How often do you find yourself quietly on your own in this noisy world? Even when you’re at work, out of the 7 to 8 hours, how many of them are your own quiet hours?
A study at the University of California, Irvine, found that a typical office worker’s focused quiet time is only 11 minutes in-between interruptions on average,[1] and it actually takes 25 minutes to resume to work after any interruptions.
The noise and interruptions are badly affecting our work efficiency, and in fact, our life too.
The article discusses the workplace, but some of what happens in the workplace can also pertain to the classroom. I absolutely despise interruptions, and as such, will only interrupt another class if the teacher has submitted a help desk or if their door is open. If the door is closed, I’m going to assume they don’t want to be interrupted.
Every year for the past 15 years the New Media Consortium and the Consortium for School Networking (CoSN) have been taking the pulse of where education technology stands among K-12 educators. A panel of 59 experts from 18 countries discussed major trends in education that are driving the adoption of technology, as well as the…
Teachers in Littleton, Colorado — like teachers in many places — are increasingly asking students to read and write online. Free tools like Google Docs have made it easy for students to work on the same piece of writing at home and at school, and have allowed teachers to explore collaborative writing assignments and synchronous…
It was supposed to be the laptop that saved the world. In late 2005, tech visionary and MIT Media Lab founder Nicholas Negroponte pulled the cloth cover off a small green computer with a bright yellow crank. The device was the first working prototype for Negroponte’s new nonprofit One Laptop Per Child, dubbed “the green…
Paul Horner, the 38-year-old impresario of a Facebook fake-news empire, has made his living off viral news hoaxes for several years. He has twice convinced the Internet that he’s British graffiti artist Banksy; he also published the very viral, very fake news of a Yelp vs. “South Park” lawsuit last year. But in recent months, Horner has…
Bored to distraction? No wonder I’m so distracted. No wonder we all are. The problem isn’t technology per se, but the expectations it has engendered: a steady stream of entertainment and stimulation. Or, as Bertrand Russell — who lived through the invention of electric lights, radio, and television — put it: “We are less bored than our ancestors were,…
A new study shows you can be easily re-identified from almost any database, even when your personal details have been stripped out. Source: You’re very easy to track down, even when your data has been anonymized – MIT Technology Review I see this in schools, where the staff will strip out any identifiable information from…
