Pioneer Middle School Name

Pioneer Middle School Name:

Mr. MiltonDate:

Language ArtsPeriod:

Twain Texting Play--

What is Twain trying to say about telephones and telephone conversations?

What do you imagine adults think when they see you texting? (Imagine a grandparent?—someone who doesn’t text much….)

How does that (question #2) compare to what Twain is saying about the telephone?

What communication technology do you think might come along in your adulthood and surprise you?

Rewrite A Telephonic Conversation as a Text Message Interaction

Recreate Twain’s satire, but of a text conversation. In other words, imagine a text conversation from the perspective of someone who doesn’t quite understanding texting. PERFORMANCES Friday.

Imagine you’re texting one, two or several friends while sitting at Forza talking with another friend. Mark Twain is sitting across the room looking at you, puzzled. Finally, he approaches you and asks what you’re doing. Explain it to him. (Don’t hesitate to text to your friends something that Twain won’t understand, since he doesn’t know text language.) I have provided a graphic organizer for your conversations (you aren’t required to use it, but it helps keep the various conversations clearer). You can “speak” to more than one person at any given time (one time “period” is represented by one row—that’s across. You can show some speaking across more than one time period by recording their dialogue through several rows. So, you could be texting something, maybe more than one thing, as Twain is speaking.) In each box, be sure to identify the person to whom you’re speaking…. If you’re not a texter, imagine you’re the Voice Friend sitting with someone else who is texting. Record as much as you understand of all the interactions—maybe even you’ll “side with” Twain in not understanding what’s going on.

You / Text Friend 1 / Text Friend 2 / Text Friend 3 / Voice Friend / Twain

This week, we will try to understand how your brain might be affected by electronics (phones, iPods, computers, etc.) We will do a survey to identify your electronics usage patterns, read a story about the telephone’s effects on social interaction, read articles summarizing medical research about electronics and how they might affect brains and behavior, take some attention tests, perform a play about all the material and write this all up in an essay.

We will undertake this process of enquiry by following the so-called scientific method. We will follow this process in both the attention tests and the general study of brains and electronics.

Enquiry Process Called Scientific Method

This is NOT a linear process, though you write it up like it is.

Identify a puzzle—ask a question about a problem.

You must know a little something about the topic/issue you’re studying in order to generate a question worth answering. So some research may be necessary at this point.

Hypothesize

You are going to do an experiment or test, the results of which should help answer the question (above). Hypothesize (predict, project, imagine) what you think the experimental or test results will be, and what the answer to the question is.

Research

You will likely need to get very familiar with the information, data, claims, etc. about the topic you’re studying, and particularly about what other people have found or claim about the relationships among the variables you are working with. Have others hypothesized similarly to you? Have others claimed different answers to your question? And so on.

Plan the test or experiment

Materials (Mr. Milton will be getting these)

Step by step directions (Mr. Milton will provide, though you should be able to create a general overview of the test).

Identify variables

Control variables--those things you keep constant or fixed

Manipulated (or independent variable)—the things you change, thinking they will cause changes in the

Responding (or dependent variable)—the one you evaluate for the hypothesized changes

Do the experiment

Collect and Record Data

Conclusion

These last steps will include our writing the summary overview of this test.

[Repeat]

To complete the study outlined above, we will read some non-fiction articles. You need to be able to answer all the following questions.

Your Brain on Technology Questions

Why is ‘downtime’ important for your brain?
What can happen when you constantly stimulate your brain with electronic input?
How can intensive engagement with electronic gadgets lead to stress?
How can we become addicted to our gadgets?
What is multitasking? How well do most people do it? Do most people accurately understand how well they do it?
How does the technology affect our brains, even after we turn the devices off?
What do you think of the one author’s statement, “Technology has effectively become a necessity for anyone who wishes to survive in contemporary society….”?
What do you think of a statement by a father about his son, “Technology is part of the fabric of who he is”?
Describe how the brain is adapting to technology.
Re-evaluate your survey. After reading about your brain on technology, do you stand by your answers?
Give your overall view of personal technology’s affect on your brain and your life.
Popcorn brain is ______
Ubiquitous means _____
According to some research, internet multitaskers can forget how to _____
Why?
According to a study done in China, too much time online affects your brain by ______
What do you think of all this?
What are the classic symptoms of withdrawal described in the “don’t sleep with your Smart Phone” article?
On what definition of ‘addiction’ does the author (of “don’t sleep with your Smart Phone”) rely?
What does the author (of “don’t sleep with your Smart Phone” ) call the other (non-gadgeted) life?
According to the author (of “don’t sleep with your Smart Phone”), what are some warning signs that you might be too involved with your gadgets?

We will also take an attention test. I will provide the results—which you need for your write-up—of that test here:

Collect and Record Data

Baseline 1 / Baseline 2 / With iPods / With iPods 2 / Ipods plus / iPods extra / iPods plus video
Correct
Time
Score

Enquiry Process Called Scientific Method

This is NOT a linear process, though you write it up like it is.

YOU MAY NOT SIMPLY FILL THIS IN LIKE A MAD-LIB!

Identify a puzzle

At the most basic level, the question about the relationship between technology and our brains is ______?

While we could not test such a broad question in class, we were able to do a test or experiment designed to address the question: ______?

Hypothesize

While preparing our experiment on ______, the review of other research (see below), the consideration of historically comparable cases (the telephone) and the analysis of current electronic technology usage patterns in sample teenage population led us to hypothesize that undertaking ______tasks while using ______will cause ______.

Research

Current research on brains and technology reveals concerns that technology has ______on our brains. For instance, some researchers are concerned that we can become ______to our technologies, because using them releases ______in our brains, and we like that. Other studies find that prolonged use of electronics can ______. Some have gone so far as to say we can develop ______brains. In response to all this, many analysts suggest that we be sure to get adequate ______for our brains, and that we try to cut back on ______.

Plan the test or experiment

Summarize the Materials and Step by step directions

Identify variables

The test was administered to N 8th graders. The environment was pretty poorly controlled, but

insome degree that was part of the test process.

After establishing baseline (no distractions) scores, N more tests were administered, each with successively greater ______.

The ______test scores for each round of the experiment were recorded for ______, ______and ______.

Collect and Record Data

Baseline 1 / Baseline 2 / With iPods / With iPods 2 / Ipods plus / iPods extra / iPods plus video / Bonus
Correct
Time
Score

Draw Your Conclusions!!!!