Four years ago, Chris Nagele did what many other technology executives have done before — he moved his team into an open concept office.
His staff had been exclusively working from home, but he wanted everyone to be together, to bond and collaborate more easily. It quickly became clear, though, that Nagele had made a huge mistake. Everyone was distracted, productivity suffered and the nine employees were unhappy, not to mention Nagele himself.
Classrooms are essentially open offices. Well, they’re even worse than open offices since the desks and chairs are usually not comfortable and their is no ownership of what little space the students get.
What’s more, certain open spaces can negatively impact our memory. This is especially true for hotdesking, an extreme version of open plan working where people sit wherever they want in the work place, moving their equipment around with them.
Whoa, that sounds a lot like how classrooms work now!
French children won’t be allowed to bring their phones into classrooms starting in September. The Guardian reports that while kids can still bring their phones into their schools, the devices have to stay locked away until the end of the day. This will apply to kids starting at the age of six and will last until they’re around…
No matter what sort of change is going on in your industry, if you don’t teach people why to do things differently and what to do differently, they will do the same old stuff. Effective training doesn’t just happen once. It doesn’t just cover theory. It explains exactly what to do, and it reinforces these…
Computer note-taking was a point of contention at my school. Almost every teacher used laptops. But we varied in how much we allowed students to take notes on them during class. Those in the no-computer-notes camp pointed to how often students were distracted by messaging and social media. Those who allowed laptops for notes argued that…
Reverse image search is one of the most well-known and easiest digital investigative techniques, with two-click functionality of choosing “Search Google for image” in many web browsers. This method has also seen widespread use in popular culture, perhaps most notably in the MTV show Catfish, which exposes people in online relationships who use stolen photographs…
In nationally representative yearly surveys of United States 8th, 10th, and 12th graders 1991–2016 (N = 1.1 million), psychological well-being (measured by self-esteem, life satisfaction, and happiness) suddenly decreased after 2012. Adolescents who spent more time on electronic communication and screens (e.g., social media, the Internet, texting, gaming) and less time on nonscreen activities (e.g.,…
The future impacts of artificial intelligence (AI) on society and the labour force have been studied and reported extensively. In a recent book, AI Superpowers, Kai-Fu Lee, former president of Google China, wrote that 40 to 50 per cent of current jobs will be technically and economically viable with AI and automation over the next…
