multi-tiered system of supports (MTSS).

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Find out more about CAST. We’re busting barriers to learning, until learning has no limits®.

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Tools

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An NEA Venue for Best Pedagogical Practices

Topics

Academic Ability Grouping
Ability grouping, also known as tracking, is the practice of grouping children together according to their talents in the classroom. At the elementary school level, the divisions sound harmless enough, but in secondary schools, the stratification becomes more obvious.

Alternative Routes to Teacher Certification
Alternative pathways to teacher certification must be equal in rigor to traditional programs and every teacher candidate must meet identical standards and measures in order to receive a professional teaching license in a given state.

Block Scheduling
Block scheduling is becoming more popular throughout the United States. Instead of the traditional daily six-, seven-, or eight-period schedule, the block schedule consists of three or four longer periods of daily instruction. The increased span of teaching time offers benefits for teachers and students.

Community Schools
The community school model allows schools to become centers of the community, where they're open to everyone - all day, every day, evenings, and weekends.

Cooperative Learning
Cooperative learning can result in higher achievement than other learning styles. Since students work through an assignment until all group members successfully understand and complete it, this teaching strategy creates an atmosphere of achievement.

E-Learning for Educators
Very little qualitative or quantitative research is available on the impact of e-learning on adults. So, it's difficult to know what effect e-learning is having on teachers' professional growth.

Hard-to-Staff Schools
Hard-to-staff schools have difficulty finding and retaining qualified, effective teachers and, as a consequence, have difficulty maintaining stability and developing a strong organizational culture that supports learning.

Home Visits
Home visitations by teachers get parents involved in their child's education, and they let parents and children know how much teachers care.

Homework
What's appropriate? What benefits can be expected?

Out-of-Field Teaching
Out-of-field teaching - teachers teaching subjects for which they have little education or training - has long been and continues to be an important issue in our public schools. The data show (Ingersoll, 2003) that each year some out-of-field teaching takes place in more than half of all U.S. secondary schools.

Peer Tutoring
Peer tutoring is a term that's been used to describe a wide array of tutoring arrangements, but most of the research on its success refers to students working in pairs to help one another learn material or practice an academic task.

Project-Based Learning
Project-Based Learning (PBL) shifts classroom activity away from teacher-centered instruction and emphasizes student-centered projects where the teacher can build relationships with students by acting as their coach, facilitator, and co-learner.

Recruiting & Retaining a Highly Qualified, Diverse Teaching Workforce
Four factors will affect the recruitment of highly qualified teachers: a shrinking teaching force; a growing student population; a lack of diversity among teachers to match the diversity of students; and a need for teachers in specific types of schools, geographic locations, and subject areas.

Recruitment and Retention
Research on America's pending shortage of teachers has found that retaining teachers is a major factor. And whether a teacher remains in the profession is dictated by what happens at the school site.

Response to Intervention (RTI)
RTI is a tiered approach to the early identification and support of students with learning and behavior needs.

Single-Gender Education
Single-gender education and the often-spirited dialogue surrounding it have raised a number of issues concerning the best manner to educate boys and girls.

Teaching and Learning
The research also shows that three keys to best practice are cultural competency, accomplished teaching, and addressing the demographic changes in the United States.

Universal Design for Learning
UDL aims to make learning accessible and engaging for all students.

Year-Round Education
Year-round schools use a 180-day calendar (as do schools that operate on 10-month schedule), but they stretch out the 180 days and take shorter breaks. Many educators believe that when students have shorter breaks, they retain more of what they've learned.

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Research Spotlight on Best Practices in Education

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Academic Ability Grouping Ability grouping, also known as tracking, is the practice of grouping children together according to their talents in the classroom. At the elementary school level, the divisions sound harmless enough, but in secondary schools, the stratification becomes more obvious.

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UDL

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As an initiative of the U.S. Department of Education’s Institute of Education Sciences (IES), the What Works Clearinghouse (WWC) was created in 2002 to be a central and trusted source of scientific evidence for what works in education.

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CAST

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What is CAST UDL Exchange?

It is a place to browse and build resources, lessons and collections. You can use and share these materials to support instruction guided by the UDL principles.

UDL Exchange includes

UDL Resources

Materials such as websites, documents, images, presentations, audio, video, etc. that support implementation of UDL.

UDL Lessons

Lesson plans that address the variability of all learners through the application of UDL.

UDL Collections

Sets of resources/lessons organized around a theme to support UDL practices.

UDL Exchange Tools

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It is a place to browse and build resources, lessons and collections. You can use and share these materials to support instruction guided by the UDL principles. Materials such as websites, documents, images, presentations, audio, video, etc. that support implementation of UDL. Lesson plans that address the variability of all learners through the application of UDL.

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TED Talk

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The Myth of Average:  Todd Rose at TEDxSonomaCounty

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Learner Variability and Universal Design for Learning

Below is a video of Dr. Todd Rose (2012) from CAST discussing designing learning with variability in mind.

Learn more about variability and learners by participating in this online session from CAST.

This session features Drs. David Rose and Todd Rose discussing how UDL addresses systematic learner variability. It also includes real examples of how two educators apply the principles of UDL to meet varied learner needs.

Learning Goal: Participants will be able to explain how the Universal Design for Learning (UDL) framework helps educators address systematic learner variability.

Essential Questions:

Why are curricula limited if they are designed for the 'average' learner?

What makes learner variability systematic?

Why is it important for educators to know about systematic learner variability?

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Below is a video of Dr. Todd Rose (2012) from CAST discussing designing learning with variability in mind.

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This form can help you determine which intelligences are strongest for you. If you're a teacher or tutor, you can also use it to find out which intelligences your learner uses most often. Many thanks to Dr. Terry Armstrong for graciously allowing us to use his questionnaire.

Instructions: Read each statement carefully. Choose one of the five buttons for each statement indicating how well that statement describes you.

1 = Statement does not describe you at all
2 = Statement describes you very little
3 = Statement describes you somewhat
4 = Statement describes you pretty well
5 = Statement describes you exactly

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This form can help you determine which intelligences are strongest for you. If you're a teacher or tutor, you can also use it to find out which intelligences your learner uses most often. Many thanks to Dr. Terry Armstrong for graciously allowing us to use his questionnaire. Instructions: Read each statement carefully.

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The theory of learning styles is widely popular in education. It claims that learners have preferences about how they receive and process information. In education, we usually categorize these preferences into styles such as visual, auditory, and kinesthetic. These theories are alluring because they are low lift for the classroom and promise better results for students, but research has shown that they lack scientific support.

Challenging Learning Styles Theory

The problem is our understanding of the theory. We often see learners as fixed within one of the styles. Kozhenvnikov, Evans, and Kosslyn found that cognitive preferences are actually a matrix between all of a learner's processing strategies matched with the task at hand. For example, a single student may choose visual methods to process science and kinesthetic methods to process English. What's more, students may use more than one style at once and choose different styles even within a given subject.

This understanding dispels the thought that learning styles are static and can categorize students. Research also highlights other issues of learning styles theory. Let's unpack just a few of the questions that are difficult for learning styles to answer:

In summary, there is no evidence that supports sorting learners into learning styles improves achievement. Despite widespread acceptance, learners would be better served by teachers focusing on evidence-based strategies to improve learning.

If not learning styles, what theories describe learner processing differences in a meaningful way? One answer could be multiple intelligences.

Exploring Multiple Intelligences

Developed in 1983 by Harvard psychologist Howard Gardner, the theory of multiple intelligences defines intelligence as a humans' ability to solve problems in multiple contexts. Compare this definition to an IQ test, which suggests that there is a single score for intelligence and that the score is measured outside of natural activities and contexts. It may stand to reason that learners have more than one dimension of intelligence that is best measured within real-world contexts. Combine this with Kozhenvnikov et al.'s idea that learners have a range of skills to apply across contexts, and we might begin to reframe the idea of intelligence altogether.

Could multiple intelligences be like learning styles: popular but lacking support? After all, Gardner's research required each intelligence to meet eight stringent criteria to be defined as an intelligence. Through his research process, Gardner identified eight intelligences: linguistic, logical-mathematical, spatial, bodily-kinesthetic, musical, interpersonal, intrapersonal, and naturalist. Like learning styles, these categories have been scrutinized because it is difficult to prove that Intelligence types are the sole cause of learning outcomes and that they are fully separated from other factors. It is hard to find compelling research supporting specific Intelligences as the cause of success, but, unlike learning styles, multiple intelligence theory offers some key ideas that have been supported by research (Armstrong, 2017):

Everyone possesses some degree of each type of intelligence.

Almost everyone can develop competency in each type of Intelligence.

The intelligence types are intertwined in complex ways.

There are multiple ways to demonstrate each type of intelligence.

Applying Theory to Classroom Learning

Educators want to understand their students in an effort to best serve them, so theories that categorize learners to improve classroom practice are enticing. However, in making a complex theory practical for the classroom, we often define a learner in fixed, static ways. Imagine a student being told that he or she is a kinesthetic learner, having that label reinforced, then having to sit in a two-hour long college lecture. Conceptualizing learners as fixed and static is neither helpful to the learner, nor does it improve results. Rather, we should remember that learners' abilities and preferences vary in different contexts and on different tasks.

Here are some practical steps that capitalize on learners' multidimensionality in the classroom:

Approach all students knowing they have multidimensionality ability and can raise any dimension to proficiency through expert instruction, effort, and practice. Verbally remind your students of this, as it will increase their self-efficacy.

Foster a growth mindset for all, and challenge fixed mindsets, even ones that appear helpful on the surface.

Provide different ways for students to learn materal and different ways to demonstrate their understanding and mastery. Include different modalities for written expression, and offer interpersonal opportunities to demonstrate proficiency.

Remember that students process information differently as the subject, context, or task changes. Avoid believing in static labels or ability levels.

Avoid catch-all strategies that promise the answer. Thinking is complex. Learners are complex. Deeply understand your learners and fine-tune strategies to meet their needs.

At Edmentum, we are committed to unpacking and applying learning theory to our high-quality, rigorous curricula and assessments and then partnering with educators to help them implement current research in practical ways. Look for more on our blog and Edmentum.com.

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Kinesthetic, Visual, Auditory, Tactile, Oh My! What Are Learning Modalities and How Can You Incorporate Them in the Classroom?

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In education, learning modalities (also known as learning styles) are defined as the ways in which students use their senses throughout the learning process to acquire new skills. Let's take a closer look at what some of the research and commentary on this topic says to determine how much value can be gained by weaving these styles into your instruction.

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URL Shortener - Short URLs & Custom Free Link Shortener | Bitly

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Bitly’s Connections Platform is more than a free URL shortener, with robust link management software, advanced QR Code features, and a Link-in-bio solution.

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This full-time instructor has expertise in PK-12 technology integration and evidence of excellence in face-to-face teaching at the undergraduate and graduate levels. They also have a demonstrated track record of mentoring graduate students through scholarly productivity, research, and degree completion or significant potential in this area. Primary duties will include teaching at both the undergraduate and graduate levels, and oversight/coordination of the undergraduate courses (e.g., curriculum, team of instructors, mentoring and advising, recruitment, etc.); other duties may be periodically assigned based on the current needs in the program and department.
Responsibilities

Teach primarily on-campus courses in the area of educational technology; coordinate IDT's undergraduate course and instructors

Represent IDT in undergraduate teacher education matters within the department and college

Oversee edTPA and accreditation matters related to IDT courses

Assist in the coordination of the IDT Graduate Certificate in Educational Technology

Provide open lab hours each week to assist students in any EdTech class (undergraduate and graduate; especially for students in online sections) with the class projects and lesson plans.

Support IDT's graduate programs by co-chairing research projects and dissertation studies, and serving on advising and dissertation committees.

Assist in the management of the EdTech Lab, IDT's maker space/STEM hub, and all equipment related to IDT's educational technology courses

Help with IDT's EdTech Badging program

Contribute to recruitment for the graduate certificates and degree programs

Requirements
Required Qualifications

Experience, commitment, and demonstrated effectiveness in teaching undergraduate and/or graduate educational technology courses

A doctoral degree in instructional design, educational technology, or a closely related field, awarded no later than August 2020.

Demonstrated commitment to diversity, equity and inclusion

Desired Qualifications

At least 5 years of K-12 teaching experience

Experience, commitment, and demonstrated effectiveness in teaching online

Identifiable success in advising/mentoring students and serving on dissertation committees

Demonstrated success in scholarly publication and/or presentations

Identifiable action plan for teacher preparation and professional development related to educational technology

Identifiable success obtaining external funding and managing funded projects.

Eligible for Full Graduate Faculty status, as described here: http://www.memphis.edu/gradschool/faculty_staff/gradfac_guidelines.php

Screening of applicants will begin on November 29, 2019 and may continue until the position is filled. Anticipated start date is March 1, 2019 (negotiable)

About the IDT Program

Our program is recognized nationally for excellence and innovation. Our primary offerings are our Master's and Doctoral degrees, which are completely online. We have a Certificate in IDT with tracks in Educational Technology, and Design and Development, also completely online. We offer undergraduate and graduate EdTech courses to support the Teacher Education Program.

We have a strong history of partnering with schools, companies, and organizations throughout the region, and there are many opportunities to engage with the education, business, and professional communities. We have advanced lab and work spaces for product development and media production.

You can learn more about our program and faculty at: http://idt.memphis.edu

About the University of Memphis

The University of Memphis is a comprehensive, Carnegie-designated "research-extensive" university serving over 20,000 students, with an attractive campus environment. The Memphis metropolitan area has a population of over 1,300,000. Memphis features a large tourist industry, major airport, vibrant entertainment scene, abundant parks and recreation, low cost of living, and is the home of organizations such as FedEx, AutoZone, International Paper, ServiceMaster, and St. Jude Children's Research Hospital. There are many opportunities for partnerships with industry, cultural, health care, nonprofit, and educational entities. Learn more about living in Memphis at: www.memphischamber.com/Community.aspx

The Department of Instruction and Curriculum Leadership (ICL) offers undergraduate degrees that lead to both licensure and non-licensure tracks. The department also offers graduate degrees leading to licensure with the Master of Arts in Teaching (MAT) and non-licensure options with the Master of Science (MS), Education Specialist (EdS), and Doctorate of Education (EdD). In addition, the department also offers nationally-recognized certificate and endorsement programs. We also benefit from strong partnerships with three university-affiliated lab schools-The UofM Early Learning & Research Center, Campus School, and University Middle which collectively serve over 500 children from preK to 8th grade. The College of Education is dedicated to diversity, inclusion, equity and innovation and seeks to prepare students for careers as educators, practitioners, researchers and leaders in their respective areas. The University of Memphis is recognized by the Carnegie Foundation as one of two public research universities and the only community engaged public university in Tennessee. It has seven colleges and six professional schools serving a diverse population of over 20,000 students, including 4300 graduate students. The University is strongly committed to its urban mission and outreach programs and recognizes the diverse and integrated role played by each faculty and administration in fulfilling a comprehensive mission of research, education and community outreach.

For additional information please see the websites of the university (http://www.memphis.edu), the college (http://www.memphis.edu/coe/), and the department (http://www.memphis.edu/icl).

Affirmative Action

The University of Memphis, a Tennessee Board of Regents Institution, is an Equal Opportunity/Affirmative Action Employer. We urge all qualified applicants to apply for this position. Appointment will be based on qualifications as they relate to position requirements without regard to race, color, national origin, religion, sex, age, disability, or veteran status. The successful candidate must meet guidelines of the Immigration and Reform Control Act of 1986.

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Recent Jobs - instructional technology specialist - ISTE Job Board

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This full-time instructor has expertise in PK-12 technology integration and evidence of excellence in face-to-face teaching at the undergraduate and graduate levels. They also have a demonstrated track record of mentoring graduate students through scholarly productivity, research, and degree completion or significant potential in this area.

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About the National Educational Technology Plan

The U.S. Department of Education released the 2024 National Educational Technology Plan (NETP): A Call to Action for Closing the Digital Access, Design and Use Divides. First released in fulfillment of Improving America's Schools Act of 1994, NETP has been updated multiple times since its original release, most recently in 2016. While past NETPs have largely served as surveys of the state of the field, the Department of Education's 2024 NETP frames three key divides limiting the transformational potential of educational technology to support teaching and learning, including:

The Digital Use Divide, addressing opportunities to improve how students use technology to enhance their learning, including dynamic applications of technology to explore, create, and engage in critical analysis of academic content and knowledge;

The Digital Design Divide, addressing opportunities for educators to expand their professional learning and build the capacities necessary to design learning experiences enabled by technology; and

The Digital Access Divide, addressing opportunities for students and educators to gain equitable access to educational technology, including connectivity, devices, and digital content. This also includes accessibility and digital health, safety, and citizenship as key elements of digital access.

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National Educational Technology Plan - Office of Educational Technology

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The 2024 NETP frames key divides limiting the potential of educational technology, including: Digital Use, Digital Design, and Digital Access.

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As explored in Teaching Excellence at Yale, Heather Klemann (Director of Expository Writing) utilizes smaller tables to pivot swiftly from whole-class to small group discussions, and touchscreens to call up writing workshop activities and engage students in shared writing activities.

Yale Professor of Physics Simon Mochrie sorts students into groups for hands-on activities, mixed with lectures to supply critical information.

An instructor of mathematics sets a challenging problem, and tasks student teams to work out the problem on their individual white boards. Teams then share their process, solutions, and how they overcame challenging moments.

An instructor of public health disperses a case study to student groups through digital displays and laptops at each table. Student groups work through the case study simultaneously, pausing to share their strategies and findings with the whole class.

An instructor of English copies different quotations from literature on white boards around the room. Students are asked to roam the room and note similarities and differences in tone, style, and imagery. Students return to their tables and discuss their findings. Then students perform a jigsaw, rearranging their groups and sharing their previous groups' discussions in their new circles.

Recommendations

Get Creative with the Classroom - Instructors may not have a formal ALC at their disposal on campus, or the ALC they desire may be reserved - but any classroom can be considered an ALC where active learning is possible and pursued. If a formal ALC is unavailable, instructors can consider ways to convert more traditional classroom spaces into active learning environments. A variety of active learning exercises can integrate collaborative and multimodal activities into lecture formats, even in a fixed-seating environment; group work, class discussion, team-based learning, and case-based learning can deconstruct traditional authoritarian structures typically reinforced in traditional classrooms; instructors can consider revised seating arrangements if seating is flexible enough; instructors can implement note cards, polling tools, or posters to offer students additional means for expressing confusion, displaying knowledge, and synthesizing content; or, instructors can consider experiential opportunities that defray the impact of a traditional environment.

Reserve a Space - If an ALC exists on campus, a first step is likely to reserve the space. Yale features several ALC environments. The TEAL offers numerous round tables, white boards, and monitors, and can be reserved here. Yale's Center for Teaching and Learning also features several reservable classroom spaces featuring white boards, smart touchscreens, and flexible seating / tables. These spaces are all reserved on an application basis. When instructors apply to reserve a space in the CTL or TEAL, they are informed of a decision well in advance of Yale's general room assignment process, allowing instructors to strategize and plan teaching for their specific ALC.

Get to Know the Room - Because ALCs typically lack traditional classroom components like a central podium or focal point, instructors should get used to the space before writing lesson plans. They might visit the space, take a tour, observe the class, or watch videos of instructors using the space. Instructors may also consider using Faculty Bulldog Days to observe teaching in the TEAL or a CTL classroom space.

Consider Active Learning - ALCs are typically more conducive for active learning activities than lecture, which requires forward-facing perspectives for notetaking and visual demonstration. In addition to classic active exercises like jigsaws, think-pair-share, group work, and idea mapping, instructors can also maximize the space for case-based learning, team-based learning, and in-house experiential opportunities like rare book viewing, experiments, and demonstrations.

Consider the Furniture First - Research indicates that student satisfaction and improved learning outcomes stem from creative use of analog features in ALCs - furniture arrangements, whiteboards, and student collaboration - more than digital technologies (Soneral and Wyse, 2017, and Stoltzfus, et. al. 2016). Instructors can consider how the physical layout of an ALC suggests revisions to their lesson plans, learning outcomes, and content delivery. Where digital technologies can further enhance intended learning outcomes, instructors can consider ways to integrate table plug-ins and display screens around the room.

Establish Rules of Behavior - ALCs receive positive feedback from students specifically for the communal seating arrangement (see research above); this presents opportunities for instructors, but challenges as well. Instructors should work with students to establish protocols for asking questions, projecting and enunciating when speaking, remaining on task during group work, and use of mobile phones and laptops. Instructors might consider placing these policies in the syllabus and reviewing them frequently in class.

Consider Accessibility and Diversity - ALCs, while more flexible than traditional classrooms, can present new challenges for students with mobility concerns, ADHD, social anxiety, and more. Instructors can emphasize disability statements in the syllabus. In their statements, instructors should invite students to share privately any challenges to learning they face in the ALC. Greater emphasis on group work and class discussion may also heighten incidents of racial, gender, and socioeconomic tension, as students are sorted in groups, share their opinions, and engage with one another. Again, instructors can emphasize diversity statements on the syllabus, welcoming all perspectives and underscoring the merits of respect and honesty. Instructors can also work with student personalities to strategize the best way to form student groups, ensuring that no group is dominated or, conversely, tokenized. Instructors may also keep in mind that with the open, collaborative environment, ALCs can lead to more tense conversations as topics are explored more democratically than in a lecture. Instructors can mitigate many of these concerns by establishing an inclusive climate and inclusive approach to teaching. In general, instructors should be observant for any students struggling due to an ALC setup.

Get Creative with Teaching - Instructors who offer unrevised lectures in ALCs see diminishing returns from traditional classrooms, because ALCs are not conducive for lecture (Baepler, et. al., 2016). Instructors can use the opportunity to teach in an ALC as a challenge to reconsider the activities they ask of students; reimagine delivery of content through demonstration, performance, collaboration, and digitization; and construct innovative formative assessments that allow students to create and perform with the space, one another, and the technology.
Additional Resources
Active Learning Classroom in Action - Dr. Frank Williams, University of Minnesota

Considerations for Teaching - University of Minnesota Center for Educational Innovation

"Chapter 5: Assignments and Activities" and "Chapter 6: Managing Student Groups," in A Guide to Teaching in the Active Learning Classroom: History, Research, and Practice. Ed. Baepler, P, Walker, J.D., Brooks, D.C., Saichaie, K, and Petersen, C. 2016. Sterling, VA: Stylus.

SCALE-UP - North Carolina State University
References
Baepler, P, Walker, J.D., Brooks, D.C., Saichaie, K, and Petersen, C. 2016. A Guide to Teaching in the Active Learning Classroom: History, Research, and Practice. Sterling, VA: Stylus.

Beichner, R. 2014. History and Evolution of Active Learning Spaces. New Directions for Teaching and Learning 137.

Beichner, R. 2007. The Student-Centered Activities for Large Enrollment Undergraduate Programs (SCALE-UP) Project. Reviews in PER: Research-based reform of university physics. Ed. E. F. Redish and P.J. Cooney. Volume 1. College Park, MD: American Association of Physics Teachers.

Brooks, D. C. 2012. Space and Consequences: The Impact of Different Formal Learning Spaces on Instructor and Student Behavior. Journal of Learning Spaces 1.2.

Soneral, P, and Wyse, S. 2017. A SCALE-UP Mock-Up: Comparison of Student Learning Gains in High- and Low-Tech Active-Learning Environments. CBE- Life Sciences Education 16.1.

Stoltzus, J and Libarkin, J. 2016. Does the Room Matter?: Active Learning in Traditional and Enhanced Lecture Spaces. CBE-Life Sciences Education 15.4.

Walker, J. D. 2011. Pedagogy and Space: Empirical Research on new Learning Environments. EDUCAUSE Quarterly 34

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Examples As explored in Teaching Excellence at Yale, Heather Klemann (Director of Expository Writing) utilizes smaller tables to pivot swiftly from whole-class to small group discussions, and touchscreens to call up writing workshop activities and engage students in shared writing activities.

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We use technology from the Learning Commons to track anonymous visitor behavior on our website to ensure you have a great experience. Learn more about our Privacy Policy and Opt In/Out.

1. Artifacts

2. The Myth of Learning Styles: IgnitED Research Video

Did you know that learning styles do not exist? Watch the inaugural video in The Learning Accelerator's new series, IgnitED Research, to dive into the research and hear from a practitioner about the myth of learning styles.

Explore More

This video shares evidence from the learning sciences and a practitioner perspective around prior knowledge.

This video shares evidence from the learning sciences and a practitioner perspective around retrieval practice.

Bronx Arena offers a weekly advisory class called "Group," which creates time for students to build relationships and community-like...

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The Myth of Learning Styles: IgnitED Research Video

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We use technology from the Learning Commons to track anonymous visitor behavior on our website to ensure you have a great experience. Learn more about our Privacy Policy and Opt In/Out. Artifacts The Myth of Learning Styles: IgnitED Research Video Did you know that learning styles do not exist?

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An Extensive Amount of Digital Resources

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EdTechTools - Through The Classroom Door

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This is a list of web 2.0 EdTechTools, curated with the Maker (1982) model. TAGS #Animations, #FlippedVideos, #FormativeResponse, #Previewing, #Animate, #Comics, #GraphicOrganisers, #Mindmap, #Multimedia, #ePortfolios, #Audio, #Flipped Content - What students need to learn Guiding Focus Questions: - Can I choose a familiar context to help make connections or will I ...

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Discovery Education | Your Daily Learning Platform

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Discovery Education inspires educators to go beyond traditional learning with award-winning digital content and professional development. Learn more today!

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We help educators around the world use technology to solve tough problems.

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Current research indicates learning styles are a myth. See https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2018/04/the-myth-of-learning-styles/557687/ for more information. Based on published research over the past few years, it appears that people have perceptions about their learning styles or even preferences for certain styles, but these may not have any correlation to how well they learn.

Multiple Intelligences - What Does the Research Say? - https://www.edutopia.org/multiple-intelligences-research

Additional Resources:

International Society for Technology in Education - www.iste.org

Association focused on improving education through the use of technology.

Partnership for 21st Century Skills - www.p21.org

Advocates for infusing 21st century skills into education.

Discovery Education - http://www.discoveryeducation.com/teachers/free-lesson-plans/multiple-intelligences.cfm

Lesson plans on for multiple intelligences for grades 9-12.

Edutopia's Resources on Multiple Intelligences - http://www.edutopia.org/blogs/tag/multiple-intelligences

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Dear College of Education Graduate Students:

We have some exciting news! Starting this fall, you are now able to track your progress toward degree completion using a web-based tool available online called Degree Works.  Degree Works organizes a student’s course work in an easy to read report (degree audit) summarizing completed and missing requirements for a degree, as defined in the Florida Gulf Coast University catalog. The Degree Works audit is UNOFFICIAL and does not take the place of regular academic advising. Students should discuss their progress toward degree completion with their advisor after reviewing their degree audit.

Some key features of Degreeworks are listed below:

Track progress toward graduation

Prepare for a meeting with your advisor

View courses, grades, and academic standing

Identify courses needed to complete your degree

Plan your semester schedule

Calculate various GPA scenarios

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Media convergence, phenomenon involving the interconnection of information and communications technologies, computer networks, and media content. It brings together the "three C's"-computing, communication, and content-and is a direct consequence of the digitization of media content and the

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Hot Media & Cool Media

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Enculturation: http://enculturation.net/teaching-mcluhan
( Published: December 30, 2011)

"After three thousand years of explosion, by means of fragmentary and mechanical technologies, the Western world is imploding" (McLuhan 3).1 With these words on the first page of Understanding Media published in 1964, Marshall McLuhan burst onto the intellectual scene with his most influential book. At the time the Commonweal Review called the book "infuriating, brilliant, and incoherent" (Gordon, "Critical Reception" 545). More recently, Nicholas Carr wrote that Understanding Media is "oracular, gnomic, and mind-bending" (1). Terrance Gordon argues that " Understanding Media occupies a central place in McLuhan's work" but also says that the book "defies summary" ("Editor's Introduction" xiii).

With its mosaic style Understanding Media is not an easy book to understand or to teach to students. I have been teaching Marshal McLuhan's Understanding Media to undergraduates for 18 years.2 When teaching major theorists such as McLuhan, I prefer to expose students to the original texts rather than distillations provided by another author whenever possible. This, of course, presents some difficulties in McLuhan's case because of his nonlinear style and the complexity of his ideas.

In this essay I will explain how I interpret McLuhan's Understanding Media to my students. This essay is more interpretative than pedagogical. If we understand what McLuhan is saying in this book and how he is saying it, we can make these ideas understandable to undergraduates. I impose some linearity and coherence on McLuhan by identifying the following four themes that run throughout Part I of the book: media as extensions of ourselves, hot and cold media, the reversal of the overheated medium, and antidotes to the narcotic effects of media. Then my students and I explore the application of these themes in Part II of Understanding Media as McLuhan discusses how his theories apply to specific media.

Media as Extensions of Ourselves

The core of McLuhan's theory, and the key idea to start with in explaining him, is his definition of media as extensions of ourselves. McLuhan writes: "It is the persistent theme of this book that all technologies are extensions of our physical and nervous systems to increase power and speed" (90) and, "Any extension, whether of skin, hand, or foot, affects the whole psychic and social complex. Some of the principle extensions, together with some of their psychic and social consequences, are studied in this book" (4). From the premise that media, or technologies (McLuhan's approach makes "media" and "technology" more or less synonymous terms), are extensions of some physical, social, psychological, or intellectual function of humans, flows all of McLuhan's subsequent ideas. Thus, the wheel extends our feet, the phone extends our voice, television extends our eyes and ears, the computer extends our brain, and electronic media, in general, extend our central nervous system.

In McLuhan's theory language too is a medium or technology (although one that does not require any physical object outside of ourselves) because it is an extension, or outering, of our inner thoughts, ideas, and feelings-that is, an extension of inner consciousness. McLuhan sees the enormous implications of the development of language for humans when he writes: "It is the extension of man in speech that enables the intellect to detach itself from the vastly wider reality. Without language . . . human intelligence would have remained totally involved in the objects of its attention" (79). Thus, spoken language is the key development in the evolution of human consciousness and culture and the medium from which subsequent technological extensions have evolved.

But recent extensions via electronic technology elevate the process of technological extension to a new level of significance: "Whereas all previous technology (save speech, itself) had, in effect, extended some part of our bodies, electricity may be said to have outered the central nervous system itself, including the brain" (247). Thus, pre-electric extensions are explosions of physical scale outward, while electronic technology is an inward implosion toward shared consciousness, a change that has significant implications. McLuhan states: "Our new electric technology that extends our senses and nerves in a global embrace has large implications for the future of language" (80). This electronic extension of consciousness is one about which McLuhan himself seems conflicted, as when he writes:

Rapidly, we approach the final phase of the extension of man-the technological simulation of consciousness, when the creative process of knowing will be collectively and corporately extended to the whole of human society, much as we have already extended our senses and nerves by the various media. Whether the extension of consciousness, so long sought by advertisers for specific products, will be 'a good thing' is a question that admits of a wide solution. (3-4)

Thus, it is incorrect to categorize McLuhan as either a technophile or a technophobe, as his critics often try to do. McLuhan is more interested in exploring the implications of our technological extensions than in classifying them as inherently "good" or "bad."

At times McLuhan speaks of a movement toward a global consciousness in positive terms, as when he writes: "might not our current translation of our entire lives into the spiritual form of information seem to make of the entire globe, and of the human family, a single consciousness?" (61). But at other times, he expresses reservations about this development: "With the arrival of electric technology, man extended, or set outside himself, a live model of the central nervous system itself. To the degree that this is so, it is a development that suggests a desperate and suicidal autoamputation . . ." (43). Thus, one of McLuhan's key concerns in Understanding Media is to examine and make us aware of the implications of the evolution toward the extension of collective human consciousness facilitated by electronic media.

Hot and Cold Media

Probably no part of McLuhan's theory is more confusing and confounding to his critics than his discussion of hot versus cool media in chapter 2 of Understanding Media. But, we can understand this part of McLuhan's theory if we impose some linear order on it. I teach this by providing the students my own binary chart that lays out the characteristics of each this way, with McLuhan defining "high definition" as the state of being well filled with data:

Hot Medium

extends single sense in high definition

low in audience participation

engenders specialization/fragmentation

detribalizes

excludes

uniform, mechanical

extends space

horizontally repetitive

Cool Medium

low definition (less data)

high in audience participation

engenders holistic patterns

tribalizes

includes

organic

collapses space

creates vertical associations

McLuhan provides examples of hot versus cool media as follows:

Cool Medium

cartoon

telephone

ideographic/pictographic writing

speech (orality)

seminar, discussion

television

comics

However, we misunderstand these concepts if we try to impose too much linear order and structure on McLuhan's definitions and examples. We have to see hot and cool media not in terms of static definitions but as dynamic concepts that are designed to get at the experience and effects of how we use media. As Paul Grosswiler points out, McLuhan's method was dialectical, process-oriented, and open-ended, not mechanistic. Keeping that in mind, I argue there are three ideas that are essential to understanding McLuhan's concept of hot versus cool media.

First, McLuhan was not concerned with providing consistent, linear meanings of the terms "hot" versus "cool" media. For him, it was the effect the medium had that he was trying to get at. McLuhan indicates this in chapter 2 of Understanding Media where he writes:

The new electric structuring and configuring of life more and more encounters the old lineal and fragmentary procedures and tools of analysis from the mechanical age. More and more we turn from the content of messages to study total effect. . . . Concern with effect rather than meaning is a basic change of our electric time, for effect involves the total situation, and not a singe level of information movement. (26) [all emphases in original]

Thus, McLuhan saw his ideas as intuitive probes designed to get at the experience or effect of using a particular medium, or media in general, rather than as attempts to provide scholarly definitions or understandings of media. Later in Understanding Media he makes a similar point when he writes:

Everybody experiences far more than he understands. Yet it is experience, rather than understanding, that influences behavior, especially in collective matters of media and technology, where the individual is almost inevitably unaware of their effects upon him. (318)

So we misconstrue McLuhan's "hot" versus "cool" distinction when we try to force these terms into static definitions. Rather we should understand them as terms for getting at effects of media.

Second, since hot versus cool media are not definitions, but attempts to capture the experience or effect of a medium, whether a medium is hot or cool can depend on the society into which it is introduced and the stage of technological or social development of that society. For example, McLuhan writes:

Nevertheless, it makes all the difference whether a hot medium is used in a hot or cool culture. The hot radio medium used in cool or nonliterate cultures has a violent effect, quite unlike its effect, say in England or America, where radio is felt as entertainment. A cool or low literacy culture cannot accept hot media like movies or radio as entertainment. (30-31)

Elsewhere in the chapter on hot and cold media, McLuhan again provides a warning not to take the meanings of the terms "hot" and "cool" media too literally, but to consider the context and situation. He argues that the less developed countries of the world may be in a better position than the industrialized West to cope with the arrival of electric technology:

However, backward countries that have experienced little permeation with our own mechanical and specialist culture are much better able to confront and to understand electric technology. Not only have backward and nonindustrial cultures no specialist habits to overcome in their encounter with electromagnetism, but they have still much of their traditional oral culture that has the total, unified "field" character of our new electromagnetism. (26-27)

Therefore, a medium's "hotness" or "coolness" is not just a function of the nature of the medium itself but also the nature of the society into which the medium is introduced.

Third, whether a medium is hot or cool can also depend on how it is used in a particular society, and that can change over time. Media interact with one another, so the introduction of a new medium can change the way older media are used. As McLuhan points out, "no medium has its meaning or existence alone, but only in constant interplay with other media" (26); and "media as extensions of our senses institute new ratios, not only among our private senses, but among themselves, when they interact among themselves. Radio changed the form of the news story as much as it altered the film image. . ." (53). In addition, television changed the way we use radio, which McLuhan notes when he writes: "One of the many effects of television on radio has been to shift radio from an entertainment medium into a kind of nervous information system" (298). So a medium's impact on a society is not linear and static, but multi-dimensional and dynamic as that medium interacts with other media and as the society changes how it uses the medium.

Furthermore, McLuhan argues that media can "heat up" over time (which I will discuss in more detail in the next section), but, for now, consider television. Writing in the 1960s McLuhan described television as a cool medium, but one could argue that television has "heated up" since then as it has become more high definition and more ubiquitous. We do not use television today in the same way we used it in the 1950s and 1960s, when families frequently sat around the television watching one show at a time. Now we have multiple televisions and other types of screens (such as personal computers, laptops, cell phones, tablet computers) of multiple sizes in multiple locations (including on our person) that are available continuously to provide a stream of images, text, and other information that we often attend to in a fragmentary and desultory manner. Therefore the experience and effect of using electronic screen technology has heated up over time.

Thus we can see that for McLuhan the hot versus cool media distinction describes effects, not definitions. In addition, those effects can vary depending on the society's stage of technological development, and those effects can change over time as that society changes and as that society changes how it uses that medium.

The Reversal of the Overheated Medium

One of McLuhan's more intriguing ideas, and one that shows how dynamic and dialectical his theories are, is his concept of the reversal of the overheated medium, or break boundaries, discussed in chapter 3 of Understanding Media where he writes: "The present chapter is concerned with showing that in any medium or structure there is what Kenneth Boulding calls a 'break boundary at which the system suddenly changes into another or passes some point of no return in its dynamic process'" (38). The principle that at some point during their development, processes and methods go too far and reverse into their opposite, McLuhan finds to be "an ancient doctrine" (34). He cites the example from classical Greek drama of the concept of hubris, when a character's overweening pride leads to his own fall, as well as the ancient Chinese Taoist text the Tao Te Ching, which refers to the same concept of excess leading to its opposite (38-39). McLuhan notes the way roads and highways designed to provide freedom of movement have reversed into traffic congestion and urban sprawl and the irony that mobile, nomadic tribal societies were socially static while contemporary, sedentary, specialist societies are socially dynamic and progressive (38).

McLuhan considers one of the most common causes of break boundaries in any system to be cross-fertilization or hybridization, which is when two (or more) mediums or processes come together (39), an event which releases "great new force and energy" (48). He explores this force more fully in chapter 5 of Understanding Media on "Hybrid Energy." These explosive hybridizations occur when a society is moving from one dominant medium to another, as in the transition from orality to literacy that unleashed modernism in the Western world and in the transition from literacy to electronic media that is today transforming our world (49-50). In McLuhan's view, oral societies create people of complex emotions and feeling, while the power of literacy is in teaching people how to suppress their emotions in the interests of efficiency and practicality. Electronic media create the "global village" (93), transforming us into people who are complex, depth-structured and emotionally aware of our interdependence with all of human society (50-51). Yet these transitions, or hybridizations, can be "a moment of truth and revelation" by providing a release of freedom and energy by snapping us out of the usual sensory numbness and narcosis our media forms induce in us (55).

Antidotes to the Narcotic Effects of Media

The chance to snap out of our numbness, provided by processes of break boundaries or hybridization, is one of several possible antidotes to the narcotic effects of media. McLuhan wrote Understanding Media, in part, as a warning about the effects of media that we are ignoring. One of McLuhan's antidotes is awareness; by being aware of the effects our media have on us we can be in a better position to counteract them. But that is only the first step. Awareness itself is not enough. McLuhan writes in chapter 31 on television:

It is the theme of this book that not even the most lucid understanding of the peculiar force of a medium can head off the ordinary "closure" of the senses that causes us to conform to the pattern of experience presented. . . . To resist TV, therefore one must acquire the antidote of related media like print. (329)

So one antidote to the numbing effect of a particular medium is to use another medium that has a counter-effect: "When the technology of a time is powerfully thrusting in one direction, wisdom may well call for a countervailing thrust" (70-71). So turn off the TV (or the computer or the cell phone) after some time and read a book or take a walk in the woods. After enough reading, have a conversation with another human being. McLuhan thus is arguing that a "cure" for the effects of a dominant medium or pattern of the time can be a countervailing force in the opposite direction of the dominating force.

Another antidote to technological narcosis is for people to assume the attitude of the artist. McLuhan writes:

The effects of technology do not occur at the level of opinion or concepts, but alter sense ratios or patterns of perception steadily and without any resistance. The serious artist is the only person able to encounter technology with impunity, just because he is an expert aware of the changes in sense perception. (18)

He further claims that the "artist picks up the message of cultural and technological challenge decades before its transforming impact occurs" and so "the artist is indispensible in the shaping and analysis and understanding of the life of forms, and structures, created by electric technology" (65). But by "artist" McLuhan does not mean just the person who formally engages in some artistic endeavor as a profession but the person of "integral awareness," a point he makes clear when he says: "The artist is the man, in any field, scientific or humanistic, who grasps the implications of his actions and of new knowledge in his own time. He is the man of integral awareness" (65). Thus, the artistic perspective serves as an antidote to media narcosis because it allows us to see the big picture and the interrelationship among things, as well as to anticipate technological changes, and their social and cultural implications, before they happen.

McLuhan's frequent use of terms such as "integral awareness" (12), "organic interrelation" (93), "organic whole" (353), and "organic unity" (461) points to another antidote: use of myth to help us explain and understand our reality. For example, speaking approvingly of William Blake's response to the effects of mechanical technology, McLuhan writes: "Blake's counterstrategy for his age was to meet mechanism with organic myth. . . . For myth is the instant vision of a complex process that ordinarily extends over a long period. Myth is contraction or implosion of any process . . ." (25) [emphasis in original]. Later in the book, McLuhan argues that the "mythic or iconic mode of awareness" substitutes a "multi-faceted" perspective for a single, fixed point of view (153). Thus, myth, like the artistic temperament, serves as an antidote to media narcosis because it allows us to see many things at once by collapsing complex processes into understandable, simplified forms.

Applications

The core of McLuhan's theory is laid out in Part I of Understanding Media, while Part II is more applicative as he discusses his theories in terms of specific media. Before moving on to Part II of the book, I show my students the video McLuhan's Wake, produced in 2002 with the cooperation of Eric McLuhan, Marshall McLuhan's son and collaborator. Not only does this video help explain his ideas, but it also gives the students a chance to see and hear McLuhan in his own words, as well as providing biographical information to put his ideas in the context of the type of person and scholar he was and the kinds of question he was attempting to answer.

As I have noted throughout this essay, I find McLuhan to be dialogic and dialectical in his approach to explicating his ideas. My pedagogy is similarly dialogical and dialectical. For Part II of the book, one student is assigned to prepare questions and lead the discussion of each chapter. Dialectical learning requires common ground, and a close reading of McLuhan with a requirement for students to lead chapter discussions facilitates that dialectical process and creates a common ground. This not only gives the students a chance to gain experience in leading a discussion, but as they often tell me, it requires them to really know the chapters they are assigned intensively and in depth.

Each chapter in Part II of Understanding Media can stand alone as a mini-exposition of McLuhan's theory, but Part II as a whole also illustrates the wide applicability of McLuhan's definition of media. There are chapters not only on what we traditionally think of as media-such as the written word, the photograph, the telegraph, film, radio, and television-but also on roads, number, clothing, housing, money, clocks, the automobile, games, and weapons; all technological extensions of ourselves that McLuhan's theory provides new insights into. This wide applicability is instructive to students who appreciate the liberty to follow McLuhan in multiple directions.

For the final exam my students write a paper explaining McLuhan's theories. They tell me that although this is difficult, they grasp his ideas better when forced to sit down and write a paper on him, speaking to his theories from their own perspective, engaging the dialectic on their own terms. Despite the complexity and difficulty of his ideas, my students usually relate to McLuhan because they find his theories to be a reflection of the reality they are living in today. Even though they struggle with McLuhan, my students frequently tell me later that Understanding Media was one of the most influential books they read in their undergraduate studies.

Hereafter, unless otherwise indicated, all page numbers in parentheses will refer to Understanding Media and reference page numbers from the MIT Press edition published in 1994. .

I would like to thank the many students I have had over the years whose questions, insights, and observations on McLuhan's Understanding Media have helped me improve my own understanding of McLuhan's ideas. I would especially like to thank the following students who provided me with feedback on their reactions to McLuhan in my spring 2011 class in Communication and Social Theory at Wesleyan College: Alaina Avera, Stephanie Jamison, Martha Johnson, Julia Shen, and Jemima Suwa.

Works Cited

Carr, Nicholas. The Shallows: What the Internet is Doing to Our Brains. New York: W. W. Norton, 2010. Print.

Gordon, W. Terrance. "Critical Reception to Understanding Media." Understanding Media: The Extension of Man, Critical Edition. Ed. W. Terrance Gordon. Corte Madera, CA: Gingko Press, 2003. 545-558. Print.

---. "Editor's Introduction." Understanding Media: The Extension of Man, Critical Edition. Ed. W. Terrance Gordon. Corte Madera, CA: Gingko Press, 2003. xi-xxi. Print.

Grosswiler, Paul. "The Dialectical Methods of Marshall McLuhan, Marxism, and Critical Theory." Marshall McLuhan: Theoretical Elaborations. Ed. Gary Genosko. New York: Routledge, 2005. 283-310. Print.

McLuhan, Marshall. Understanding Media: The Extensions of Man. Cambridge: The MIT Press, 1994. Print.

McLuhan's Wake. Dir. Kevin McMahon. Montreal, Quebec: Primitive Entertainment/National Film Board of Canada, 2002. Film.

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Enculturation: http://enculturation.net/teaching-mcluhan ( Published: December 30, 2011) "After three thousand years of explosion, by means of fragmentary and mechanical technologies, the Western world is imploding" (McLuhan 3).1 With these words on the first page of Understanding Media published in 1964, Marshall McLuhan burst onto the intellectual scene with his most influential book.

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Scratch English Plans

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Make games, stories and interactive art with Scratch. (scratch.mit.edu)

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Various studies show negative consequences in the learning environment

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From tweens to 20-somethings, students are heading back to school this year equipped with the latest electronic gadgets and high-tech accessories. Today's youth, the most techno-savvy generation yet, have grown up on the computer and Internet and have fully embraced the virtual world, with its emphasis on instant, constant information and communication. They have practically adopted iPod headsets and cell phones as appendages, often to the bafflement of older generations.

In the face of this nonstop barrage of technology-induced stimulation, a question on the minds of many parents, educators and scientists is: how is this affecting young brains? The question is an important one, and from a scientific standpoint, reasonable to ask given what is known about the developing brain.

A central tenet of neuroscience, for example, is that the brain continues to develop its "wiring diagram" at least well into a person's 20s. The frontal lobes, regions critical to high-level cognitive skills such as judgment, executive control, and emotional regulation, are the last to fully develop. It is also well accepted that during this extended developmental period, the brain is highly adaptable to and influenced by external environmental circumstances. Might the perpetual bath of technology-driven information and sensory overload impact the still-developing brain in some way?

"There are a lot of things we've learned about fundamental principles of brain development and interactions with the environment and so forth that one can reasonably hypothesize about what the effects might be," said Michael Friedlander, head of neuroscience at Baylor College of Medicine and a member of the Dana Alliance for Brain Initiatives. "But for the most part, the data aren't there yet. In terms of actual science investigating people who are using these technologies-the kind of experiments and hard data that most neuroscientists would like to collect-it's pretty thin."

Given that reality, he added: "The best we can do at this point is look at a lot of the science that has been done in much more controlled settings and try to extrapolate that to the real world of kids interacting with these technologies."

A Cautionary Flag

While acknowledging that the dearth of data makes it impossible to know what's going on for sure, a few prominent neuroscientists are raising a cautionary flag about the possible long-term consequences of technology overload.

Among them is Dana Alliance member Jordan Grafman, chief of cognitive neuroscience at the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke. "In general, technology can be good [for children's cognitive development] if it is used judiciously," Grafman said. "But if it is used in a nonjudicious fashion, it will shape the brain in what I think will actually be a negative way."

The problem is that judicious thinking is among the frontal-lobe skills that are still developing way past the teenage years. In the meantime, the pull of technology is capturing kids at an ever earlier age, when they are not generally able to step back and decide what's appropriate or necessary, or how much is too much. The outcome, Grafman fears, will be a generation marked by "laziness of thinking."

"A lot of what is appealing about all these types of instant communications is that they are fast," he said. "Fast is not equated with deliberation. So I think they can produce a tendency toward shallow thinking. It's not going to turn off the brain to thinking deeply and thoughtfully about things, but it is going to make that a little bit more difficult to do."

Multitasking Taxes the Brain

One area where the research is particularly strong is what is popularly known as multitasking. Plugged-in kids have gained a reputation for being masters at toggling between, say, a homework assignment and instant-messaging classmates, downloading music and texting on the cell phone, surfing the Internet while updating Facebook pages, and so on.

A 2006 survey by the Kaiser Family Foundation ¹ found that middle and high school students spend an average of 6.5 hours a day hooked up to computers or otherwise using electronic devices, and more than a quarter of them are routinely using several types of media at once. It also found that when teens are "studying" at the computer, two-thirds of the time they are also doing something else.

"Children's rooms are now almost pathogenic because they have so many distractions," said Dana Alliance member Martha Bridge Denckla, a neuroscientist at Kennedy Krieger Institute and Johns Hopkins who studies attention deficit disorders in kids. "I think the most devastating thing that has happened is giving a child a room with a computer in it-you think you're being a good parent by doing so. Well, a funny thing can happen on the way to the homework."

While the common perception is that multitasking saves time, enabling one to get things done faster and better, the evidence suggests quite the opposite. It is clear from a large body of solid scientific research conducted over the past two decades that dividing the brain's attention between two or more tasks simultaneously has costs, both in performance and time.

Several independent research groups have reported evidence that, at the level of neural systems, multitasking actually entails rapid switching from one task to another. Each switch exacts a toll, at least doubling the time it takes to complete a task and decreasing both the level of performance and the ability to recall what you were doing later on. Study after study has found that multitasking degrades the quality of learning. ²

Among the leading researchers who have published heavily in this area are Paul Dux, Vanderbilt University; Marcel Just, Carnegie Mellon University; David Meyer, University of Michigan; Hal Pashler, University of California at San Diego; Russell Poldrack, University of California at Los Angeles, and David Strayer, University of Utah.

The bulk of the evidence comes from laboratory-based studies, using carefully designed experiments in controlled settings to tease apart the brain mechanisms underlying task-switching and its costs-and much of it has been conducted with 20-somethings. As such, Grafman said, the research "relates very nicely to multitasking on computers" and is highly relevant to the developing brain.

Strayer's work has extended the research to real-world situations such as driving while talking on a cell phone. He has found significantly lower reaction times and a two-fold increase in rear-end accidents among both teenage and older drivers who were simultaneously engaged in cell-phone conversations. ³ In one study, Strayer and colleagues concluded that "the impairments associated with using a cell phone while driving can be as profound as those associated with driving while drunk." ³

"The bottom line is that if you try to do more than one thing at the same time, you're going to have a decrement in performance," said Grafman. "This has been shown over and over again, and it has not changed from the last generation of young people to today's young people."

He added: "I think that one of the big trade-offs between multitasking and 'unitasking,' as I call it, is that in multitasking, the opportunity for deeper thinking, for deliberation, or for abstract thinking is much more limited. You have to rely more on surface-level information, and that is not a good recipe for creativity or invention."

'Mile Wide, Inch Deep' Knowledge?

Friedlander echoed this sentiment: "If a child is doing homework while on the computer engaged in chat rooms, or listening to iTunes and so forth, I do think there is a risk that there will never be enough depth and time spent on any one component to go as deep or as far as you might have. You might satisfactorily get all these things done, but the quality of the work or of the communication may not reach the level that it could have had it been given one's full attention. There's a risk of being a mile wide and an inch deep."

Grafman emphasized that the issues-while relevant to people of all ages-are particularly of concern to children's whose brains are still developing. "When teens are learning routines-whatever those routines are-the dominant routine is going to play a bigger role in how their brain develops and what kinds of strategies are stored," he said. If they are constantly toggling between homework and instant messaging and videos, they may get really good at toggling, but as Grafman pointed out, "that does not necessarily equate to being a smarter person."

Social Development in the Facebook Age

Another area of concern in today's digital world is the impact of electronic communication on social interactions. The hard science is slim, but experts say there is reason to believe that when the bulk of a young person's interactions with others is done electronically at the expense of face-to-face communication, social development may be affected.

So-called "social cognition," which encompasses such things as the ability to form impressions of others, make inferences about their intentions, gauge their emotional reactions and adjust your actions accordingly, is another complex skill that relies on the pre-frontal cortex, the brain's forward-most and last-to-develop region. Like other high-level cognitive functions, mastery of these skills requires practice. "If you don't have sufficient in-person practice, that has got to be handicapping you in some way," said Grafman.

Real-world interactions entail what Friedlander calls "broadband communication," a term borrowed from the digital world. "So much of what we're conveying to each other comes from the intonation of our voice, the looks, the facial expression, the body language, the pauses-all those subtle cues that go into communication. Kids who are spending all of their time interacting through this cyber world are very likely to not have the opportunity to develop sets of skills that are innate and important to the human brain in terms of what we call social cognition."

Friedlander also wonders if over-reliance on electronic interactions, which are so often marked by unnatural delays, even minute ones as in cell-phone conversations, might wire developing brains to a different baseline set-point for temporal processing-how time is interpreted.

"We don't really know how that will affect kids or if it will have long-term effects, but I think it supports the notion that one needs to be careful to not become totally immersed in the cyber world, because it may be a little more awkward interacting with real living people in real situations where those timing delays are somewhat different," Freidlander said.

The information explosion brought about by the Internet and other modern technological tools has undeniably had positive influences on society. "These are enabling technologies," said Friedlander. "I think their greatest power lies in their ability to enable people to reach out to a world that is much greater than what any child is likely to get in their home or school environment. That's all good and positive."

The trick, he said, is knowing where to draw the line. "It gets down to a quantitative question: how much is too much? That's where the rubber really meets the road for most people, and that is a really tough question to answer."

The responsibility for making such decisions often falls on parents, but they may not be equipped, able, or willing to do so. "We always hear the same thing, that it's up to parents to control the use of these things and teach kids how to manage it all," said Grafman. "But in order for them to do this, they have to understand better themselves what they are creating with their children. Many parents today just say, 'here's your computer, put it in your room and do your homework on it,' and that's the last they see of the kid. If that's the case, how much are kids going to listen?"
Published August 2008 ###
¹ Kaiser Family Foundation, Program for the Study of Media and Health. "Media Multitasking Among American Youth: Prevalence, Predictors and Pairings." Released Dec. 12, 2006. http://kff.org/entmedia/7592.cfm (Accessed Aug. 15, 2008)

² See for example:

· Foerde K, Knowlton BJ, Poldrack RA. Modulation of competing memory systems by distraction. Proc Natl Acad Sci USA 2006;103(31):11778-83.

· Dux PE, Ivanoff J, Asplund CL, Marois R. Isolation of a central bottleneck of information processing with time-resolved fMRI. Neuron 2006;52:1109-21.

· Rohrer D, Pashler HF. Concurrent task effects on memory retrieval. Psychol Bull Rev 2003;101(4):96-103.

³ Strayer DL, Drews FA. Profiles in driver distraction: effects of cell phone conversations on younger and older drivers. Hum Factors 2004;46(4):640-9.

⁴ Strayer DL, Drews FA, Crouch DJ. A comparison of the cell phone driver and the drunk driver. Hum Factors 2006;48(2):381-91.

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Brain Development in a Hyper-Tech World(1)

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From tweens to 20-somethings, students are heading back to school this year equipped with the latest electronic gadgets and high-tech accessories. Today's youth, the most techno-savvy generation yet, have grown up on the computer and Internet and have fully embraced the virtual world, with its emphasis on instant, constant information and communication.

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Multitasking:This is your Brain on Media | Rasmussen College

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An innovator of higher education, Rasmussen College is a career-focused, private college that specializes in offering the most in-demand degree programs in a highly supportive, student-centered educational environment. Rasmussen College offers market-relevant degrees online and across its 23 campuses in the Midwest and Florida to more than 15,000 students.

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Abstract: The attentional demands of electronic media range from rapt (video games) to passive (much TV), but this is the first generation to directly interact with and alter the content on the screen and the conversation on the radio. Screenagers emotionally understand electronic media in ways that adults don't -- as a viral replicating cultural reality, instead of as a mere communicator of events. For example, portable cameras have helped to shift TV's content from dramatic depiction's to live theater, extended (and often endlessly repeated and discussed) live coverage of such breaking events as wars, accidents, trials, sports, and talk-show arguments. What occurs anywhere is immediately available everywhere. Our world has truly become a gossipy global village, where everyone knows everyone else's business.

The Effects of Electronic Media On A Developing Brain

College of Education, University of Oregon, Eugene

Apportioning Time And Energy During Maturation

We have about 150,000 hours of living to expend between the ages of one and 18.

We sleep about 50,000 hours of this time, and we dream about two hours of the eight we sleep each night. Sleeping and dreaming appear to be positively related to the development and maintenance of the long term memories that emerge out of daytime activities, because they allow our brain to eliminate the interference of external sensory/motor activity while it physically adds to, edits, and erases the neural network synaptic connections that create long-term memories.

We spend about 65,000 of our 100,000 waking hours involved in solitary activities, and in direct informal relationships with family and friends, and these activities play a major role in the development and maintenance of important personal memories.

We spend about 35,000 of our waking hours with our larger culture in formal and informal metaphoric/symbolic activities -- about 12,000 hours in school, and about twice that much with various forms of mass media (e.g., TV, computers, films, music, sports, non-school print media, churches, museums). Mass media and school thus play major roles in the development and maintenance of important culture memories .

So on an average developmental day between the ages of l-18, a young person sleeps 8 hours, spends 10 waking hours with self, family, and friends, 4 with mass media -- and only 2 hours in school. Our society has incredible expectations for those two hours!

Young people tend now to spend much time/energy on such electronic media as video games, TV, and computers -- at the expense of non-electronic media and socialization (although new forms of socialization are evolving around TV-watching and video-game-playing).

The attentional demands of electronic media range from rapt (video games) to passive (much TV), but this is the first generation to directly interact with and alter the content on the screen and the conversation on the radio. Screenagers emotionally understand electronic media in ways that adults don't -- as a viral replicating cultural reality, instead of as a mere communicator of events. For example, portable cameras have helped to shift TV's content from dramatic depiction's to live theater, extended (and often endlessly repeated and discussed) live coverage of such breaking events as wars, accidents, trials, sports, and talk-show arguments. What occurs anywhere is immediately available everywhere. Our world has truly become a gossipy global village, where everyone knows everyone else's business.

Emotion drives attention, which drives learning, memory, and behavior, so mass media often insert strong primal emotional elements into their programming to increase attention. Since violence and sexuality in media trigger primal emotions, most young people confront thousands of violent acts and heavy doses of sexuality during their childhood media interactions. This comes at the expense, alas, of other more positive and normative experiences with human behaviors and interactions. Mass media tend to show us how to be sexy not sexual, and powerful not peaceful.

Commercial sponsorship in mass media has led to a distorted presentation of important cultural and consumer-related issues. For example, TV commercials tend to be very short, superficial, and factually biased. Further, computer programs and TV editing techniques tend to compress, extend, and distort normal time/space relationships, a critically important element in the creation and use of effective long- term memories.

Our Brain and Electronic Media: Biological Systems, Cultural Issues

- Our awesomely complex, yet elegantly simple brain is the best organized three pounds of matter in the known universe. Decidedly human but individually unique, it is a wary, curious, and exploratory organ that actively experiences and interprets its environment, applying a variety of cognitive models and systems that it develops (within established limits) to the reality it perceives. The brain, as a basic animal organ, developed in three successive layers over evolutionary time to meet survival, emotional, and finally rational challenges. Our rational cortical forebrain is unique among animal brains in its size and capabilities, but our sub cortical survival and emotional systems play much more powerful roles in shaping our thoughts and behavior than previously believed.

- Our brain is composed of tens of billions of highly interconnected neurons that interact electrochemically with surrounding and distant neurons through a complex system of tubular (dendrite/axon) extensions that receive and send messages. Cortical neurons are organized into a vast number of dedicated semiautonomous columnar modules (or networks)/ most of which are modifiable by the experiences that wire up our brain to its environment. Each module processes a very specific function (a tone, vertical lines), and groups of modules consolidate their functions to process more complex cognitive functions. And so, for example, sounds become phonemes become words become sentences become stories.

- Genetics plays a much larger role in brain development and capability than previously believed. because biological evolution proceeds much slower than cultural evolution, we're horn with a generic human brain that's genetically more tuned to the pastoral ecological environment that humans lived in thousands of years ago than to our current fast-paced urban electronic environment. Our curiosity and inherently strong problem-solving capabilities allowed us to develop such tools as autos/ books/ computers/ drugs that compensate for our body/brain limitations -- and very powerful portable electronic computerized instruments are now rapidly transforming our culture. We can thus view drugs and technology as a fourth technological brain -- located outside of our skull, but powerfully interactive with the three integrated biological brains within our skull.

- Motivation experience and training can enhance generic capabilities (e.g., infants can easily master any human language, but they aren't born proficient in any of them), so brain development is a dynamic mix of nature and nurture. Thus, it's important to choose one's parents carefully -- because of the genes they pass on, and because of the cultural environment they create -- the appropriate mix of biology, technology, and society.

- Our brain is designed to adapt its cortical networks to the environment in which it lives (e.g., to master the local language). A socially interactive environment that stimulates curiosity and exploration enhances the development of an effective brain. Thus, excessive childhood involvement with electronic media that limit social interaction could hinder the development of a brain's social systems. Conversely, denying a child easy and extensive exploration of electronic technology helps to create an electronically hampered adult in an increasingly electronic culture. Surfing on TV, video, the Internet, and anything else that's electronic is the screenagers version of how to drive a car by first successfully mastering a tricycle/wagon/bicycle.

- Our short-term (or working) memory is an attentional buffer that allows us to hold a few units of information for a short period of time while we determine their importance. Since the system has space/time limitations, it must rapidly combine (or chunk) key related bits of foreground information into single units by identifying similarities/ differences/patterns that can simplify an otherwise confusing sensory field. The appeal of computerized video games may well lie in their lack of explicit instructions to the players, who suddenly find themselves in complex electronic environments that challenge them to quickly identify and act on rapidly changing elements that may or may not be important. Failure sends the player back to the beginning, and success brings a more complex, albeit, attractive challenge in the next electronic environment.

- Our short-term memory processes frame the segment of the environment that we perceive. We attend to the things that are inside the frame, and were merely aware of the context, the things that are outside of the frame. Mass media often eliminate a proper presentation of the context of an event, and so distort its meaning and importance. The result is that it presents a rare isolated event as being common, and people overreact. For example, a brutal park murder clears all the parks in the region. Children must develop a sense of context in the electronic media world they experience (and unfortunately, many adults who should assist them also equate rare with common. Even a President spoke normatively of welfare queens who lived in mansions and drive large cars).

-The efficiency of our dual long term memory system depends on our ability to string together and access long sequences of: (1) related motor actions into automatic skills (procedural memory), and (2) related objects/ events into stories (declarative memory). Thus, story-telling activities dominate our culture, through conversations/jokes/songs/novels/films/TV/ballets/sports/etc. Young people must master various storytelling forms and techniques, and electronic media can both help and hinder this process (through their range, editing techniques, and interactive potential.

Our brain uses two systems to analyze and respond to environmental challenges, and electronic mass media often exploit these systems:

1. relatively slow, analytic, reflective system (thalamus- hippocampus-cortex circuitry) explore the more objective factual elements of a situation, compares them with related declarative memories, and then responds. It's best suited to non-threatening situations that don't require an instant response -- life's little challenges. It often functions through storytelling forms and sequences, and so is tied heavily to our language and classification capabilities. User-friendly computer programs and non-frantic TV programming tend to use this rational system.

2. A fast conceptual, reflexive system (thalamus-amygdala- cerebellum circuitry) identifies the fearful and survival elements in a situation, and quickly activates automatic response patterns (procedural memory) if survival seems problematic.

The fast system developed through natural selection to respond to immanent predatory danger and fleeting feeding and mating opportunities. It thus focuses on any loud/ looming/ contrasting/ moving/ obnoxious/ attractive elements that might signal potential danger, food, and/or mates. The system thus enhances survival, but its rapid superficial analysis often leads us to respond fearfully, impulsively, and inappropriately to situations that didn't require an immediate response, (Regrets and apologies often follow). Stereotyping and prejudice are but two of the prices we humans pay for this powerful survival system. Worse, fear can strengthen the emotional and weaken the factual memories of an event. Consequently, we become fearful of something, but we're not sure why, so the experience has taught us little that's consciously useful.

- People often use mass media to exploit this system by stressing elements that trigger rapid irrational fear responses. Politicians demonize opponents; sales pitches demand an immediate response; zealots focus on fear of groups who differ from their definition of acceptable. The fast pacing of TV and video game programming, and their focus on bizarre/violent/sexual elements also trigger this system. If the audience perceives these elements and the resulting visceral responses as the real-world norm, the electronic media must continually escalate the violent/sexual/bizarre behavior to trigger the fast system. Rational thought development would thus suffer. We can see this escalation in mass media.

- Conversely, if a person perceives these electronic-world elements as an aberration, and not normative of the real world, such electronic experiences could often actually help to develop rational thought and appropriate response. Those who will understand the normative center of a phenomenon must also know about its outer reaches -- and mass media provide a useful metaphoric format for observing the outer reaches of something without actually experiencing it (such as how to escape from a dangerous situation one might confront )

So perhaps it's not what electronic media bring to a Developing Mind that's most important, but rather what the Developing Mind brings to the electronic media. Children who mature in a secure home/school with parents/teachers who explore all of the dimensions of humanity in a non-hurried accepting atmosphere can probably handle most electronic media without damaging their dual memory and response systems. They'll tend to delay their responses, to look below the shiny surface of things. Further, they'll probably also prefer to spend much more of their time in direct interactions with real live people. They will thus develop the sense of balance that permits them to be a part of the real and electronic worlds -- but also to stand apart from them

Media Theory/Research/Opinions -- That Will Stimulate Your Thoughts:

Chen, Milton. SMART PARENTS' GUIDE TO CHILDREN'S TV (l994, KQED Books/Tapes)

Greenfield, Patricia. MIND AND MEDIA: THE EFFECTS OF TELEVISION, VIDEOGAMES, AND COMPUTERS (1984, Harvard).

Healy, Jane. ENDANGERED MINDS: WHY CHILDREN DON'T THINK AND WHAT WE CAN DO ABOUT IT (1990, Touchstone)

McLuhan, Marshall. UNDERSTANDING MEDIA: THE EXTENSIONS OF MAN (1964, Signet)

Provenzio, Eugene. VIDEO KIDS: MAKING SENSE OF INTENDO (1991, Harvard)

Rushkoff, Douglas. MEDIA VIRUS (1994, Ballentine Books)

Sylwester, Robert. A CELEBRATION OF NEURONS: AN EDUCATOR S GUIDE TO THE HUMAN BRAIN (1995, ASCD). In EDUCATIONAL LEADERSHIP: " How Emotions Affect Learning" (Oct. 1994), "What Brain Research Says About Paying Attention" (Dec. 1992), "Expanding the Range, Dividing the Task; Educating the Human Brain in an Electronic Society: (Oct. 1990).

Theme Issue: Realizing the Promise of Technology EDUCATIONAL LEADERSHIP (April 1994)

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Information Age Education - The Effects of Electronic Media On A Developing Brain

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Abstract: The attentional demands of electronic media range from rapt (video games) to passive (much TV), but this is the first generation to directly interact with and alter the content on the screen and the conversation on the radio.

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The language bound left brain, intuitive right brain and emotional limbic brain seek a sustainable balance consistent with three polar insights of System 4, namely potential, commitment and performance. The nervous system has evolved accordingly