The study of McVay, Snyder and Graetz (2005) finds that students use computers an average of five hours per day, with 36% of that time being spent on academic activities. Studies examined how students use computers for learning:
1. 16% of overall computer use involved typing papers and notes (Demb, Erickson and Hawkins-Wilding, 2004)
2. Other work such as writing papers, using software programs, searching the Internet, and completing group projects constitute the major bulk of computer use (Arend, 2004)
The use of these communication tools (recreational computer activity) can also be potentially detrimental in the classroom.1. Recreational email and instant messaging are among the primary uses of students in the classrooms (Grace-Martin and Gay, 2001)
2. Recreational use of email and instant messaging in class can be distracting to students (Crook & Barrowcliff, 2001).
3. 12% of students used their computers in the class for non-learning purposes such as web surfing or social emailing (Barak, et al.(2006).
4. The ratio of work: play is found to be 30%:70% (Crook & Barrowcliff, 2001)
Are the teachers equipped to provide learning activities that are both challenging as well as recreational is the question often asked without showing the teachers the way out.
The answer to all the distracting use of Internet is Web 2.0 that has the capability to engage students in their learning activities. The foremost cause of students’ distraction is that as a ‘curious creature’ they like to discover relentlessly and experience new skills. I an ICT classroom I found availability of a computer to each individual just as much distracting as useful. The real challenge was to keep students on the task for an hour. Students like to play all sorts of games, browse Internet and tackle some kind of recreational puzzles. On the other hand students were quick to learn new Internet tools such as Facebook, Twitter, Email and Google utilities. As a matter of fact students already know these tools and the teacher only has to make use of their existing skills to engage them in learning activities.
ReplyDeleteOn both of my practicum experiences, I had an opportunity to attend ‘Teacher’s PD sessions’ and I was thrilled to see Web 2.0 as a lingua franca across all the disciplines. Web 2.0 is an answer to teacher’s woes.