i five

Gary Small is no Daniel Pink.  When I read Pink’s Drive, I agreed with the greater part of it and it changed the way I teach.  iBrain is not having the same effect on me.  I know sources are documented, in a way heretofore unseen by me, in the back of the book, but I really have a hard time accepting much of what is being said.  I agree that technology is changing our society and our way of interacting and getting stuff done, but I am just not impressed with much of what is being said.  

I, too, had to go and see how the “Ten Most Popular Websites” had changed from 2007 to today and I was not surprised that there was a lot of movement.  Blogger and Twitter were new entries and eBay had succumbed to Amazon.  Not surprising really.  

I thought the section on the differences in men and women made men sound like they used the Internet for more serious matters, while women were more social.  Fractured Families just seemed to be a family making poor choices.  I could see a marital split coming if that family didn’t start spending more quality time together.  I would not cook a great meal and accept my spouse not sitting down with the family to eat it.  But I will grant you that my spouse and I drink our morning coffee with separate machines to check mail and news in the morning first thing.  Each to their own I guess.  I am glad we are getting this book out of the way first!

iBrain Chapter 5 - Friends, Guns and Money

Chapter 5 seemed to obvious. I'm also taking a class on Intergovernmental Relations. Readings for that class explored the loss of tax revenues by various levels of government due to on-line shopping. While this may sound good to the private citizens, it has a cumulative affect spread out over the entire population of a jurisdiction and the course of year that can reap havoc on public budgets. It made me, for the first time, start questioning some of the "free web" ideas. I also heard on radio financial programing that Google is facing some challenges monetizing some of their newer features and applications. They company has great ideas but there is a fundamental economic strategy to keep producing new products as long as marginal revenues are greater or equal than the marginal costs of that product, if new products are costing more than they generate, there is no incentive to keep them in place.

iBrain Chapter 5 : High Tech Culture

From what I pulled out, this chapter is Dr. Small and Gigi Vorgan describing in detail how technology is either destroying families and the next generation or setting the world for a global economic meltdown. That was, at least to me, the meat of this chapter. Dr. Small does list some interesting tables on the most popular websites and search queries from 2007. I really had a chuckle seeing Facebook FAR behind MySpace, however given the year this is totally correct. Facebook wasn't allowing users without a college email address to create profiles. I did a little bit of research, and I stress little (like 2 minutes) finding the list for 2010 and another minute or so to find a side-by-side for 2009 and 2010. So behold....the top ten websites of 2009 versus 2010!

What I first take away from this list and the list given by Dr. Small is the rise and fall of a social media site. Forward this list three to four years in the future and there may be another social media site (think Google+ ?) rising from the ashes of Facebook...hmm.

I do like how Dr. Small has set up the foundations of the electronic marketplace and how it is changing the way we do business. More often than not, I buy things online simply for the ease of not having to  be faced with the "oh we're sold out" when I get to the store. One example that really hit home is the roll of film versus digital prints. Erin just went through almost a year of photos on our computer to create a folder to send to Wal-Mart to print for an album. We do this from time to time so we can still have them when the inevitable hard drive failure occurs and we potentially lose the files. If we had had Maddy even 10 years ago we would have spent much more time and money developing an entire roll of film that may have been blurry, or had a finger over the lens. Now we can simply delete the bad ones or leave them in the digital realm.

I don't really agree with the fractured family story on pages 93 and 94. It sounds to me that the family never had a set dinner routine, but now we can blame technology for it. Throughout this book so far Dr. Small has given us examples of things that weren't working to begin with, and now we can throw technology to the wolves because that has to be what's making this not work! The family on pages 93 and 94 needed to have dinner time and routine set long before this story happened. Time limits for technology and/or a set time when the technology can be accessed. I've seen many, well not many because I'm only at the beginning of year five of teaching, but enough students who have parents that have a handle on technology and have rules in place for family time. On the other hand I've seen some kids that rule the roost and have nothing to do with family time because to be very frank, family time doesn't exist for them.

iBrain Chapter 4 ADHD and Beyond

Being a father, former special education teacher, and regular education teacher, I really appreciated this chapter. Small introduces the chapter with an anecdotal scene of our regular "bombardment of technology" - iPods, T.V. with Scrolling Bars on the bottom of the Screen, Computer with multiple windows in action, etc. Many consider this to be multi-tasking. However, at question is the quality of the task performance being done. At a Discovery Education workshop earlier in the spring, one discussion we had was about the differences between "Multi-Switching" and "Multi-Tasking". From my observations, I see students do more "Multi-Switching". Small goes on in the chapter to provide the DSM-IV criteria for ADHD. For the past 10 years, especially since being in education, I have had various criticisms of this diagnostic method. First of all, it is subjective and based on rating scales provided to Parents and Teachers. There is no blood test or other objective technique. Second, unlike other disorders, ADHD does not cross contexts very well. Individuals with Down Syndrome, Arthritis, Crones Disease, Multiple Sclerosis, or Turrets don't cease having these conditions when they are playing soccer, engaged in a video game, talking with a friend on the phone, working on their Mustang (ha!! :) ). Not the case with ADHD - where symptoms pop up in specific contexts, often non-preferred, while in other contexts, the symptoms are non-existent. Small provides some evidence to suggest that technology impacts parts of the brain that link to ADHD through over stimulation. While some stimulation/arousal is necessary for general function, technology can become "maladaptive".

I didn't take particular interest in the section of Indigo children. Again, this seems to be a case by case scenario. I did however find the section on Autism very interesting. I have seen similarities within my own kids. As my oldest is more engrossed in television on a given day, the weaker his social skills become - ceases to verbally communicate, doesn't participate in group/family meals, becomes easily irritable, fixates on programming. However, my wife and I try to take our kids camping/hiking a few times during the summer. On these 2 or 3 day adventures, I'm glad to say my son is completely different. He is social, helpful, part of the group, involved in conversation, makes eye contact and, my favorite part, will put himself to bed [in the tent]. This is also true on days when his exposure to television or video games has been limited. In this way, I can see how Technology is like an amphetamine. When we are on it, it stimulates portions of our brain. We like that feeling and so we don't want to leave that "high". The social world around becomes secondary. I'm not all in that technology causes Autism Spectrum Disorders, but I do see the correlation between anti or non-social behaviors. Correlation doesn't necessarily mean cause and effect, and I'm quite certain, if I took an Autistic child camping, he would continue to show typical symptoms. That being said, I think Small addressed one of the best treatments for initial interventions - "Turn off the computer [or television, Xbox, iPad, etc] and go outside].

Scheduling Posts

Kate discovered and I thought I would share it.  Knowing that I was going to be out of touch while visiting my Dad, I posted and set the schedule date. However, if you post something with a scheduled date for publishing, then edit it, you need to re-publish it. Saving isn't good enough.

And.......

Once you pass the scheduled date, you can not publish until you change the date into the future.

iBrain Chapter 3

In Chapter 3, we get an explanation of how pleasurable activities cause the release of dopamine. Dopamine creates a sense of pleasure and well-being that the anterior cingulate, the part of our brain that controls decision making and reason, is challenged to subdue. For some, the desire for that sense of pleasure overwhelms our ability to think rationally or take charge of our lives. Dr. Small offers a rubric for detecting internet addiction disorder then goes on to describe how people become addicted to email, virtual gaming, online porn, gambling and online shopping.

The digital addiction pattern is no different than addictions we have long known about. Addictions are about avoiding some part of reality. The difference is that you can get more of it faster (email), access it easier (porn) and spend it quicker (gambling and online shopping) with an anonymity that makes detection and intervention less likely.

This chapter ends with the promise of more input to help you determine whether you suffer an addiction or perhaps just spend to much time on the internet.

I know from personal experience and observations of students that the allure of the internet, or the applications on the internet, can be difficult to overcome. I feel that one of our many jobs as teachers is to help develop the motivation that keeps students on task because, internet or not, we humans seem to find a way to distract ourselves from what we should be doing.

On the other hand, addiction is a strong word. I know people that are addicted to various things and I have not witnessed internet use that rises to that level. Perhaps I am naive, but I found this chapter to be somewhat alarmist.  In addition, I found the author's reference to newspaper articles and other non-peer reviewed sources less than convincing. This chapter is full of these references.

Here is one example from his notes:
In China, where an estimated two million youths are addicted to the Internet, a boot camp for Web addicts has successfully treated thousands. Chinese boot camps tackle Internet addiction. International Herald Tribune. March 12, 2007, www.iht.com/articles/2007/03/12/business/addicts.php. 

My takeaway idea is this. I know this book is about balance. So how can we use the students' desire to avoid reality (that is the heart of addiction) to attract students to learning?

Addiction

Technology addiction is scary.  It is scary because it is real; young people don’t see or realize it, and if caregivers aren’t aware of the existence of the problem, it can become a bigger problem.  I read something once that referred to checking your e-mail and facebook even before your morning coffee.  I am guilty of that!  But I can also live without it.  We went to camp for a couple of days with no power, phone or internet and I loved it.  I never even thought about anything but the sun and the lake.  But I do understand the lure of connectedness.  

One thing this chapter said to me was that we need to think twice about kids and laptops in Maine.  When we checked the histories of our students laptops one year, kids were on them at midnight or later and it was more facebook or games than anything else.  I think what that says to me  is that we need to do more to educate the parents of the students so they will keep an eye on usage times.  I told a friend of mine who had a student with a laptop that it was OK to make her leave it downstairs after 8 or 9 so she wasn’t on it all night.  Maybe parents just need to know?

I know that doesn’t solve the problem as adults are equally addicted, but for me, right now, my main focus in the students.