[Yr7-10it] A video about a 1-1 Apple laptop middle school in NYC

Sat Sep 5 16:56:46 EST 2009

Phil

Your comment about listening to music with lyrics is true in many case with 
students.  I tried it out as an experiment with students some years ago.

At first I played music that was popular with the class and I observed, as 
did the students, that their workrate fell.  They commented that they felt 
more comfortable in class and more relaxed, but admitted listening to, and 
in some cases singing with, the lyrics with songs they preferred.

I then tried it with music of my era - the great era of the 60's and 70's. 
This was distracting to the students because they didn't like my taste in 
music.  I ca appreciate their views but their work rate did not improve 
because they were trying to ignore the "oldies music".

Then, we tried using background music from different generations.  As 
background music, and at a low volume, the students were initially 
distracted but soon adjusted and we found that their workrate improved. 
Students commented that they tended to listen if they then recognised the 
tunes, but not as much as when there were lyrics.

Multi-tasking fails miserably when the students have access to the internet, 
email or other distractions and I want them to participate in a lesson's 
discussion.  Students listening to iPods and the like do not participate as 
well in class.  We usually try this out at the start of the year to get the 
students to appreciate how much of a distraction they are.  They even find 
that note taking and making summaries are less efficient and that they 
retain less information.  For these reasons I do not allow students to 
listen to their iPods, etc when they are doing their SACs or during class 
discussion, and generally ban them from class time use.

I am yet to be convinced that most students are able to work and study 
efficiently, let alone effectively, when distracted by music and the many 
other distractions available to them.

I do appreciate, however, that if the adjacent environment is noisy and 
distracting that a more comfortable noise can be better than that 
distracting noise.  Sometime students use music to break the external 
distractions and then convince themselves that they can study "better".  I 
can recall doing this when I was studying, but I tended to use music that 
was not distracting, rather than popular music with lyrics.

There have been several recent articles supporting the idea of multi-tasking 
is a myth, even for women.  However, I do not wish to initiate an argument 
down that line.

In the link that Roland referred to, the reference to multi-tasking was, 
IMHO, mis-used.  It was used in the context that students may visit other 
sites, groom themselves, visit the internet, communicate with others, etc 
during the lesson.  This occurs in our classes even without music or 
computers or the internet.  Students have always "tuned out" at different 
stages during a lesson, particularly if they find it boring.  They will 
distract themselves and others during the lesson.

It merely highlights the need for us to make lessons that much more 
interesting and less tedious.  If we vary activities during a lesson 
students will remain more focussed.  We can even allow some "down time" for 
them.  This often occurs when we change activities for instance.

This is not multi-tasking per se.  It is merely varying the activities.  We 
can allow students to control that if we have set tasks which they have to 
complete during the lesson, which we know will not occupy the full lesson. 
Our warning to them is that if they do not get in done in class, it becomes 
homework.  Nothing changed there.

Geoff Moss
RMIT

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Phil Callil" <P.Callil at xavier.vic.edu.au>
To: <yr7-10it at edulists.com.au>
Sent: Saturday, September 05, 2009 2:47 PM
Subject: Re: [Yr7-10it] A video about a 1-1 Apple laptop middle school in 
NYC

> Thanks for this, Roland.
>
> There's no doubt that technology has helped to turn this school around. 
> I'm especially interested in their teachers' ideas about multi tasking. 
> Research is starting to show that effective multitasking is a myth - it 
> just dissipates focus and concentration resulting in less effective use of 
> time.  This has real implications for learning.  For example, listening to 
> music with lyrics has been found to lessen learning time effectiveness.
>
> Personally I can't listen to music at all when I'm really trying to 
> sustain concentration on something important  - but maybe that's a 
> generation or personal thing.
>
> It would be interesting to hear others' thoughts on multitasking.
>
> Best wishes
>
> Phil
>
>
>
>
> Phil Callil
> Faculty Head IT
> Xavier College
> 9855-4163
> www.xavier.vic.edu.au
>
> Vice President VITTA
> www.vitta.org.au/
>
> iChat: pcallil at mac.com   Skype: pcallil000
>>>> Roland Gesthuizen <rgesthuizen at gmail.com> 09/05/09 1:07 PM >>>
> Interesting video link posted by Caroline Meeks, an IAEP project 
> contributor
> for Sugar, the operating system used on the OLPC computers.
>
> http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/digitalnation/learning/schools/how-google-saved-a-school.html?play
> Towards the middle of the clip is an interview with the administrator who
> can observe the students on their Apple laptops. Its also an interesting
> discussion about multi-tasking.
>
> Regards Roland
>
> -- 
> Roland Gesthuizen - ICT Coordinator - Westall Secondary College
> http://www.westallsc.vic.edu.au
>
> "Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can 
> change
> the world; indeed it is the only thing that ever has." --Margaret Mead
> </rgesthuizen at gmail.com>
>
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