Frontline: Digital Nation

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/digitalnation/living-faster/digital-natives/online-all-the-time.html?play

Has anyone watched PBS's Frontline: Digital Nation? It was shown on TV and is now online. It's 90 minutes long, broken into smaller segments.

You might want to watch it, or some of it. It's fabulous, relevant and provocative. We've been discussing it at work in seminars organized for it.

There's a part in it where some college profs discuss how their students now "write in paragraphs" because they're used to writing a paragraph, checking Facebook, writing another paragraph, playing World of Warcraft, writing another paragraph, playing online poker ... the result being that their papers aren't cohesive, they're just a bunch of paragraphs. And that they can't assign novels longer than 200 pages because no one will read them, they just read the Sparks Notes.

There are a lot of other thoughts -good and bad- about the Internet era on this show. Maybe if enough watch it we can get a discussion here going on it?

Any good advice for Chemistry teachers? Do you know any (Chemistry teachers)? I don't.

Yes, they should be careful not to break any flasks or beakers. That glass is sharp!

Shelagh wrote:

Any good advice for Chemistry teachers? Do you know any (Chemistry teachers)? I don't.

I never understood chemistry.
I can't even understand how I passed it in High School and college. A true fog.

Alice, this will make chemistry more palatable for you.

Alice,
I think the chart is an eye test. Color blindness could ruin an appetite.

LC, that chart is the coolest thing ever!

Ann

I love it!!! For someone trying to gain weight by eating lots and lots of desserts, it will be printed off and placed in a prominent place!

Carol

Like right here in my lap. I'm starting with sugar and working my way through the chart!!

Carol

Fabulous little chart, isn't it? I can find things like that because I'm smart. Or so I'm told. If I were amazing smart, I could figure out how to get my signature to work.

You are smart. Don't worry about the signature. Shelagh had to help me with mine!! People have said I was smart, but then again maybe they were just saying that.

Carol

I passed high school chemistry by spending a lot of time with the student teacher. Today, he'd probably lose his job. It was harmless; but we had something going that we just didn't act on. The end result was my pass in chemistry. I lucked out in college with "chemistry for non-chemistry majors." All the dolts like me were in that class, so we helped each other.

If school grades mean anything, I was always at the top of my class; anything literate was my strong suit; anything analytical such as math and chemistry were at the bottom. I was an excellent test taker and had a great capacity for memorization. I always said I passed economics because I memorized the class notes, not because I understood them.

I also had a break in college because we had the chance to protest the Viet Nam War in exchange for "passes" in classes this political involvement would disrupt. I had a couple that might negatively impact my GPA if completed, so I joined the protest.

I had a high enough IQ to join Mensa, but there was something odd to me about picking my friends by their IQ, so I passed. I should have grabbed that chance; I think my IQ points have dropped in recent years with the advent of everything technological that saves me from remembering anything. Google has replaced my brain; spell-check my grammar; and txting my written word. I was always shy, now I can't say anything without checking my HTC phone first . . .

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Google has replaced my brain; spell-check my grammar; and txting my written word. I was always shy, now I can't say anything without checking my HTC phone first . . .

You're not alone. Two books I want to read are The Shallows: What the Internet Is Doing to Our Brains by Nicholas Carr, and The Dumbest Generation: How the Digital Age Stupefies Young Americans and Jeopardizes Our Future (Or, Don't Trust Anyone Under 30) by Mark Bauerlein. I'm sure I'll see a lot of myself in them.

There are a couple philosophies about this brain change. One: it can't be stopped. Studies have already shown that youth born into technology have different brain wave responses to stimulation. Therefore, traditional education systems are totally wasted on them. They need to be "plugged in" to information that they can manipulate electronically and not separated from their electronics. Since this is so widespread, it should be seen as evolutionary and the direction of the future world.

The second philosphy ties with the "go back to the farm" thinking about life speeding up and losing meaning; thus, we need to arm ourselves with our books and return to the farm to live ecologically and preserve a lifestyle that is fast disappearing.

Re that first philosophy -Digital Nation addresses this. They interview students at top colleges who insist they can multi-task effectively, and that it's "not fair" to ask them to shut their computers and Blackberries off during a lecture. Then they interviewed professors who did brainwave studies on these same students. The conclusion was that the students aren't as good at multi-tasking as they think they are, and instead of doing one task well, they're doing a bunch poorly.

I passed chemistry by the graciousness of my teacher. On one assignment we were told we could work together.

I couldn't meet with my friends. They told me to take the answers anyway. I didn't and their answers were not right.

They were marked down, I got full credit. I told the teacher, he said, "Let the reader correct his own mistakes."

Carol, I hope you are eating dark chocolate--tons of it.

Dark chocolate is a regular in my diet, as are chocolate calcium vitamins I found thanks to my pharmacist.

When I took high school chemistry, I was awarded the "clumsy chemist of the year" award for excellence in managing to break whatever passed through my clumsy hands.

Carol

Are your gaining weight? I hope so.

Dave said, "She is so tiny". The biggest part of you--your beautiful eyes.

Your eyes say alot--they are full of love and hope.

Keep up the good work. You are much-needed.

The brain wave studies were indicating an actual dna/genetic change in brain function. It was more in the line of processing information in rapid bits, not the "mulit-tasking" which, with or without technology, has been proven less efficient except in the case of high functioning creative people who multi-task in general as poorly as everyone else but have the advantage of something amazingly creative and innovative popping out of the mess while the general run of people just do all the tasks less well than if they had been separated. - Give that sentence to your writing class :-)

I just read an AARP article about dark chocolate. It is miraculous; but it says after 1/2 to one ounce of that with the most cocoa twice a week, any more does not create more benefit. Apparently, whatever is in the cocoa improves circulation, brain acumen, blood sugar balance, blood pressure and is a cancer preventive. Whew!

That's okay ... provided that an excess doesn't negate the benefits, I'm good.

Just remember that the less sugar in the bar, the better it is for you.

Ann

Unfortunately what makes it good is fat and sugar...and those negate the benefits for people prone to weight gain, diabetes, clogged arteries, etc. With every gift comes a curse -

Dark chocolate has far less sugar, and it's a healthy fat, so an occasional bar won't hurt. There are studies that indicate it might even help. It's like that glass or two of red wine.

http://my.clevelandclinic.org/heart/prevention/nutrition/chocolate.aspx

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What about all of the fat in chocolate?

You may be surprised to learn that chocolate isn’t as bad for you as we once thought.The fat in chocolate comes from cocoa butter and is made up of equal amounts of oleic acid (a heart-healthy monounsaturated fat also found in olive oil), stearic and palmitic acids. Stearic and palmitic acids are forms of saturated fat. You may know that saturated fats are linked to increases in LDL-cholesterol and the risk for heart disease. But, research shows that stearic acid appears to have a neutral effect on cholesterol, neither raising nor lowering it. Although palmitic acid does affect cholesterol levels, it only makes up one-third of the fat calories in chocolate. Still, this great news does not mean you can eat all the dark chocolate you’d like. First, be careful about the type of dark chocolate you choose: chewy caramel-marshmallow-nut-covered dark chocolate is by no means a heart-healthy food option. Watch out for those extra ingredients that can add lots of extra fat and calories! Second, there is currently no established serving size of chocolate to help you reap the cardiovascular benefits it offers, and more research is needed in this area. However, we do know that you no longer need to feel guilty if you enjoy a small piece of dark chocolate once in a while. So, for now, enjoy moderate portions of chocolate (e.g., one ounce) a few times per week, and don’t forget to eat other flavonoid-rich foods like apples, red wine, tea, onions and cranberries.

Ann

Ann,

You are so right. A doctor even told me to eat dark chocolate.