The results from the study reveal that indeed students are off task in class; however, it is not as extensive as we thought, nor is it the population of students we thought it was (of course, this depends on whether you are an optimist or pessimist). Second-year students were off task the most time, at 42% of the entire semester. First-years were off task approximately 35% of the time for the semester while third-years spent approximately 28% of their class time off task. Regarding how many individual students were ON-task at a given instant, roughly 82% of third-years, 69% of first years, and 50% of second-years were NOT misusing their laptops (chart 1).

While the numbers indicate that students are off-task, my second research question sought to answer whether more off-task behavior might correlate to lower final course grade. Through statistical analysis, the results indicate that there is no correlation between high off-task behavior and lower final course grade (chart 4). Nor is there a correlation between low off-task behavior and higher final course grade. Such results support the idea that students learn outside of class as well as in class and, though they may miss ideas in class due to off-task behavior, they often learn or supplement it through readings, study groups, clinics, etc.

1. Student laptop users tend to go off-task when X-(anything) occurs for 4 minutes or more...
2. When professor is engaged in Socratic method with one student, there is a an increase in off-task behavior by other students
3. When a classmate engages with professor, there is an increase in off-task behavior by other students.
4. When professor is monotone, or, overly uses one linguistic intonation style, students tend to increase off-task behavior
5. Approximately 40 minutes into class, off-task behavior increases.
6. When professor calls on students in expected order, off-task behavior increases.

1)    “Announcing-the-Good-Stuff” Strategy: Students redirect attention away from off-task behavior when professor provides big-point-summaries, rule formations, definitions, and conclusions. 

“Ultimately, courts look at X...”;  “The upshot is...”

 2)    Using the “Rupture Strategy”: Students decrease off-task behavior when directed to an item in a book, chalkboard, digital presentation, in-class task, etc.

“Look at page X...”;   “On the chalkboard you see...”; 

“On the screen, notice X...”, “Write a brief X...”

3)    “Changing-up-the-Voice” Strategy: Students redirect attention away from off-task behavior when the professor prefaces content with signal phrases like:

“This would be a good exam question...”

“ I want to flag for you...” , “The critical idea here is...”

Or, by using linguistic mannerisms like intonation, especially rising intonation found in questions:

“And, how would you know   X     ?”;  “Because........?”

4)    “Problem-Posing” Strategy: Students redirect attention when the professor asks a problem-solving question to the class (less so than targeting one student).

“How might we determine X...?”

“If we alter X, what might Y?”

5)“Keep-the-Show-Moving” Strategy:

Students redirect attention away from off-task behavior when the professor manages “the duration of any X” so it doesn’t exceed 4-5 minutes. For example, the professor   1) may present info (5 min or less) switch 2) ask a question to the class (5 min or less)  switch 3) direct students to book (5 min or less) switch 4) ask an individual a question and have student respond (5 min or less). switch, etc.  6)“Moving-into-student’s-space” Strategy: Students redirect attention when professor moves toward off-task individuals (but surprisingly only for a short time).

The purpose of this letter is not to correct each of your misstatements and mischaracterizations but rather to assert the media's First Amendment right to comment on public figures (which your client undeniably is) and matters of public interest (into which your client voluntarily injected himself through his prominent ownership of the Washington Redskins).

The Column plainly is a tongue-in-cheek opinion piece expressing fans' frustration with your client's ownership of the Redskins. This is quintessential First Amendment-protected speech. Indeed, the U.S. Supreme Court has made clear that "one of the prerogatives of American citizenship is the right to criticize public men and measures. Such criticism, inevitably, will not always be reasoned or moderate; public figures as well as public officials will be subject to vehement, caustic, and sometimes unpleasantly sharp attacks."

Here's an image of pastoral life, taken early in the twentieth century in North Dakota. Rustic simplicity, except that the farmer in charge has labor management problems--who are these workers, how is he compensating them? He has to manage the horses--how is their health? Do they need feeding and watering? He's got to get the harvested wheat stored properly: he's checking the weather all the time--just imagine how much information is involved, in an age before reliable forecasts, in guessing the weather! He's scanning the crop itself, to see how much he lost to insects or disease. He's got a good idea of crop prices in Chicago and whether they're trending up or down. The scene was information-dense, and if you click on the image, you can see how the original title frames the scene.

The modern farmer climbs into the air conditioned cab of a combine harvester, and turns on the radio. The radio fills the attention spaces left by, say, reading the weather signs or managing the workers or the animals.

So what appears to us as "too much information" could just be the freedom from necessity. I don't have to worry about finding and cutting and storing fire­wood: I don't even have to manage a coal furnace. That attention has been freed up for other things. What we see as "too much information" is probably something more like "a surplus of free attention."

As a historian, I no longer have to spend hours scanning texts to find the smaller sets of information I need. They pop up quickly when I deal with digitized texts, and the search process is streamlined and automated much in the way a gas burner streamlines and automates a wood stove.

"Sometimes I think about all the filmmakers and musicians who passed away. Those who never got to be a part of the world wide web. No matter how hard they worked or no matter how much money they put into distribution, they couldnt reach more than a small part ofthe world.

Now their work have the opportunity to get new life. The possibility to be rediscovered by a new generation. A new world. To reject that,to prevent that from happening, is a sin. I think Charlie Chaplin would have one thing to say to all those people who do: Idiots.

Die Beauty is my first feature and releasing the film here is an obvious thing to do. And the fact that The Pirate Bay decided to give the film a world wide premiere on the frontpage makes me speechless. It's a privilege to be able to introduce the film to the greatest audience in the world."

"A lot of people seem to take the message of our original gorilla study to be that people don't pay enough attention to what is happening around them, and that by paying more attention and 'expecting the unexpected,' we will be able to notice anything important," he added. "The new experiment shows that even when people know that they are doing a task in which an unexpected thing might happen, that doesn't suddenly help them notice other unexpected things."

The Crawford dunk would have been a temporary embarrassment for LeBron. Let's say the video was put on YouTube. It blows up for a bit, dominates blogs for 36 hours, everyone has a good chuckle and then it's forgotten about.

But by censoring the tape, LeBron turns the dunk into a legend. On video, it's just a dunk. Without video, the jam can reach mythic proportions. Because nobody can see it, the story of the dunk will grow in stature with each telling. Today, it was a simple two-handed slam. In a few days, it will be a 360-degree windmill. By the time Crawford makes his Xavier debut in October, he will have jumped off LeBron's shoulders, flipped in the air, slammed the ball home with his left pinkie and then handed LeBron $3.99 for his dry cleaning.

"We're kind of more worried about being ignored than being ripped off."