Dealing with Distraction

Illustration by Alicia Toldi via thecollegevoice.org

Parents understandably commonly complain that one of the particular challenges faced as parent in the 21st century is that of supporting homework in an age where increasingly and understandably more and more [home]work requires a screen, usually a laptop. In the 'good old days' of exercise and text books, a parent could at least be fairly confident that when their child was gazing intently at the relevant page, it was their work they were doing, and not perusing a peer comment on a social platform, or a YouTube video, or playing a game, or, well you get the idea. As a parent of two middle school kids, and as an assistant parent in one of our our boarding houses with students from G7 to G12 I have plenty of personal experience of this!

Before you get all nostalgic on me, it is worth noting why it makes sense to do homework on a laptop as well as at school, the main one being that this allows homework, to be, well, just work, ie, a continuation of the task they are already engaged in at school, as opposed to an isolated activity that is related to their work in school. Often now, the work you see your child engaged in at home is their work at school, continued.

Now if your work life as an adult involves screens this should sound familiar. If we're honest, even as adults, what will also feel familiar is the temptation for distraction, in this regard at least, this is a temptation you should be able to relate to, in fact many of the tips below, may actually be useful to you in your work as well... ;o)

Now I'm conscious that our teachers are possibly more au fait with strategies for ensuring that students in their classrooms are using their screens for the task at hand, and not for expanding their social capital, but parents are often not quite as aware, a fact that many kids are quick to exploit...

Hence this post.

Our Head of Campus, Frazer Cairns, has written a newsletter dealing with this topic, well worth a read if you haven't already, and this blog post in many ways serves as an addendum to that; some simple tips to help you to help your child to deal with distraction more effectively. More to the point, these tips are designed to empower you to feel more capable of telling when they are, and more importantly are NOT 'on task'.

You can find many of these tips included in the TutorTech Slide Deck that I manage and update regularly that we use with Middle School Tutor Groups, a slide deck that your child should be familiar with already, if not, they will be very soon...

So here for your delight and delectation are some simple strategies and deft devices for helping you, to help your child stay on task:

Don't Just Close it, Quit it

Students need to get out of the habit of leaving applications running in the background, as these have a habit of bouncing up and down like a jackrabbit on coke*—very distracting. Clicking the red icon just closes or hides the application, it’s actually still running in the background, to kill it you need to QUIT it. 

Deal with the Dock

Command Q or right click on the dock. If you can see a little black dot, that app is still running. 

Be on the lookout for Apps running in the dock that most likely have nothing to do with school work, or the assignment they are currently working on, Apps like Skype, Steam, Minecraft, et cetera:

Do Not Disturb

Click those lines at the top right corner of the screen on the Mac (the notification centre) and pull down, this activates a very handy but under utilised function built into every Mac.

Check Notifications Settings

Maybe people have no idea these even exist, but they do, and check them you should. You can even automatically activate 'Do not Disturb' automatically during certain hours.

Kill Chrome Notifications as well...

We advise our students to use the Chrome browser for work, and Safari (or another browser) for play/socialising, then quit that social browser while working, as mentioned above. With that in mind they should turn off the notifications Chrome generates from sites like Facebook et al, unfortunately it is a little buried... the following should help you dig it out though, click to enlarge the images:

Click to enlarge

Fill the Screen

Make the most of the limited screen space, hit that green button and use the whole screen whenever you can. (Esc key to exit). This encourages 'single-tasking', ie one thing at a time, rather than the notoriously inefficient 'multi-tasking'. If they need to use more than one app, eg browser and a word processor, with both fullscreen they can swipe between them using the 'Four finger swipe' (see below), if they're running Sierra or later they could even utilise the split view feature, so they can focus on just two related things on one screen.

F3 'The All Seeing Key' & The 4 Finger Swipe

This is extremely useful, and also extremely devious, depending on the way this is used! This is one of the powerful features built into track pads on the Mac, that makes switching between full screen apps very easy; great if you're working between apps, not if you're child is using it to hide what they're really doing... 

F3: The all seeing key via jandpbiz

Fortunately these swiping gestures are easy to spot (see below). An easy way to check to see if their swiping is justified is to press the F3 key (Mission Control) on the Mac, this displays all open windows/spaces at once, allowing you to see at a glance what's going on. If there's a lot of apps on display, they probably need to quit the ones they don't need, see my point above!

Be Aware of Behaviour

There are many uses for screens, but the ones that are the least likely to be associated with, shall we say 'modes of reflection/writing/response' typical of [home]work are very different to those you would expect when interacting in real time with peers, or/and playing games. So, if your child is giggling away to him/herself, or intensely hammering the keys/frantically twitching the trackpad, chances are they are not working... 

If in doubt—hit the all seeing F3 key—Mission Control.

Use the Room

Many teachers have find this to be a particularly useful strategy in the classroom; make sure your child is positioned in such a way that their back is facing you, then you can easily see their screen, whether this is in central space in the home, or the position of their desk in their bedroom, this is a simple but effective monitoring strategy.

See how happy he is that you can see what he's doing? ;o)

Keep the Goal in Mind

Last but certainly not least, as amply illustrated by the amazing Bill Watson below, the real secret to success in terms of maintaining focus on homework, as with any work, is a determination to succeed; no amount of distraction or procrastination will enable your child to actually get their homework completed. While a minority of students may have a barrage of strategies for concealing their futile attempts at multi-tasking, they will still need to actually produce the completed assignment.

What you get out of your computer depends on what you put into it... (Calvin & Hobbes)

* Coca cola of course—what were you thinking?

Protection, Paranoia & Parenting

Some articles I read years ago, and this one from Common Sense Media more recently have a habit of continually popping back into my head, every time the inevitable web scare rears its ugly head.

There is a paranoia associated with the web which can easily be exaggerated, for example parents who are profoundly uncomfortable at the thought of a photo of their child being viewable online, even if the image is buried in a website with an extremely obscure URL, a proverbial needle in a digital haystack. Yet this same parent will almost certainly allow their child to walk down Orchard Rd, Fifth Avenue, Oxford Street, knowing that they can be seen (perhaps even photographed unawares) by the general public? Not to mention the ever increasing presence of CCTV cameras watching our every move. Could this same parent be in the habit (as I am) of regularly posting images of their children on social media? ... The fact is that without an associated name and detailed localising data, such as an address, it is almost impossible to track down one child based on the image of their face alone (in the extremely unlikely event that someone wanted to).

So, like the concrete jungles of our cities and towns, the Wild Wonderful Web is an amazing place, but it is a metaphorical jungle, and, as it happens, the wild wild web has a great deal in common with a jungle—not too many leaves—but many wonderful opportunities and yes, many dangers; dangers that, with a few basic precautions, can be avoided.

The first Article makes a few controversial but critical points, which could be broadly summarised as:

Less monitoring more mentoring

The expectation of constantly monitoring children and teenagers on the Internet is an impossible ideal. Who has time to stand over the shoulder of your kids for the entire time they are online? Children’s freedom to roam in the physical world has been radically curtailed. While previous generations could ride bikes or walk to school or play outside unsupervised till dinner time, this generation is watched all the time. They have lost that thrill of being on their own until they are much older, and, for them, the Internet can provide that open space, to test and explore and try out the outside world—while being a lot less painful than ... say ... falling out of a tree, a risk that was commonplace in my childhood. In fact a shiver runs down my spine when I consider some of the risks I routinely took as child, with n'ere a parent, or even an adult in sight or sound. There is educational value in this kind of risk, this exploration even if it is online, perhaps even because it is: a lot of the work kids do is apprehending the social world, and for them, much of this work is done online.

Less restrictions more responsibility 

The important thing is to give kids the ability to handle choices, assess risks, and take strategic, or calculated risks. You want, in other words, to create the kid who can handle the Internet without you. And how can they become that kid if you are watching them all the time, if you are always hovering right there next to them? You don't just throw a 5-year-old out on the streets and tell them to figure it all out. The same is true online. But, accordingly, you can't expect to put them under surveillance and control every action they make until they're 18 and then magically assume they'll be fine at university, and the world 'beyond school' (I dislike the use of 'real world' to describe life outside school—school life is real life too!) when they haven't had any experience managing their own decisions.

Pain is a powerful teacher

Pain is a powerful teacher, sure, it's not kind, but it certainly is effective. Parents need to face up to the idea that they cannot protect their children from every potential negative experience, online, or offline, this is an impossible fantasy; there is no way to seal your children off from awful or painful or frightening things. This is nothing new, think back to your own childhood, bad things happened, you got over it, hopefully you learned something from it.

A caveat...

With great power comes great responsibility, not anonymity

A huge part of responsibility means ceasing the dubious practice by many, well meaning, but poorly informed parents, of allowing their kids to create social networking accounts in anonymity, based on the notion that this somehow protects their child. STOP! All this does is remove all responsibility, and in far too many cases actively encourages irresponsibility, as far too many children wreak havoc online from behind the veneer of a name like Puff the magic Dragon, with an Avatar of an aardvark or ... a pineapple ... or, you get the idea... Like no paedophile has ever thought of doing that? It is important to note here that online predators are far less likely to be paedophiles, and far more likely to be your child's own 'friends' and acquaintances. All you've done is encourage a situation where your anonymous child is forced to socialise with other anonymous people online, strangers, because they are similarly anonymous, oh, but they SAY they are your child's best friend ... . If you're going to let your kid 'play outside'; make sure they are playing as themselves, no disguises, no anonymity, their name, their face, and they should make sure to only socialise with people who do likewise.

The point, is not to create a safe world, but a safer world. 

Tim Elmore wrote an article more recently on this subject,  Three Huge Mistakes We Make Leading Kids…and How to Correct Them - a great article, and again, if you will permit me, it can be summed up similarly and thus:

Over-protection is damaging our children—

We Risk Too Little

“If you’re over 30, you probably walked to school, played on the monkey bars, and learned to high-dive at the public pool. If you’re younger, it’s unlikely you did any of these things. Yet, has the world become that much more dangerous? Statistically, no. But our society has created pervasive fears about letting kids be independent—and the consequences for our kids are serious.” (Gever Tully)

The truth is, kids need to fall a few times to learn it is normal; teens likely need to break up with a boyfriend or girlfriend to appreciate the emotional maturity that lasting relationships require. Pain is actually a necessary teacher. Over-protecting our young people has had an adverse effect on them, we are failing miserably at preparing them for a world that will not be risk-free.

We Rescue Too Quickly

This generation of young people has not developed some of the life skills kids did thirty years ago because adults swoop in and take care of problems for them. We remove the need for them to navigate hardships. This may sound harsh, but rescuing and over-indulging our children is one of the most insidious forms of child abuse. It’s “parenting for the short-term” and it sorely misses the point of leadership [parenting]—to equip our young people to do it without help. Just like muscles atrophy inside of a cast due to disuse, their social, emotional, spiritual and intellectual muscles can shrink because they’re not exercised.

We Rave too Easily

Praise effort and persistence, not ability. Carol Dweck (Mindset) tells us that our affirmation of kids must target factors in their control. When we say “you must have worked hard,” we are praising effort, which they have full control over. It tends to elicit more effort. When we praise ability 'you're smart/clever/awesome!', it may provide a little confidence at first but ultimately causes a child to work less. They say to themselves, “If it doesn’t come easy, I don’t want to do it.”

A helpful metaphor when considering this challenge is inoculation. Inoculation injects a vaccine, which actually exposes you to a dose of the very disease your body must learn to overcome. It’s a good thing. Only then do we develop an immunity to it. Similarly, our kids must be inoculated with doses of hardship, delay, challenges and inconvenience to build the strength to stand in them.

So let them fail, let them fall, and let them fight for what they really value. If we treat our kids as fragile, they will surely grow up to be fragile adults. We must prepare them for the world that awaits them. Our world needs resilient adults not fragile ones.

Digital Disorganisation & Parenting

Messy bedroom via zmeed.info

What does a messy bedroom got to do with digital organisation? And well might you wonder, well, more than you might think. I work with students throughout the college, or maybe a more accurate term might be nag, the digital equivalent of:

‘Tidy your room!’

'How do you find anything in here?’ 

‘Pick up after yourself!’ 

You get the idea. 

If you were to follow me around you'd hear exhortations along similar lines, only in relation to the state of student laptops, particularly the dreaded desktop. 

What does this have to do with parents? 

The problem I regularly encounter is that whereas most of our students can rely on their parents to be effective role models—for example in terms of their expectations about the tidiness of their children's bedrooms—this is rarely the case with the organisation of their parent’s computers. And that’s a problem; as parents you are in a much better position to model effective organisation than your children’s teachers. Ultimately what we’re really talking about here, isn't bedrooms or desktops, it's about mindset, just because the context is digital/virtual doesn’t mean it’s not as important.

Now I realise that as parents, if you’re around my age (most of my 40s already in the rear view mirror) and many of you are, you have an excuse; you probably didn’t even use a computer with a desktop operating system until you were in your 20s and 30s, and even then you probably had to figure it out for yourself. Hence the reason for this post, allow me to outline the fundamental expectations we have for all of our students who use a laptop, and by extension the fundamental we have in terms of expectations for teachers and parents as well; every time you open up your laptop you're sending a message to whoever you're with, the question is, are you being a good role model, or do you need to 'tidy your room'?

The Fundamental 4

There are lots of aspects to digital organisation, but the four that are most essential, and that also happen to be synergetic, ie all four are codependent, are:

1. Any browser you use should be connected to an associated cloud service, with Chrome that's Google, but all the main browsers provide this service free of charge. Once connected, all the files you depend on should be not be strewn all over your desktop, but should be stored, and organised online (2. & 3.) or/and in a place where they are constantly and instantly backed up to a secure online storage such as Google Drive, Dropbox, Microsoft OneDrive, and iCloud to name but a few. 

4. All of the websites you rely on to function effectively from day to day should be organised along the bookmark bar of your preferred browser, one that is also connected and synchronised to a cloud account, so that those bookmarks, stored in folders, are backed up, and accessible in any other device that you use. 

The Essential Tech Slide Deck: bit.ly/uwctechdeck

Be a role model of digital organisation

Using the slide deck above, this is the exact same deck that teachers, and mentors, and advisors across the college show to our students, you can do more to support your child's efficient organisation than we ever can, so what are you waiting for? Go tidy your room!

All you need to do is commit 10 minutes a day, until you have the fundamental four covered, then once you've recovered from the blissful sense of catharsis, move on to the others...

Now you can rest assured that you no longer need to just nag your kids to pick up after themselves, and tidy up their bedroom, but also that they need to clear out their desktops, tidy up their drive and organise their bookmarks as well!  :)

The Fundamental Four!

The Fundamental 4

The Essential Tech Slide Deck: bit.ly/uwctechdeck

There are lots of aspects to digital organisation, but the four that are most essential, and that also happen to be synergetic, ie all four are codependent, are:

1. Get Connected

Open up the Chrome Browser, then click in the little icon in the top right corner and sign in to Chrome. Sign in with your account details and agree to Link data when prompted. 

This means that everything you do with account is continually synchronised with your Google 'cloud' online, so if you lose your laptop, and have to either use a loaner or start with a new one, as soon as you sign in a sync—voila—everything in your Google life will reappear in seconds. Note, this just synchronises your browser content, files on your hard drive will not be backed up, to do this you'll need Backup & Sync*.

2. Organise your Drive

Open up the Chrome Browser, and go to your Google Drive online. Make sure you have folders created for all subject areas. You might want to add a folder for your own personal files, but remember, your drive is a school space, not your personal space.

There should only be folders in your drive, no loose files. If you have files from previous years that are making a mess, just create a folder called Archive (if you haven't already) and drop them in.

3. Desktop (almost) Zero: Drive it or Dump it. 

Your desktop is not a good place to keep your files—it makes them handy, but once they build up it comes very difficult to find anything. Worse, if you have any problems, none of those files are safe, so make sure any files you do have their a strictly temporary. Like the desk in your classroom, at the end of the lesson, make a decision; drive it (move it to your drive) or dump it (move it to the bin). Now you have your Drive synchronized this is as easy as a drag and drop, or within the Finder. 

4. Bookmarks on the Browser Bar, Trim your Tabs

All of the websites you rely on to function effectively from day to day should be organised along the bookmark bar. Make sure you are signed in so these are all synchronised to your cloud account. That means that those bookmarks, stored in folders, are backed up, and accessible on any other device that you sign in to.

Too many Tabs 

Too many open tabs is a symptom of poor bookmark organisation, if you know you can easily find any page you need in you bookmarks, you don't need to have 50 tabs open 'just in case'. If the site matters, then bookmark it, if not then close it if you don't need it now; an easy to do this is just use command+w to close any tab you have open.

To quickly close loads of tabs, just control click on a tab and choose one of the options, like Close Other Tabs!

Less than 10 tabs is ideal

This many tabs is unmanageable, and bad for you! 

(While you're there why not quit the apps you're not using and close any open windows as well?)

bit.ly/fundamental4

Internet Filtering & Parental Controls

I am regularly contacted by parents for advice about software they can install on the devices their children use at home that will enable them to filter out or block inappropriate content, usually based on the assumption that we must use some sort of monitoring software on campus. Often these parents are surprised to discover that while we do have filters to block the most egregious of content, it is fair to say that our college filters are not as strict as many might expect. We do use a commercial filter on our internet traffic to block inappropriate sites, however, such filters work on the basis of keywords and blacklists and neither of these methods are foolproof. So why do we take the risk?

Our college policy regarding parental controls goes a long way to explaining this:

In general the College has an ethos of developing personal responsibility in students and ultimately we believe that it is essential for students to develop the skills and attitudes necessary to survive and then thrive in a digitally connected world.

The sentiment behind this policy statement is very similar to the description of 'e-safety' as defined by Becta:

The term e-safety covers a broad range of issues around the need to ensure that children's and young people's experience and engagement with technologies is a safe and positive one. While parents, educators, government and industry all have a role to play in keeping children and young people safe, supporting them to become independent in online environments is critical to nationwide, effective e-safety. ‘Independence' does not mean here that they are expected to deal with every incident themselves: it means that they develop social skills (including resilience); that they know how to identify and manage risk; that they understand their rights and responsibilities and know how to access help and advice if needed. (Becta's Contribution to the Rose Review, 2009)

When we teach our kids how to use the internet, we do so from a position of preparing them for the 'real world' of internet access that most will encounter at home. While there are a minority of families who use some form of filtering software, the reality is that few families have internet filters of any kind on their home connections. This is not a criticism, I have not installed any filtering software at home either. This situation reflects the norm in my experience, a norm that we need to be teaching our students to operate effectively and responsibly within.  For example, you cannot guarantee that even walking down Orchard Road you are not going to see images or overhear a conversation that you feel is inappropriate for your children. So in addition to the filters, arguably, more important than filters is the need to teach our children the skills they need to navigate the internet safely, and how to react appropriately if, or should I say, when something occurs.

This policy very much underpins our approach and throughout the Primary School, where, even from K2 (in K1 teachers use Guided Access), all students are effectively 'administrators' of their devices. This applies all the way through the iPad grades (K1-G3), and then on through from Grade 4-5. All students receive their own laptop in G6, where we leave the decision about admin controls up to parents, although we encourage parents to make their child admin if at all possible—or at least to try it. From G7—all the way through to grade 12 we expect all students to have admin rights on their laptop. This means that for most of their school years our students are already accustomed to using and managing their laptops as an 'administrator' whether or not they were even aware of this, which is possible, as we treat this as a 'normal' operating environment. This is an arrangement we encourage all parents to maintain, unless of course a situation arises where you feel that you need to withdraw the privilege of an admin account, in this (hopefully rare) situation, we encourage parents to ensure that this is a temporary arrangement.

"Nearly half of 10 year olds say they have the skills to hide what they're doing online from their parents." (Sky News, Swipe, 2017)

It's worth noting as a practical point, that the process of imposing parental controls is not a simple one, this is mainly because the process of setting the 'tightness' and 'looseness' of controls is a tricky balance to find. If your main concern is distraction rather than access to inappropriate content, there are a range of strategies we encourage at school that you can also model at home, and encourage your children to practise as well. The other critical consideration is that if you are not very careful, you could end up effectively creating an unhelpful dynamic where you effectively teach your child that they are not trusted, at which point you may well be encouraging them to find ways to subvert your attempts at policing their online activity, then when they do encounter problems they are unlikely to come to you for help as they will have to confess their nefarious scheme... For more see this short video on the 'the secret cyber life of young people'...

Road Safe, Web Safe

This is where the analogy of road safety that we use with students comes in. Roads in every country are commonplace, and at some point everyone of our children will need to learn how to navigate them safely and independently. The same can be said of the 'wild wild web'; like roads they are a modern and essential reality, and while they can be dangerous, they shouldn't be treated is if they are inherently dangerous places—although they can be very dangerous places. The solution to both is very similar: education and supervision. Like roads, we expect kids to be able to navigate the web from an early age, but never alone; although any wise parent should be modelling for their kids how they navigate the web, when they are using it together. Just like road safety, there are some basic rules we expect all young children to follow, to make these effective we've kept them simple:

1. Only search the internet with a responsible adult present.
2. If you see something that makes you uncomfortable, show the responsible adult.
3. If you need to search online unsupervised, use a search engine designed for kids like Kiddle or Safe Search Kids.

About point 3, we liken these 'child safe' search engines to playgrounds, spaces that are designed especially for children, this doesn't make them harmless, after all, kids in playgrounds can still get hurt, but it does make the likelihood of this less likely. In the same way we liken searching using Google as tantamount to walking down Orchard Road, not an inherently dangerous space per se, especially in Singapore; but clearly the possibility of encountering something or someone inappropriate is more likely. As children we did not grow up with the dangers of the internet, but we did grow up with dangers, and our parents, in my experience were quite comfortable with allowing us some controlled exposure to risk situations, precisely so we could learn from them. I fell out of several trees, and off several bicycles during my childhood, not to mention the stairs I fell down. Stairs, now those are really dangerous, but I doubt anyone is seriously considering preventing children from using those... So we're not looking to create a zero risk environment for our students, but a managed risk environment, this distinction is essential. This last point is one I've written about before, but a recent article from the Washington Post, entitled, 'Why I don't monitor my kids' texts anymore' does an excellent job of articulating this tension, along with some practical parenting advice.

"As a young and socially inexperienced person, I was sometimes mean, sometimes gross, and sometimes way out of line. Every kid tests his or her own boundaries. That’s how they start to grow up. The queasiness in my stomach or the ache in my heart when I crossed that line is what helped me learn from those mistakes. 

When we hover over our kids’ social interactions, on high alert to catch each mistake and steer them back on course, we squelch their internal barometer for embarrassment and guilt. Had my mom listened to all my conversations and called my behavior out into the light, I might not have learned to read my moral compass."

This does beg the question, "at what age is it okay for my child to browse the internet unsupervised?', and the answer is very similar to "at what age is it okay for my child to cross the road unsupervised?", which is, when you have taught them how to navigate it safely, and what to do if things go wrong. In my experience this is unlikely to be until grade 4 or 5, which is, incidentally, when students are allowed to make their own way home (with parental permission, of course).

Not all families or children are the same, and the home environment is not one that is necessarily conducive to ensuring that young children are never able to go online unsupervised. Given that our policy is to teach responsibility, we'd like to think that even if unsupervised, our students would still make the 'right choice' and either stay offline (working within an app for example) or use one of the child safe search engines that they are encouraged to use in school.  However there are clearly scenarios where this is not a realistic option, in which case you may want to consider some digital tools that can assist with this, but bear in mind these are unlikely to be free if they're any good, for example a one year family subscription to Azoomee costs £40, " No ads, no in-app purchases. And a PIN lock to keep kids inside the app and take away the worries."

As of iOS 12, all iOS devices (iPhone, iPad) now have built in options for parents to monitor/restrict screen time.

When you open Screen Time for the first time, you can specify if you are a parent setting up an account for a child. Then you set a parent passcode that will be required to alter the Screen Time settings. From your device, you can also select “Set Up Screen Time for Family” to set up Screen Time with Family Sharing. You’ll be able to access your child’s Screen Time reports and set controls from your own device. When a child reaches the end of a time limit on the app, they can request more time; the request pops up as a notification on the parent’s device. 

Finally, Screen Time allows parents to set restrictions on downloads, privacy, and other settings. By default, Apple won't set these restrictions, even if it knows it's a kid's phone. Parents will have to manually make these adjustments in Screen Time > Content & Privacy Restrictions. (Wired Magazine) 

This article contains some very practical advice, over and above the 'unplug the router' (one I have to say I like; simple but effective!) strategy, along with some wise caveats,

"While we can certainly recommend a bunch of apps and devices for you, this is more about your approach than the tools you’re going to use. Kids generally don’t like being spied on and dislike being spied on without their knowledge even more. While a number of monitoring tools can run without children knowing about them, we strongly recommend being transparent with your kids about when and how you’re tracking them. 

You know your kids better than we do, and we can’t prescribe the right approach for every type of child, but whatever your situation it pays to be open and honest about the dangers out there on the web and in the real world."  (David Nield)

Five Filters of Failure & a Scale of Scepticism

 

It's not the unrelenting torrent of information that I find troubling, after all, how many books are out there, never mind films and TV shows? How many articles, journals, newspapers, magazines? How many hard copies are holed up in folders, files, cabinets, archives and dusty basements all over the planet? Many I am sure, and yet no one ever complains about this sheer weight of data, I've never heard anyone complain,

"Dude, I just don't want read another book, there are just way too many out there, like, y'know? Like, if I read one a week for the rest of my life, I still wouldn't come even close, y'know?"

And yet, so often I hear this pointless observation made about the web, so yeah there's a lot of data, that's nothing new, the 'information revolution' proceeded the 'digital revolution' by at least a half a century—World Wide Web 1989, Libraries have been around for a lot longer... But even in 1945 library expansion was calculated to double in capacity every 16 years*, if sufficient space were made available... so there's been a lot of data for a long time; all we need to do is learn to deal with it. Literally.

So, the fire hydrant image below, while clever, I relate to more on the level of tech tool overload. Seriously, every gathering of tech types I ever attend is dominated by tech tool talk, new Web 2.0 tools, new gadgets, widgets, scripts, plugins, apps, features, software suite, usually accompanied by a lot of references to them being AWESOME.

Larry Cuban uses a list to help articulate this tension in his seminal publication 'Oversold and Underused' (2001) which reads as follows:

• Is the machine or software program simple enough for me to learn quickly?
• Is it versatile, that is, can it be used in more than one situation?
• Will the program motivate my students?
• Does the program contain skills that are connected to what I am expected to teach?
• Are the machine and software reliable?
• If the system breaks down, is there someone else who will fix it?
• Will the amount of time I have to invest in learning to use the system yield a comparable return in student learning? (p170)

Cuban L (2001). Oversold and underused: computers in the classroom. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press.

So imagine my delight when I stumbled up on the most magnificent scepticism dial, or what I prefer to call... the Scale of Scepticism.

In order for me to assimilate a new digital tool to the point of actually recommending it to teachers to use with students, it has to have passed through my own series of stages, along the lines of:

Stage 1 – utter scepticism (yeah, whatever)

Stage 2 – cool reticence (arms folded)

Stage 3 – emerging realisation that, actually, this might be worth a closer look (sitting up)

Stage 4 – mild interest, even emerging (muted) enthusiasm (leaning forward)

Stage 5 – semi-excitement (standing up)

Stage 6 – fervour, obsessive exploration (squeezing through to the front)

Stage 7 – passionate commitment and desire to talk to everyone about it, to the marked irritation of, well, everyone (evangelistic zeal)

The only problem is I needed something more succinct, more ... manageable, I could feel the threads of my sanity slipping, and I needed something simpler to accompany my next foray into techdom.

And thus emerged ... 5 Filters of Failure, now these were mainly conceived in the context of iOS devices, due to their increasing presence in my school, these have somewhat preoccupied my mind of late, but I do believe these 5 filters can be applied more generally:

1. Do this require me to do the same thing more than 5 times? Like tedious account creation for each student? Do kids have to sign in/create an account to use it?
2. Is it transformational? Yeah, it's cool, but does it radically change what I can do? Is it too similar to something I already use?
3. Does it have pedigree? Reputation. How long has it been around? Is it tried and tested? How are they making money? If it is 'free' then how likely is that is will be here in 4 weeks? 4 months? 4 years? Or even if it is, will it still be free (unlikely)? Often the pricing from free to paid (once they think you are committed) is ridiculous, ie from 0 to $10 USD per student. 
4. Is it well designed, simple to use? Can kids use this independently? Can Teachers work it out on their own? Is it intuitive?
5. Can the content be exported/shared easily? Can the App save to camera roll? Export to a universal format? Does it require web access to function, so if WiFi is sketchy the activity fails?

Dealing with the Deluge

This set of filters is essential in the management a phenomenal proliferation of digital tools. On, literally, a daily basis, more tools with funky and not so funky names emerge into a market place already filled to overflowing with a veritable cornucopia of competitors. If you're fortunate, your school hopefully already has a dedicated tech integrator to stand between the teacher and the tsunami wave of digital applications, utilities and all sorts of 'Apps' boasting their pixelated promises to 'save you time' etc.

And if you don't? Then by all means ignore these 'wonders of the web' until you do. Yes, sometimes lurking in the sludge of similarity (and revolutionary? not really...) is the odd golden nugget of greatness, but it's not going to terribly affect your teaching to miss out on those. If that is not an option for you, then arm yourself with these filters and, like the prospector who wades through the mediocre, seeking to route out all except the most worthy, you can then bring the odd truly terrific tool triumphantly back to your team. Not that they will be as excited about as you will be. Yet.

Now it doesn't have to fail all 5 filters to fail, but the more filters it fails, the less interest I have in taking it seriously, I can honestly say that all of the tools I rely on currently all pass at least 4 of the 5 filters. Will these filters change? Absolutely, I'm constantly reconsidering/tweaking/adjusting them—like the cornucopia of competing tools they are designed to filter they need to be flexible; after all there were four filters of failure only a year ago.

1. Setup requirements
2. Similarity
3. Reputation/pedigree/funding
4. Simplicity
5. Ease of Export 

These are my filters

There may be many like them, but these are mine.

The question is... What are yours?

 *Rider (1944). The Scholar and the Future of the Research Library. New York City: Hadham Press.

Traffic Light Highlighting

 

Highlighting texts that we read is a commonplace strategy utilised by many people especially when working with more complex/academic texts that are generally more difficult to understand, and are often being read with a specific focus in mind usually one that will result in some sort of academic reflection in the form of a written report of some kind. Unfortunately the research on this is less than favourable to put it mildly.... specifically that highlighting as a strategy is extremely ineffective despite its popularity...

Improving students’ learning with effective learning techniques: Promising directions from cognitive and educational psychology. (2013)

“Students already are familiar with and spontaneously adopt the technique of highlighting; the problem is that the way the technique is typically implemented is not effective.
...
Given students’ enthusiasm for highlighting and underlining (or perhaps over-enthusiasm, given that students do not always use the technique correctly), discovering fail-proof ways to ensure that this technique is used effectively might be easier than convincing students to abandon it entirely in favor of other techniques.” p21, Donesky et al (2013) 

This of course begs the question as to exactly what an effective technique for highlighting could look like, fortunately the authors of the study are happy to help (emphasis mine):

“Marked text draws the reader’s attention, but additional processing should be required if the reader has to decide which material is most important. Such decisions require the reader to think about the meaning of the text and how its different pieces relate to one another (i.e., organisational processing; Hunt & Worthen, 2006)
...
More generally, the quality of the highlighting is likely crucial to whether it helps students to learn, but unfortunately, many studies have not contained any measure of the amount or the appropriateness of students’ highlighting. Those studies that have examined the amount of marked text have found great variability in what students actually mark, with some students marking almost nothing and others marking almost everything.” (Ibid)

 

So the key here is “discrimination between important and trivial information” and to highlight as little as possible, as it’s the criticality of the selections that facilitate effective engagement with the text. An effective strategy will “improve student retention of knowledge as essential for reaching other instructional objectives; if one does not remember core ideas, facts, or concepts, applying them may prove difficult, if not impossible.” ... “the important interplay between memory for a concept on one hand and the ability to comprehend and apply it on the other.” (Ibid)

 

Experience

When I first encountered this research I was somewhat taken aback as this didn’t jibe with my own experience, anyone who knows me knows that I have a reputation for remembering what I read, and I read a great deal, particularly academic articles, but the reason I remember what I read it because I am an avid notetaker, but those notes are very much structured around a highlighting strategy.  But when I read into the research it is apparent that what I’m doing isn’t what they are criticising... The strategies are use when highlighting very much represent the types of efficacy outlined above, so please allow me to introduce to ... (drum roll please) Traffic Light Highlighting.

 

 

Traffic Light Highlighting

As you read, make critical selections of text using either yellow, green, or red highlighter. *

Green for content you strongly agree/resonate with, red for the opposite of that, and yellow for content which is interesting/useful/informative. 

 

In terms of engagement combining this highlighting with note taking is essential, this is particularly true of text highlighted in greens and red.  

Stanford professor Candace Thille has some very helpful advice in this CNBC article,

“Just highlighting something doesn’t commit it better somehow to your memory.”

Instead of mindlessly underlining something you want to learn, Thille suggests finding important information and paraphrasing it in language that makes sense to you.

"If you thought that point was important, try and restate it in your own words," she says. "Try and make sense of out it because you're not really trying to commit it to memory, you're trying to extract meaning out of it."

So where there is green text I am summarising what it is about that text that I find to be so helpful. But it’s the red text that causes my students the most confusion—they just cannot understand why I would want to focus so closely on information that I don’t agree with; but as I explain to them, that kind of content is arguably the most useful, particularly when you’re expected to demonstrate critical thought about the text.

For critical thinking it’s important to seek out information that is not in alignment with our current views, this is where the questions lie, where the opportunities for learning are the richest. At the very least it ensures that you’re not just constructing and maintaining your own 'filter bubble'. The red text assists with embrace uncertainty, seeking out the complexity of disparate perspectives.
 

Depending on the nature of the paper that you’re reading you should find that red highlights should be relatively rare—few and far between. The example I have included below is from a paper that I found to be particularly contentious, but as a general rule I would expect in many papers not have any red text at all and where there is red text, it’s probably one or two sentences in the entire paper. 

Notice the notes.... that's engagement.

Green - Judgement: agreement  endorsement
Yellow - Factual/informative/interesting/noteworthy
Red - Judgement: disagreement/contention

Blue?

Some of my students have adapted this highlighting strategy for their own purposes, something I enthusiastically encourage. One student in particular uses blue text; they use this to highlight text which they personally find difficult to understand—primarily because of their lack of familiarity with the content. This is an interesting perspective, and one I think still lends itself to the kind of critical engagement that the experts encourages in order for a highlighting strategy to be truly useful. 

 

References

Dunlosky J, Rawson KA, Marsh, EJ, Nathan MJ, & Willingham DT. (2013). Improving students’ learning with effective learning techniques: Promising directions from cognitive and educational psychology. Psychological Science in the Public Interest, 14(1), 4-58. 

Hess A. (2017). These 5 hacks can help you learn anything, according to a Stanford professor. CNBC. Retrieved October 19, 2020, from https://www.cnbc.com/2017/10/17/5-hacks-to-help-you-learn-anything-from-a-stanford-professor.html

 

* I personally prefer to use a digital tool for this as it avoids printing  (especially for the paper eyesight to support this post which was in excess of 50 pages), and affords me the range of colours I require, but also allows me to easily clarify the meaning of certain terms which especially with academic papers is quite common. An added bonus is that it’s also very easy to view a synopsis of all the content in the paper that has been highlighted or annotated at a glance, and the search function is particularly powerful when referring back to research that you may not have read recently and need to review.

Video Games & Playgrounds

One of the most profound shifts in terms of childhood in a digital age, is the rise of online gaming. Once the preserve of teenage and tween geeks and nerds in darkened LAN rooms, now it is a common pastime for younger children, certainly many of our Junior School children regularly engage in these pursuits as a regular pastime. This is not a post about whether or not this kind of activity is one we should encourage, (I think we should) that is a subject I have written about elsewhere, and present a parent workshop about gaming every year. No, this is about providing some advice for the many parents who, for whatever reason, have kids who like to play online.

There is a growing collection of video games that fall into the category of multiplayer online game, from Clash of Clans to Club Penguin, to Minecraft, Roblox and Overwatch, and many more.

21st Century Playgrounds

As is often the case these days/this century, parents and teachers often find themselves faced with trying to relate to a child, whose normative childhood experience bears little resemblance to their own, but let me reassure you—while the medium has changed—the message and the meaning, and the opportunities and obstacles that surround group play have not.

The main place and space you are likely to encounter this is at home, as playing video games in class is generally not something kids will have time to do. There may be exceptions, eg possibly as a one off iTime project, but even then, the objective of creating something that they are accountable for in terms of achievement would need to be paramount. This is the stance we take with these kinds of gaming experiences, like Minecraft and Roblox. That said of course, there may be teachers who find this to be a useful strategy as a reward for hard work for example. If so they will take the necessary precautions, just as they would if sending kids to play on the playground.

Safe Play

When it comes to games for kids, Roblox is a great game, just like its progenitor Minecraft, however—as with all making, creating, playing, social experiences there is always the potential for inappropriate use, and experiences, whether the playground is virtual or actual. The solution, much as we would advocate for any 'multi-player' 'off screen' play—from playing tag or handball, to playing football, to swimming or having a sleepover, is to make sure there a​re​ clear parameters, and appropriate supervision, to ensure that we are minimising the likelihood of potentially harmful or unpleasant encounters.

Online maker spaces like Roblox and Minecraft are unique in terms of the sheer potential they offer in terms of unbridled creativity, and are also very familiar in terms of their potentials and pitfalls.

With all of these kinds of games the same safeguards we would have applied to playgrounds as children apply, ie be aware of the other people who are playing in this online arena or space, and the extent to which this space is effectively supervised, or moderated. If, as kids, we had been permitted to play unsupervised at nearby playground (I was, in London in the 70s, that seemed to be quite normal). We would have taken appropriate action if, for example, there were bullies in the playground, making life miserable for everyone. The same is true of these online spaces, which are very much similar to playgrounds, only on a screen, instead of in a park.

Safeguards

The developers behind games like Roblox and Minecraft are very aware of this, and design in safeguards for children, but this only works if the child has been honest about their age when creating the account, whether it's a Roblox account, or an Instagram account. Whenever a child creates an online account, like any other internet account, it's important that they set these up with the parent, or with the parents permission, otherwise they can 'accidentally' end up effectively creating an account for adults which could result in their being exposed to content that is inappropriate. Ideally a teacher or parent should be involved in the account setup and in ensuring that the child plays/uses the account responsibly—this is a skill that will serve them w​e​ll for the rest of their lives, in all sorts of online environments.

Roblox, for example, have a very clear commitment to safeguarding children; but it can be all too easy for children to create adult accounts, thereby effectively bypass any and all safeguards that would automatically be applied in the case of younger children. This usually happens if a child 'accidentally' enters the 'wrong' year of birth when registering their account, then the system assumes that are older than 13. In the event that this happens, my advice is for the parent to have a close look at the child's account settings, if Roblox or Minecraft knows that a user is under 13 there are a slew of safeguards that will be applied to the account to ensure the child's welfare, eg:

"For users age 12 and under, however, we take extra precaution to ensure their safety and privacy by automatically enforcing more restricted settings so they can only directly message other users that are accepted as friends on Roblox." 

"Players age 12 and younger have locked privacy settings to prevent contact from people they don't know. These players must first become friends with another user before certain activities are allowed, such as messaging, following into game, and playing in private servers."

Have Fun!

There are advocates in some quarters who encourage parents to join their child and play with them, to be honest, I think you'll find that most kids are less than enthusiastic about this idea.... Would you play tag, or have a sleepover with your kids and their friends? Probably not, so why would online play be any different?

Last but not least, the best thing you can do as a parent is be consistent; online and offline play are rich experiences that are enjoyable and highly beneficial provided some basic precautions are followed; for more on the potential benefits of gaming, see the following on video games as 'sandboxes'.

Desktop Zero - 4 compelling reasons to make this an essential habit

Yes, this is mine. No I did not cheat, well maybe one folder... 

You don't need me to tell you that your environment affects your productivity. Since a great deal of our work is now done with a screen, it stands to reason that your desktop environment can play an important role in your productivity. Seriously can you really look me in the monitor and tell me that you'd rather work on a desktop that looks like, this?

Messy Desktop by RuthOrtiz

Five Reasons to Change

There are plenty of reasons for making the effort to aim for 'desktop zero', I'll attempt to lay out a handful for you here:

It is Irresponsible. 

Desktop etiquette—every teacher is a role model, and as a teacher, every time you share your desktop with your students, you demonstrate to them the kinds of organisational and work habits you expect them to imitate. 

Everytime we share a cluttered desktop with a class, or even with parents, we effectively also share our inability to self manage, our lack of organisation, perseverance, diligence, need I go on? The biggest problem is that all of these behaviours are built on bad habits, but these are bad habits I see teachers (and parents) passing on to their children every day.

It is Insecure.

Ironically one of the most common reasons I hear for storing files on the desktop, is their critical importance, 'those are files I need, and I can't afford to lose them...' Really? Because unless you are in the habit of fastidiously backing up your Mac with Time Machine, like every day (in which case you are probably already at Desktop Zero, or close enough), you run the risk of losing it all, one hard drive failure, and that's it, all gone. Desktop files, are the most common space/place where data is lost in my experience. If those files had been placed in a Google Drive folder (or DropBox) then they would have been safe. literally every edit, backed up, in real time—but nothing on your desktop (and your students, if they're imitating you) is being backed up to the cloud, nothing.

Top Tip -  on the Mac, you can create an Alias (right click, or command+option drag and drop) from any 'buried' folder/file so there is a shortcut or alias of it on the desktop, it acts just like the real thing (the parent folder) but with the advantage that it's really ensconced safely within a cloud backed up folder. 

It is Inefficient.

Your computer's desktop is a starting point for your entire computing experience, but—like anything else—if you let it get cluttered your productivity will take a dive, and your stress levels will rise; few things are as frustrating as you or our students not being able to find that file exactly when you/they need it, especially if that entails creating it again... and again... Next time you save a file to the desktop, wouldn't it be nice to be able to find it immediately, and not have to engage and a insanity inducing game of 'Where's Wally'. That's a game I have to aly almost every say that I work with a teacher on a desktop like ... that *shudders*

Clean-desk-high-productivity-toblender.com [modified]

It literally impedes

Because of the way OS X's GUI (graphical user interface) works, the icons on your desktop take up a lot more of your resources than you may realise... Just remember that every single icon on your desktop is actually a small transparent window with graphics (the icon) inside, so if you have, say, 100 icons on your desktop you have 100 windows open, each one stealing memory. And no, dumping them all in folder doesn't really help much, the fact that there is 2764 files in ONE folder, still means that OS X will still have trouble handling one folder with that many files in it..

Computer Desktop & Table Desktop

When we work with students on this, we are attempting to inculcate good habits, habits that will last a lifetime, one such habit is to work from desktop zero, an analogy we find helpful is for them to treat their computer desktop the same as they treat their table desktop in their classroom, as busy as it can get in the course of a normal working day, every day before they go home they are expected to return that space to what is effectively desktop zero 'IRL' (in real life). Everything gets put in it's right place, whether they have finished with that project or not, it goes in the appropriate folder. The difference being with computers being that you can actually work in files while they are in the folder, there's no need to take it out, and so need to put it back, this is why Desktop zero on a computer is easier than desktop IRL. In the same way when you place a folder in the appropriate folder (in Google Drive in the Finder) you can leave it there, and work on it while it is in there.

So, with this in mind, you shift your conception of the role of the desktop, the desktop becomes a temporary, easy to locate, grab, upload, rename "I need it in ten minutes or so" dumping ground. I only use my desktop as a temporary holding place for files I'm working with. Nothing remains there past the end of the day.

Cluttered desk via abcnews.com (Getty Images)

Upgrade Your Workflow

In actual fact the desktop is a folder, it's just a folder that you start from, and while it can function as a storage folder, as so many people have unfortunately proven, that is not its purpose. It was only created as an allegory so people would have something analog to relate the new digital experience to, just like the trash can in the corner‚we don't really keep tiny trash cans on the corner of our table tops, but it functions as an approximate analogy. And like most analogies, it has it's limits. One way forward is to start working the way you do when you use an iPad or similar device. 

New OSes like iOS and Android have thankfully ditched the "file icon sandbox" idea. The only things you are presented with when you look at your device is a launchpad for apps and services. Your data is invisible and agnostic and available only when you are in a program that knows how to display or use it, and you know what it works just fine, no clutter. 

Become more app oriented and less file oriented

In iOS, if you're working on a file, you start by opening the App, then you locate the file from within that App, well the exact same method work on the desktop. Working on a word document? Don't look for the file first, open Word, then you will easily find any recent files in the recent files view. All you need to is drop down the menu bar 2 spaces from Open, to Open Recent—there that's not so hard is it?

Open Recent, don't just Open.

You will find the same feature in any application you use. Trust me. These are conventions that are cross-platform, that means you will be able to take advantage of this workflow no matter what computer or platform you ever use. Invest in now, and you will reap the rewards the rest of your life.

File less, search and sort more

I've written about this already here, spend less time creating and organising folders (although that is important too) and make sure you name your files with keywords you can search for. On all your devices now instant search is everywhere, and on your Mac, you can search in literally any folder you open, from 'All my Files' to 'Documents' if it's in there, somewhere, search will find it, regardless of the folder it's in, but that's no use if the file is called 'Untitled.doc' or "Screen Shot 2015-03-14 at 5.38.12 am". Rename it, then move it.

Sort out your Sorting

When you have a bunch of files on display in your finder, make sure you take advantage of the button which lets you 'change item arrangement' pick whatever option will make it easiest to move the files you want to the top - I personally find the 'Date modified' to be the most useful, but there are options there for everyone.

Illustration by Ben Wiseman via nytimes

Don't procrastinate you can do it today!

The solution is not to just create another folder (which is actually inside the folder which is the desktop) and dump them all in there, it just means you've buried the problem. By all means dump all the files in a (cloud connected) folder (or 3 or 4), just make sure you've deleted the files you won't need again, and give the ones you do need a name you can search for. Once you've done that you'll probably find there are 'themes' forming that lend themselves to folders, but don't let that be an excuse to procrastinate, as you can always change your mind later, computers are convenient like that... 

Clean desk[top] policy via awanbee.com