April 25, 2008
Games Interfering With Your Studies? There's a Facebook Group for That
As part of our continuing exploration of academic uses for Facebook, I occasionally stumble upon groups that catch my eye. Here are three:
- Students Against Professors Who Don’t Utilize Technology: Part of this group’s mission statement: “DON’T LECTURE NONSTOP FOR AN HOUR, especially in a class of 400+ people.” So far 65 people have joined the group, which was started by students at the University of Texas at Austin.
- World Of Warcraft Is Ruining My Academic Life: Many students play the online game World of Warcraft, and the fact that 135 signed onto this group shows that the game can get in the way of school work. A similar group, Guitar Hero Has Ruined My Academic Career, and I Am OK With It, has 61 members.
- I Learn More From Wikipedia Than My Professors: This group is one of many student groups expressing support for the online encyclopedia that anyone can edit. Its description points out that members “feel as if they should pay tuition to Wikipedia rather than their college.” Ouch.
Share your favorite academic-technology groups in the comments section. —Jeffrey R. Young
Posted on Friday April 25, 2008 | Permalink |Comments
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Re the first above, what about an organization of Professors Against Admitting Students with Juvenile Attention Spans?
— Joseph F Foster Apr 25, 04:41 PM #
Now all that is needed is a “Facebook Groups Have Ruined My Gaming Which Was Ruining My Academic Career” group.
— Duffy Gillman Apr 25, 05:47 PM #
Want your students to read their textbooks? Become an editor on the relevant Wikipedia pages, and add the textbook to the bibliography.
— Larry Merkle Apr 25, 09:55 PM #
Re: #1: While the Facebook group members may tout their short attention spans due to the digital age, there is plenty of literature indicating that hours-long lectures have never been good for student learning. Its far too easy to blame a student’s short attention span for subject matter expert that does not know the first thing about teaching.
— Michael Fried Apr 26, 09:39 PM #
Re #1 and #4: Attention spans develop over time. The development of attention span is one of the skills that students learn in University. The current “digital age” excuse is just that, an excuse—-most students were always lazy and easily distracted. There is a balance between not lecturing so long that nobody is able to process the information and not challenging the students to increase their ability to focus on hard material for a reasonably long period of time. “You have to learn to drink from the fire hose,” as my old supervisor used to put it.
— steve Apr 27, 07:17 PM #
To Steve, #5: BRAVO!
— Ray Apr 28, 08:00 AM #
Facebook: I’m famous(!) garbage. Youtube: dude did you see that gnarly video garbage. Wikipedia: lazy man’s syndrome garbage. Work avoidance instruments are a house of cards that will eventually tumble. The sooner the better.
— Douglas Apr 28, 08:38 AM #
Cell phone text message max length = 160 characters. Student max attention span = amount of time required to type 160 characters on cell phone.
— Anon Apr 28, 08:47 AM #
As a poster who is closer to the student side of things, reading so-called comment on this is ridiculous. Whining about generational trends and internet pop culture are going to cement your own learning. Becoming alienated from the students you are paid to teach is the complete opposite of what needs to occur. Meeting them halfway and exploring new ways to interact and educate is what is going to allow my generation to transcend all of the distractions.
— texan Apr 28, 09:22 AM #
Way to go #9. Professors complain about students, but as much can be said about Professors. Use some imagination and challenge students to get involved. It’s a lot harder than standing in front of the room lecturing for an hour a day and then blaming the students for not getting it. Wake up – right or wrong – technology has impacted the way students interact and learn and cannot be avoided!
— DG Apr 28, 10:44 AM #
We’ve got the most impulsive and narcissistic students in history, and it’s going to get worse.
The issue is really the ability to delay gratification__ pop culture & digital tech are both degrade that capacity, and both will continue to do so in the future until some sort of collapse puts people back in touch with reality (and I don’t mean reality TV).
Talk to the mainenance and cleaning people on any residential campus and see if they think these problems are coming from the fact that professors lecture. How could lectures be responsible for drunken students destroying their own living spaces?
Lectures are a problem for students because the capacity for self regulation is at an all time low, and dropping!
— KDR Apr 28, 11:51 AM #
As I believe has already been mentioned, students have ALWAYS had short attention span. So what’s the diff now – why do we care?
IMHO, in the old days, if you couldn’t muscle your way through many 50-100 minute lectures, you did worse in school (academic darwinism, if you will) and you ended up in more of a concrete skills sort of career.
These days, I dare say NO ONE wants to be left out of the information age, and this requires that more people have more abstract information gathering and processing skills. Technology has always impacted teaching and learning – it is just one venue for delivering the goods.
— JRB Apr 28, 11:52 AM #