Despite all the discussion about online classes, there is one fundamental aspect of online teaching, that isn't fully 'disrupted'
Keeping students attention on the class.
Technology may improve, economics may change, industries created and destroyed, but ultimately, if the students attention is not held, everything is lost.
In today's world, it has become extremely difficult to even keep focus, with the myriad of distractions abound.
I guess in the future, every city will have tens or even hundreds of virtual training centers, which are classes but taught online, by professors in far away universities. Students will gather here for the classroom experience, keep focus and still get quality education.
Perhaps a new idea of "Infrastructure as a service"
I wish that were true, and I am already seeing signs of that happening in India. Think of how much savings and ease it will bring to a students life, if they can have the convenience of going to college a few streets away combined with the advantage of learning from the greatest minds of humanity.
I think this stems from a general disinterest of the focus issue pertaining to technology at large. I work from home and have the exact same problem staying focused on work.
Phone operating systems still treat features like “zen mode” as second-class citizens while not providing enough granular access to third party apps to implement features that encourage putting down the phone successfully. There are still too many ways to work around these kinds of features and apps like Freedom for iOS do an OK but not great job at allowing you to restrict access to apps and sites on a schedule.
There are a lot of apps that provide the zen mode.
However all of them are only as effective as the person's will to use them.
In my view, Extreme cases of Phone / Internet addiction can only be solved by physically removing the user from the device. Like you do for drugs and alcohol.
I am thoroughly convinced any other method will not be useful. Of course, I base these thoughts solely on my experience and I have been trying to do that since last one year. I have tried many apps, lots of self control and forcing myself to be away from my phone physically, only to be under it's spell in a few days. The most I held out was 2 days.
While being physically away from the phone / device is not always practical, I have found that timers for apps are slightly more effective, as they repeatedly warn and close the app.
I found zen modes to be not really effective, as they shut off everything and ultimately you end up removing them for one reason or the other.
> I found zen modes to be not really effective, as they shut off everything and ultimately you end up removing them for one reason or the other.
I agree, which is why I argue that it should be an OS concern, not an application concern. Screen time in iOS provides some of this functionality, but it’s still not powerful enough to restrict access to certain sites, and there are ways to get around the parental control modes.
The problem is that a phone is necessary in many jobs. I tried switching to a “dumb” phone a few years ago and had to revert because I needed app-based 2FA for work.
I would pay good money for a solid iOS screen time app that allows me to set profiles for work time, free time, personal focus time, etc. that only provides access to apps I truly need in a given moment and cannot be worked around. That would be such a game changer
> I would pay good money for a solid iOS screen time app that allows me to set profiles for work time, free time, personal focus time, etc. that only provides access to apps I truly need in a given moment and cannot be worked around. That would be such a game changer
Does having someone else control the password work? I’ve also been wanting to find a solution for this on ios devices. Screen time is weak when you have the password.
The downtime mode in safari also trains you to use it, as you literally can’t whitelist a website from screentime, so you have to bypass.
Keeping students attention on the class.
Technology may improve, economics may change, industries created and destroyed, but ultimately, if the students attention is not held, everything is lost.
In today's world, it has become extremely difficult to even keep focus, with the myriad of distractions abound.
I guess in the future, every city will have tens or even hundreds of virtual training centers, which are classes but taught online, by professors in far away universities. Students will gather here for the classroom experience, keep focus and still get quality education.
Perhaps a new idea of "Infrastructure as a service"
I wish that were true, and I am already seeing signs of that happening in India. Think of how much savings and ease it will bring to a students life, if they can have the convenience of going to college a few streets away combined with the advantage of learning from the greatest minds of humanity.