It’s Saturday night, which means I start to wind down my connectivity. I try to take a 24-hour sabbatical from almost all things technology. Typically I would let the phone die and not recharge it. However, lately I have been using an app called Streaks. You can track your daily habits in order to develop a better, more healthy lifestyle. You can track your progress over time and customize your goals for how frequently you want to accomplish something. During the day, the app will push out notifications on your phone to remind you to drink enough water and get 30 minutes of exercise.
While the dilemma is now whether or not to have my phone on Sundays, these notifications are the type of distractions that I appreciate. I feel a little more mindful of my actions, even if I don’t always meet my goals. This example relates to an article I wrote for EdTech Digest, titled Promising Distractions. Educators are bombarded with so many options for integrating technology into instruction. Which ones are worth our time? I offer three possibilities: gaming, digital storytelling, and citizen science. Each of these modern concepts holds a lot of promise for teaching and learning.