Pursuing Effective Media Multitasking: An Effort of Managing Distractions in Digital Learning Classrooms

Abstract

The 21st-century skills refer to the teaching of digital literacy and the advanced learning techniques used in schools and colleges. E-Learning or digital technology is becoming more and more popular among the students. Unfortunately, technology also bring up some distractions. Most of the time, students are not focused on studying but rather are moving their attention back and forth between studying and various forms of technology. While doing multitasking, less information is being retained. Studying or doing homework while sitting in front of the TV, using social media or texting, makes the learning and retaining the information to be more complicated, increases the time it takes to complete homework, and may ultimately result in lower test scores (Rosen, 2016). In order to manage the distraction, there should be some effort in maintaining longer attention span of the students, gaining more concentration, and building more effective learning environment. This paper presents the use of more effective media multitasking such as establishing rules of using digital devices in classrooms, giving some extra time of using the devices purposively, incorporating the devices as learning media in the class, and also providing more engaging activities for the students. These activities will help the students to have clearer goal in studying, achieving better results, while also enjoying their time using the technology.