An article in the Times Higher Education about the trend toward banning online access during courses.
http://www.timeshighereducation.co.uk/story.asp?storycode=416375&encCode=6
For those who are working with faculty on blended environments, this is worth a read. My own experience of integrating technology in lectures tells me that you can’t leave it all to chance, you need to determine some structure to the way students use technology in classrooms – for example we implemented a back channel chat during lectures, we used opportunities for students to find online resources and share with the class, and we used online quizzes (somewhat like clickers but not using clickers) as well as asking students to use their phones for taking photos in labs of their work.
The issue of multitasking and learning is going to be a major area of research in the coming years, perhaps it is something we want to consider in our work as well. In online environments we mainly hand over the control for the activities to the students to decide when and how much to do – they are I am sure multitasking like crazy while they are reading/writing assignments/listening and viewing audio/engaging in live discussions. Within our own design work, do we account for the many possible ways that a multitasking environment can both support and detract from the experience of learning?
Happy reading.
Janet