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Texting

Submitted by spinuzzi on September 6, 2006 - 9:42am

So I saw one of my students texting -- obviously texting -- during class yesterday. It brought up some of the questions that Johndan Johnson-Eilola raises in his recent book Datacloud about how much communication technologies can intrude into classes and how much students may end up multitasking. (Or: not paying attention.)

What do you do in a case like this? Do you tell your student to stop texting? To be more surreptitious? Or do you ignore it?

My first inclination was to call her out. But then again, I have been known to text during long faculty meetings (typically under the table). And I was still able to pay attention and participate. Her participation didn't seem to be suffering. So I decided to ignore it.

Of course, my reaction would be different if I thought I was being videorecorded.

No text messaging here!

Submitted by Delaney J. Kirk on September 11, 2006 - 1:36pm.

Some of my colleagues believe that as long as the student isn't being disruptive, you allow the behavior. However, I am big on modeling appropriate professional behavior. I also see this as a sign of respect (or lack of). So in my class...no cell phones, no text messaging, no computer games...

I think I'd have a hard time

Submitted by Jim Brown on September 6, 2006 - 1:33pm.

I think I'd have a hard time ignoring it, but I also agree that it's easier to take if the student is still able to be engaged in discussion, etc. However, we might also argue that the classroom is one space where students could just stop the multitasking for an hour and fifteen minutes. It's one thing to multitask, it's another to be incapable of concentrating on a single task. As you say, they get plenty of practice in the "Datacloud," maybe the classroom can (at leas t sometimes) be a place to put the urge to multi-task on hold.