Educational Technology

by Tim Williams, the Advertiser

University students are graduating with the “attention span of a tweet” and tertiary institutions will likely ban smartphones and laptops from classes so they learn to focus, outgoing Adelaide University boss Warren Bebbington says. Prof Bebbington has warned universities against responding to cost pressures by shifting courses entirely online, because technology-obsessed students are losing the capacity to concentrate and absorb complex arguments. “Tangibly, our tweeting, blogging, app-loving students are in danger of losing the capacity to listen at length, absorb a complex argument and summarise, dissect and evaluate what they hear as they hear it.”