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The first step would be to identify the undesired behavior you wish to change. The next steps are the trickiest and depends on many factors. This include developing a conscious and deliberate plan which includes 1) the ultimate goal, benchmarks (smaller more obtainable goals to reach the ultimate goal), 2) the steps to the first benchmark, 3) the rewards to reinforce desired reactions which approach the steps to the first benchmark, and 4) the criteria to use to mark progress. It may be helpful to work with a partner (someone else with the same phobia or undesired behavior) as a support person or a mentor (someone who has done it or has some counseling background). This is a very difficult strategy to accomplish alone. Reinforce the positive steps away from the undesired behavior and steps toward the desired behavior with the selected rewards. Monitor your progress. Change the size of the steps, the rewards, or the benchmarks if any do not seem to be working. You may hit plateaus or periods of backslides. Accept them as a temporary setback and identify potentials of self-sabotage, negative self-talks, or situations which should be avoided for the time being. Make a conscious decision to continue with your plan (or modification of it). This may be a life-long "work in progress" if you are trying to change a deep-rooted fear or a behavior which feeds an addiction. Again, this is very difficult to do alone. You may need to work with a partner, mentor, or counselor.

Students are empowered to learn on their own and even to teach one another.

Students served as instructors to their classmates, and together they worked toward learning goals more effectively than if they had been provided with the answer by the instructor.

hamper classroom relationships

students can easily disengage, looking at other apps (some for school and others surely for entertainment), perusing websites, and checking email

The focus in a technological classroom changes from student-to-student and/or student-to-teacher to a student-computer relationship, with the teacher occasionally breaking into this primary bond.

“It’s a cheap education, not because it benefits the students,” said Karen Aronowitz, president of the teachers’ union in Miami, where 7,000 high school students were assigned to study online in computer labs this year because there were not enough teachers to comply with state class-size caps. “This is being proposed for even your youngest students,” Ms. Aronowitz said. “Because it’s good for the kids? No. This is all about cheap.”

But administrators insisted that their chief motive was to enhance student learning, not save money in a year when the 108,000-student district is braced for cuts of $100 million and hundreds of jobs. “What the online environment does is continue to provide rich offerings and delivery systems to our students with these resource challenges,” said Irving Hamer, the deputy superintendent.

Teachers’ unions and others say much of the push for online courses, like vouchers and charter schools, is intended to channel taxpayers’ money into the private sector. “What they want is to substitute technology for teachers,” said Alex Molnar, professor of education policy at Arizona State University. In Idaho, Gov. C. L. Otter and the elected superintendent of public instruction, Tom Luna, both Republicans, promoted giving students laptops and requiring online courses. The State Legislature, pressed by critics who said the online mandate would cost teachers jobs, rejected it, but Mr. Luna said in an interview that he would propose it this summer through the State Board of Education, which supports him. “I have no doubt we’ll get a robust rule through them,” he said. Four online courses is “going to be the starting number.”