Brain Based Learning

Digital Humanities Quarterly has an interesting article on “The New Economy of Attention” . It discusses the effect of technology and specifically Social Media on students’ attention to a lecture and whether a “distraction” really takes away from learning. Perhaps focused, relevant distraction can actually help a student to learn better. The article suggests that it is human nature for attention to wander, even when interested in a topic, simply because that is how we learn best – by taking in everything in a learning environment, not just the lecture itself.

Laptops and mobile phones can be very distracting in a classroom during a lecture if the student is simply browsing the web, catching up on reading, or doing some shopping. However, if these distractions are incorporated into the lecture environment  and used to add to the discussion rather than take away, they can enhance the learning that takes place.

How to best incorporate web browsing and social media such as Facebook and Twitter may not be 100% clear, but what is clear is that ignoring potential distractors that will not go away anytime in the near future means missing a fantastic opportunity for educators to enhance their students’ learning environments.