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" September 3, 2015/0 Comments/in Ed Tech Trends, Online Higher Education /by Rochelle Diogenes With the increase in digital distractions, interest in how we pay attention has grown. Although researchers continue to delineate definitions, most agree with the early psychologist, William James: Everyone knows what attention is. It is taking possession of the mind, in clear and vivid form, of one out of what seems several simultaneously possible objects or trains of thought. Focalization, concentration of consciousness are of its essence. It implies a withdrawal from some things in order to deal effectively with others. Attention is really selective attention.  We consciously or automatically choose which things to ignore and which to focus on. You are more likely to pay attention to something that affects you, interests you, or has deep meaning. What we pay attention to is contextual and subjective. At a play, we think it's important to focus on what's happening on the stage without distraction. If an 8-year-old points out that there's a man behaving oddly in the next row, he will probably get shushed. But these days, if he makes the same observation as his mother rushes him to catch a train or plane, Mom will probably pay attention and report it to security personnel. Attention is the gateway to learning, to remembering and processing information. Instructors competing for student attention isn't new. Remember when we thought all students were taking notes, but many were doodling, or writing love letters, or passing notes to other students? Remember when daydreaming was a common class distraction? Cell phones may just be a more efficient way of channeling wandering attention. Researchers have shown that students texting/posting on their cell phones while watching a video lecture tested more than a grade level below their phoneless counterparts. They suggested that instructors discuss cell phone use policies with their students. That's a start, but

With every piece of technology we adopt, a bit more of our privacy is lost. This TED talk highlights an example of exactly how much information is being collected by one of the tech companies we use.

by Charles Samuel, Senior Editor at GetVoIP I watched a video recently that made me think hard about the future of education. In it, education researcher Sugata Mitra calmly posits that the education system we see around us- the one that's often casually referred to as "broken"- isn't hopeless at all.

"What are the 4 Big Shifts?"