Taming chaos

T he ability to distract has put the use of laptops, netbooks, cell phones, PDAs, iPod/MP3 players, and portable game players on the banned list in many schools. Educators are discovering that students are more interested in online resources, such as Facebook, game sites, chat, and YouTube, than classroom lectures and textbook chapters about the Crimean War, square roots, or past participles. “Those darn kids are just listening to the filthy lyrics of rap music on their iPods instead of my lecture,” pretty much summarizes the argument. No device, no access, no distraction, these schools reason. As I have learned from my experiences both as an instructor and as a student, technology can indeed be a distraction in any teaching/learning environment. I find it discouraging, to say the least, when a participant in Is technology diverting your students’ attention away from