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11-19-2014
12:49 PM
Nick Marino, our gest blogger for this week, is a first year student in the MA program at Florida Atlantic University, specializing in 20th century British Literature. He lives with his cat in South Florida, a place he finds oddly inspiring.I’m with Nick on this meditation about the use of personal technology in the classroom, even through Richard Restak’s “Attention Deficit: The Brain Syndrome of Our Era” argues rather persuasively that multitasking is a myth. In the classes I teach, I encourage “responsible” use of technology like smart phones: pull it out to bring up a reading, research the author on the internet, check your calendar, or even log in to Blackboard. Need to answer that text or call? No problem. Discretely step outside. I’m always a bit amazed that students find even this rather liberal policy challenging, texting in class anyway. Maybe Nick’s thoughts can offer me some new directions.What do you think? I don’t care if my students use their phones in class. This is apparently a bad attitude for a teacher to have. I’m told that I should care. I’m told that this stance causes my students to think they can use their phones everywhere. I’m told that letting them use their phones in class means that they won’t respect me and teachers do need to be respected. My attitude towards phones in class is a little more complicated than that. Not caring suggests that I would express no preference given the choice between having them stare at their books and my face or their phones. I don’t want my students to use their phones in class but, except in extreme circumstances, I will not stop them from doing so. I should disclose that I haven’t told my students about how I feel about cell phone use in class. I tried to be strict about it on the first day of class, while reading the policy on my syllabus. Since then I’ve barely brought it up, nor have I called a student out for looking at their phone. I haven’t had an extreme circumstance thus far, such as what happened to a colleague of mine. One of her students answered a phone call in class (unapologetically I’m told). My colleague confronted the student in a professional manner and later sent an email to the class stating that answering a phone call in class is inappropriate and will not be tolerated. This was the right thing to do because the disruption that student caused certainly affected the ability of his peers to learn. On the other hand, I don’t think that a student pawing at his Yik Yak feed distracts his neighbor enough to warrant a confrontation. There are two reasons why I don’t stop students from using their phones in class:
- I don’t have the disposition or visual dexterity to catch, punish and reform students who use their phones in class.
- Even if I did have the above and used it, my students would most likely retaliate by being reticent in class and or by filling out negative course evaluations at the end of term.
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About the Author
Barclay Barrios is an Associate Professor of English and Director of Writing Programs at Florida Atlantic University, where he teaches freshman composition and graduate courses in composition methodology and theory, rhetorics of the world wide web, and composing digital identities. He was Director of Instructional Technology at Rutgers University and currently serves on the board of Pedagogy. Barrios is a frequent presenter at professional conferences, and the author of Emerging.