Look at me – I’m talking at you!
Well, call me a dare devil but I thought I would take my new techno-multi-tasking self to a training session held this past weekend. The result? There are people out there that haven’t taken a class by Alec Couros! At first I thought I would try and Twitter about during a session where they were asking for participant feedback, connections, and recommendations. Appropriate Twitter time I thought. Within minutes I was given “the look”. You know the one – the “how dare you play around on your laptop when I am speaking at you” look. Not wanting to rock the boat too much within the first 10 minutes of training, I slid my laptop to the side.
I was continued to be spoken at for the next 60 minutes. How I yearned to be doing something to engage my listening. But, I didn’t dare slide the computer in front of me for fear of the “look”. I wanted to let the presenters know that they lost my attention 40 minutes prior but I didn’t think they would be checking their IM or email at the present moment in time!
Then the day took a turn. A new presenter was brought into the room who was going to teach us how to use a program on the computer that we would need to complete our training. Instinct took over my body as I reached for my laptop and pulled it in front of me. Then it happened. “You won’t be needing your computers because then you won’t listen while I am talking to you. I will show you what you need to do on the data projector and after you will work with a partner on a computer to work through what I just taught.” Wha???? How can this be? I raised my hand ready to protest but was shot down with the “look”. My hand sunk to my table as I closed up my laptop. I listened to the presentation and after found my partner. Then we looked at each and asked the same question as most of the other participants, “So, what are we supposed to do?”
I just kept thinking how I could have been making my notes in Google Docs while following the presenter. The time saved would have been @ 30 minutes as this was how long it took after the presentation to get all the participants on the right track. What message could I have sent to the presenter that what I was doing on my laptop was not going to distract others, interfere with his/her presentation or my learning of the topic? How do we ease away from the fear of losing control in the learning environment?
roadrunner replied:
What a sad story, Angie!
It’s one reason I love to use a tablet. It appears that I am taking notes (bet the instructor didn’t make the others put their pens away) when in fact I am madly multi-tasking.
It is very different to work with students who don’t appear to be on task. Your story reminds us that all instructors need to be exposed to the rich personalized learning experience enabled by technology before they will want to learn to teach in that messy place.
February 11, 2008 at 3:03 pm. Permalink.
Connie Cossar replied:
Hi Angie!
I agree that the level of engagement is just not the same when you are just sitting there being “talked at” (BTW love your title). It is unfortunate that you were shot the look every time you wanted to engage in the learning. It says something about the changing landscape of the classroom.
February 12, 2008 at 12:34 am. Permalink.
Tammy Sillers replied:
Hi Angie,
interesting situation you found yourself in. Why do we think one must sit perfectly still and do nothing to be engaged?? And yet I think about what I’ve taught kids over the years about being a good listener – eyes on the speaker, don’t play with anything, no talking, etc. It took me a while to realize that many students listen best when they’re drawing, playing with fun tak, or even with their eyes closed…
A colleague of mine recently sent a link about the use of toys to engage learners…something worth checking out.
http://michelemartin.typepad.com/thebambooprojectblog//2007/10/want-to-get-peo.html
February 15, 2008 at 3:42 am. Permalink.
Rosanne replied:
When I presented ComicLife on the projector for my students to explore I asked them to follow the steps as I went through them. They listened much better when they were actually “doing” rather than “listening passively and then doing”. I’m surprised that the teaching of technology still occurs this way.
February 15, 2008 at 7:32 pm. Permalink.
Todd Volk replied:
Angie,
It is so disappointing to read your blog. Isn’t it amazing that we are being shown as educators the opposite of what we are learning in this class. Learning by participating is the key element to learning in the 21st century, yet here you are being told to put things away and politely listen. I wasn’t surprised by your reaction when you were finally allowed to be active. After listening for so long, it is hard to know what to do.
Why is it that people put in charge of our professional development, still subscribe to the ‘old’ learning philsophy? If our division offices are pushing change, why aren’t they following their lead and finding resources that subscribe to the 21st century learning style? As you mentioned about your PLC – forces, pre-determined, and listen. Seems to be a contradiction of philsophies.
February 16, 2008 at 9:14 pm. Permalink.
Shaun Loeppky replied:
1) When they look, wink.
2) Wear sunglasses.
3) Put a magazine cover on the outside of the laptop (wait a minute…)
I have other suggestions but I may blush even more at my own comments.
Funny, we as educators love to vocally backchannel at conferences (I think we may be the worst).
Laptops would make for such a quite environment!
February 25, 2008 at 4:59 am. Permalink.
kibrown replied:
We’ve got so far to go! I think we may have to start a movement that encourages multi-tasking. Today I listened to two presentations with my students. One was about our outdoor ed trip. The presenter was interesting and I made notes during his presentation. The second presenter was an author/illustrator…I found myself drifting and wishing I had my computer to work on. It was at that point I completely empathized with every student who was fidgeting, moving and looking around. It wasn’t that the presenter wasn’t interesting it was just that I thought I could be doing more than “just” listening.
February 26, 2008 at 2:13 am. Permalink.
ryanflood replied:
I was at the STF showcase yesterday, and took my laptop so that I could do some reading during the keynote. I sat up in the 3rd balcony near the back so that very few could see me reading away, blogging, e-mailing, etc. on my laptop. I was actually quite impressed with my multi-tasking abilities (which are usually non-existant). I enjoyed the keynote, was able to read about him while listening to him, and send links to myself and to my wife so that we could talk about his radio show and books that evening. In between all this I managed to do some other work as well. So as I have said, I was rather impressed with myself. I left feeling not only that I really enjoyed that speaker, but also that I had accomplished something.
What I really enjoyed were the comments from some of my co-workers who quite obviously didn’t understand. “Hey, what’s with the laptop?”, “You afraid you’re gonna miss something?”, “Can’t you be without your computer, you nerd.” Of course these were jokes between friends, but it does illustrate the number of teachers who don’t understand that you can be listening and be busy at the same time.
February 29, 2008 at 6:14 am. Permalink.