I've heard some teachers claim that this is nothing new. Kids have always been bored in school. But I think now it's different. Some of the boredom, of course, comes from the contrast with the more engaging learning opportunities kids have outside of school. Others blame it on today's "continuous partial attention" (CPA), a term coined by Linda Stone, who researches trends and their consumer implications. Stone describes CPA as the need "to be a live node on the network," continually text messaging, checking the cell phone, and jumping on email. "It is an always-on, anywhere, anytime, anyplace behavior that involves an artificial sense of constant crisis," she writes. "We pay continuous partial attention in an effort not to miss anything."