First Day

I teach in a computer classroom and have to deal with distracted Freshmen who are addicted to Facebook. I do believe that banning FB in class is not an option. Like they say, when there was no FB there were notes being passed and you always have students who just skip into their own worlds... So you can force them to not use FB but you cannot force them to pay attention. For that you just have to be innovative with your classroom delivery. I totally agree with this thought and have tried to make this technology a part of my class. But obviously, there is only so much integration you can do with FB and Twitter. Can't do it for the entire semester. Obviously I also try to have as many activities in class as possible, so that we are actually using the computers for something productive. This semester though I decided to go one step further and include something in my syllabus: An "Acceptable Use Policy". There are 3 points in this policy, the other two will not be discussed here... But the third one was regarding use of games, websites and programs that do not contribute to course goals. And I was thinking of a nice way of delivering this "evil" message :-) This is how it finally went:
Me: How many of you have a FB , Twitter or other such accounts?
(Everyone raised their hand including me)
Me: How many of you are addicted to any of these or love spending time on these?
(A few hands slightly raised... I raised my hand)
Me: I am addicted to FB and I am addicted to twitter, but I promise you that I will not waste our class time by visiting these sites when I am in class and I expect the same from you.
(Laughter and slight applause)

Hopefully this semester will see lesser FB visits :-)