In one class, she told the students that if she found them surfing the Internet on their laptops, she would ask them to leave the classroom. "The next class period, all the laptops disappeared," she said in an interview. "It was almost like they couldn't trust themselves."
The constant use of quick-hit technology, she thinks, has made some students appear almost zoned-out in classes. She also finds they are more forgetful and have difficulty completing assignments.
"I saw that students have little tolerance for anything that doesn't have the split-second image splashing pace of a Spike TV commercial or an Internet pop up ad," she wrote in the magazine piece.
She has tried to make her students aware of their addiction to gadgetry and once brought in a yoga instructor to try to get them to understand the importance of solitude and quiet.
Teachers say they have to change their techniques to keep students - whether they are Hopkins undergrads or students at Northeast High School in Anne Arundel County - engaged and entertained. "I almost end up teaching them Oprah-style," said Simpson.
Sandra LePori-Myers, a business education teacher at Northeast, puts it another way: "Everything is visual with them. You have to be a monkey in front of the classroom these days."
LePori-Myers says that with all its downsides, the technology has more positives. Students, she said, are connected to an amazing wealth of information they never had access to before.
Teachers say students today are able to multitask more effectively than their parents or grandparents. Some students even say it is beneficial.
Russell, the River Hill student, likes doing many things at once. She said listening to music helps her concentrate on other work.
Rick Robb, a 12th-grade English teacher at River Hill, has noted the changes in students in his Advanced Placement and gifted-and-talented classes. "I have some of the brightest in the country," he said, but they don't have the same ability to analyze literature. What they lack, he said, "is the patience for delving into the multilevels of the text."
But Robb isn't sure technology is the culprit. He believes this new generation is more interested in "the product than the process" of education. They are driven to get good grades and high SAT scores, he said, but are not as interested in the process of learning.
