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Consider a person who skips household and professional Sunday responsibilities to sit on the couch for hours watching pre-game shows; screaming at referees, coaches and players; and following post-game analysis – or who calls in sick to catch a game or breaks friendships over team rivalries. By the WHO’s criteria, this could qualify as “gaming disorder” – except that it’s about sports on TV, rather than video games.

Though the WHO warns against spending too much time gaming, that is not the way to measure addiction. Some studies demonstrate that some people who spend more time gaming actually exhibit fewer addictive behaviors than people who play less.

What people are looking for in their leisure time is a break, and just because they enjoy that break – and spend a fair amount of time doing it – doesn’t mean it’s an addiction.

If students in a large lecture course with no laptop or device policies are doing poorly, is it because they’re on Facebook or because they’re in a cavernous auditorium with several hundred other captives, being talked at by someone who’s likely had no formal pedagogical training whatsoever?

unilateral bans on technology in the classroom accomplish nothing but demonstrating an off-putting rigidity and an adversarial view of students.

If you’re the grumpy faculty member who kvetches about students not being taught penmanship in primary school, and who makes their classes take notes by hand to build character or whatever, take a step back and think about what you’re actually saying to your students: that some are inherently deficient, that they will fall short, and that your way is the only possible way to learn.

But if two-thirds of the class is doing non-class related stuff on a laptop or cell phone, why is that happening? Are they incorrigible internet addicts, or is it a pedagogical issue? If they’re not getting to where you want them to be, is it Twitter’s fault? Or is it the side effect of a lecture-based, passive pedagogy that doesn’t engage anyone?

Let’s be real: it’s not as if students paid rapt attention to everything faculty said until the smart phone was invented.

Of course, there are situations where you’ll want your students to not use devices. But there will also be occasions where you’ll want to encourage their use (quick polling, checking something online). That’s the whole point–there are no hard and fast rules, nor should there be. Good pedagogy is, above all, flexible. And, rather than an end unto itself, technology is a tool that can support good pedagogy if it’s used appropriately.

Rather than banning the tool because of an instance where someone used it improperly, we should work to prevent the processes which led to that instance. Our students need to be our allies, not our adversaries, if genuine learning is to occur. Students cannot experience the transformative effects that higher education can and should inculcate if we refuse to treat them as responsible agents who are the co-architects of their learning.

a distinction can be made between a technology (P2P) and implementations of that technology

the system was not designed with illegal use in mind, but instead to faciliate transfer of large files in an economical way.

trading of copyrighted files is not central to the technology

While you could potentially upload a virus to a public tracker and provide a .torrent file for it, you'd still have to convince people to download and run the file just as if you posted it to a website.

BitTorrent is a P2P system that allows large, popular files to be downloaded quickly

Open Source

Live-Taping

Dave Matthews Band, Pearl Jam, Tenacious D

bands are realizing that having a loyal following is very valuable and that they can both support their fans and still sell records

Slashdot

DIY Publishing

legitimate P2P use is here and has a definite role to play in the future of the Internet

Most of the tools we’ve used to document and communicate ideas haven’t changed much since the introduction of Microsoft Office. We have documents, spreadsheets, and slides. Those are sort of the universal formats for communicating information. That seemed kind of dumb given that those were invented in a world of keyboards, mice, and DOS prompts.We now had these things that had cameras and microphones and touch interfaces and decided that there should be some new way of communicating ideas.

The child now has an audience for his work beyond the teacher. We hear time and time again from teachers that their kids want to do their best work with Seesaw because their parents are going to ask them about it when they come home. They also know their classmates are going to watch it.

it was clear that touch devices unlocked something for computing

On the parents’ side, I was incredibly frustrated watching all the work that all my kids’ teachers were doing to communicate what was happening at school. There were weekly newsletters that were long and involved; photo albums with 300 pictures, only three of which were my child. All of this was behind a password I could never remember. Teachers were doing all this work that was taking away from actual teaching or their personal lives. The experience felt pretty broken to me.It also seemed that kids might be able to document their own learning and reflect on what they were making more independently.As a parent, I’d ask my kids, “What did you do at school today?” and they say, “Nothing,” and I had no idea what next question to ask because I just didn’t have a thread to pull on.

the magic of Seesaw is all about changing the conversation from “What did you do in school today?” to “Tell me about more about this thing you made.” It’s a starting point for a conversation

Seesaw is a learning journal. It’s a place where kids can document their learning over time

We also heard from teachers about the practical problems

I cannot imagine a future where I will be okay sending my kids to school for eight hours a day and having no clue what they’re working on. This is the most important person in my life. I get immediate updates about everything else, and yet somehow I accept that I have no information on what my kids are doing for eight hours a day. It’s not possible that’s the future.

This became obvious around log-in. We knew this was a real hassle in classrooms, and we thought we could solve it using a simple text code. But a tech coordinator at one school suggested using a QR code instead. “What would really make this easy is if kids could just scan a QR code to log in.” Carl and I both thought this was weird — no one uses QR codes. They’re a technology from 10 years ago that no one adopted. But we decided to build it to see if it got used.It turned out to be one of Seesaw’s most important features, especially in the younger grades.

we really invested in those relationships. I would call them on the phone every week. We listened, we showed them stuff ahead of time. They would give us an idea, and we would actually build what they asked for. We developed a close connection with those teachers and they started talking to other teachers in their building and other schools and so on.Honestly, we took this word-of-mouth and advocacy approach because we were a little nervous to tell teachers how to use our product. We felt like we didn’t really understand the classroom enough to tell them what to do. So we went down this path of finding some teachers who are excited about using Seesaw and helped them tell other teachers about it. Our hope is that most teachers discover Seesaw from another teacher, not from us.

Get it in the hands of teachers, and if it’s good, it will probably spread. Teachers are asked to use a lot of crappy software. When they find something good, they tend to recognize it

I just wanted to tell you how life changing this app has been for me and my teaching, and for my students

but we get an email like that two or three times a week

I have had millions of people who are slightly more organized because I worked on Google Calendar. Good, but that’s not really what I want that on my tombstone

Parents don’t know what’s going on in their kids’ classrooms. It’s not because someone wants to keep it secret, but the information is not easily shared

I had to learn what issues teachers are struggling with, and then work through those problems

On the parents’ side, I was incredibly frustrated watching all the work that all my kids’ teachers were doing to communicate what was happening at school. There were weekly newsletters that were long and involved; photo albums with 300 pictures, only three of which were my child. All of this was behind a password I could never remember. Teachers were doing all this work that was taking away from actual teaching or their personal lives. The experience felt pretty broken to me.It also seemed that kids might be able to document their own learning and reflect on what they were making more independently.As a parent, I’d ask my kids, “What did you do at school today?” and they say, “Nothing,” and I had no idea what next question to ask because I just didn’t have a thread to pull on. When you ask a kid to describe something abstractly, particularly younger kids, it’s quite difficult for them to do it. If you show them a picture of something and say, “What’s going on in this picture,” they’ll say, “Oh, let me tell you all about this,” it totally gives them a thing to start with.

An excessive focus on coding ignores the current plight of existing developers.Technology changes at a rapid pace in this industry.

The line between learning to code and getting paid to program as a profession is not an easy line to cross.Really.

If becoming an engineer is what you want, don’t let me — or anyone, for that matter — get in the way of your goal. And don’t let traditional confinements like the educational system slow you down

The study found that the strongest agreement between participants' rankings and IGD characterizations were functional impairment, continued use despite problems, unsuccessful attempts to stop and the loss of interest in other hobbies

These games aren't necessarily causing the problems; it might just as well be the other way around. People are not functioning, they suffer from social anxiety, they're lonely, and they flee into the games because it's an excellent coping mechanism.

However, the official investigation report points out that the only game he played regularly was Dance Dance Revolution.

If anything, the current body of evidence suggests that gaming might actually reduce the rate of violent behavior rather than instigate it.

Luckily, moral panics don't last far beyond the lives of those who are outraged by them

Never post a photo or message that you wouldn’t want “everyone” to be able to view.

always be kind

In this immediate world of instant messaging and constant contact, you may be tempted to say whatever comes to your mind in a given moment. Don’t give in to the temptation.

walk away from toxic friendships

quality over quantity

make sure that the only person who is speaking for you is YOU

It is in your best interests not to let any friend—even a best friend—post or text from your account. Ever.

Once you share something online, you lose control of where it goes, who can forward it, who will see it, and how it can potentially be used.

Never post a photo or message that you wouldn’t want “everyone” to be able to view.

Once you put something out there online, it’s almost impossible to take it back.

You have the ability to instantly end a digital conversation and should plan to do so the minute you recognize that cruelty has begun.

there is a very, very, VERY big difference between real friends and online followers

make sure that the only person who is speaking for you is YOU

Your accounts are your accounts. It is in your best interests not to let any friend—even a best friend—post or text from your account. Ever.

Digital reading is becoming an increasingly important part of children’s literacy lives. It gives children new and exciting ways to access a wide range of reading materials and is particularly effective at getting disengaged groups of children excited about reading

teachers are far more likely to use tech to make their own jobs easier and to supplement traditional instructional strategies than to put students in control of their own learning

even if ed tech were adopted as thoughtfully as its proponents claim, we’re still left with deep reasons to be concerned about the outmoded model of teaching that it helps to preserve — or at least fails to help us move beyond

the effectiveness of learning is determined primarily by the way the medium is used and by the quality of the instruction accompanying that use

The crucial factor for learning improvement is to make sure that you do not replace the teacher as the instrument of instruction, allowing computers to do what teachers would normally do, but instead use computers to supplement and amplify what the teacher does

the use of both e-learning and contact education—which is known as blended learning—produces better results than lessons given without technolog

the medium does not influence the learning

the medium seldom influences teaching, learning, and education, nor is it likely that one single medium will ever be the best one for all situations

students do not naturally make extensive use of many of the newest technologies, such as blogs, wikis, and virtual worlds

the main reasons young people use technology. These reasons are mainly social

Digital natives! Whenever the question of digital innovation in education is discussed, this is a term that immediately comes to the surface. But it should be avoided. Even the person who coined the term digital natives, Marc Prensky, admitted in his most recent book, Brain Gain, that the term is now obsolete.2

Prensky’s coining of this term—and its counterpart for people who are not digitally native—was not based on research into this generation, but rather created by rationalizing phenomena that he had observed

The students use a large quantity and variety of technologies for communicating, learning, staying connected with their friends, and engaging with the world around them. But they are using them primarily for “personal empowerment and entertainment

university students do not really have a deep knowledge of technology, and what knowledge they do have is often limited to basic Microsoft Office skills (Word, Excel, PowerPoint), emailing, text messaging, Facebook, and surfing the Internet

There is simply no experimental evidence to show that living with new technologies fundamentally changes brain organization in a way that affects one’s ability to focus. Of course, the brain changes any time we form a memory or learn a new skill, but new skills build on our existing capacities without fundamentally changing them. We will no more lose our ability to pay attention than we will lose our ability to listen, see or speak.

Note that many of these studies examined the influence of television rather than the influence of interactive technology, such as smartphones and social media

when people think that young people today read less, it’s not about reading online content or text messages, it’s about reading book

young people are still doing a lot of reading, and these statistics make clear that many of them are reading for pleasure. However, we need to be careful about making too many sweeping assertions, since the reading figures in many countries are falling. Even so, we know that reading continues to be important: both reading by young people themselves and parents reading to their childre

For every 19th century writer who worried about “enfeebling the mind,” I can show you a 21st-century journalist who claims that the Internet is making us—and our kids—mentally lazy.

In other words, novel-reading was once regarded as an idle occupation, just as Internet use is now.

Young people’s waning TV watching appears to be mostly the result of substituting TV time for playing video games and using social media

The size of the association documented across these studies is not sufficient or measurable enough to warrant the current levels of panic and fear around this issue.”

Unfortunately, the large number of participants in these designs means that small effects are easily publishable and, if positive, garner outsized press and policy attention,

put these extremely miniscule effects of screens on young people in real-world context

some positive behaviors such as getting enough sleep and regularly eating breakfast were much more strongly associated with well-being than the average impact of technology use.

Strikingly, one of the data sets Przybylski and Orben used was “Monitoring the Future,” an ongoing study run by researchers at the University of Michigan that tracks drug use among young people. The alarming 2017 book and article by psychologist Jean Twenge claiming that smartphones have destroyed a generation of teenagers also relied on the data from “Monitoring the Future.” When the same statistics Twenge used are put into the larger context Przybylski and Orben employ, the effect of phone use on teen mental health turns out to be tiny.

All of this is not to say there is no danger whatsoever in digital technology use. In a previous paper, Przybylski and colleague Netta Weinstein demonstrated a “Goldilocks” effect showing moderate use of technology—about one to two hours per day on weekdays and slightly more on weekends—was “not intrinsically harmful,” but higher levels of indulgence could be.

by playing the right games, ones that encourage exploration and problem solving rather than just camping and sniping soldiers