Working with Underlife

I will not be writing a paper as  I am taking the class for only 2 credits, I am writing this week and shall choose a topic to write about instead. I chose to look at what we discussed last week, underlife.

Underlife is vastly important in today's society as we are more and more easily accessible in the world. Phones and computers allow our students to always be connected to each other and the world. This can only distract him or her if he or she lets them. For many students it is incredibly easy to fall into the trap of giving in to underlife and not pay attention in class. But, I want to believe that there is some way we can use this to our advantage? I want to believe that there is some way.
Though we have a tendency to believe that every student has an interest in our class, the truth is some students will never find a class interesting if they don't want to. This is where I think discussing underlife can become important. If a student understand that we are currently looking into this idea they may be less likely to do it. I think bringing it up could bring it into the student's minds perhaps guiltily reminding them that they are not paying attention to class.
Sometimes things happen while we are in class and the students will be more interested in that than what we are teaching. Being fluid to the way things are changing outside of the classroom should help us to talk about our class within the context of the real world. When things such as the debates, sports events and religious events occur the students should be able to discuss in in class and we should attempt to bring that in to class. In this way, students would be more likely to participate in class if we discuss what could in fact be the underlife that is distracting them.
I was wondering if anyone had any suggestions or thoughts on this topic. What are some ways to integrate it into a lesson? What are some ways that we could attempt to persuade students to avoid underlife? Would it be against the law to ask students to turn around their computer or show the class what they are doing?

Learning Multiculturalism

       One of the key aspects to this class that we have talked repeatedly on is being aware of the students in our classes, both that we are teaching and taking. Colleges are becoming more culturally diverse than they ever have before; students are travelling from other countries to attend undergraduate and graduate classes at our university. We are almost guaranteed to have at least one student in our classes that is from another country. This places further emphasis on keeping my students and I culturally aware to make sure we are not making fun of another culture. This insensitivity should not stand whether students are around or not but that does not mean that a lapse in judgement can happen.
      We have talked extensively in class about contact zones and these were not something that I had previously thought about. These almost require multiple cultures coming together to form a contact zone, like Pratt mentions. And these do not always have to require leaving the country to find a culture change large enough for a contact zone. The gun control laws right now are vastly different when looking from state to state, for instance. The students in class who are from other countries would also likely have a vastly different viewpoint of the situation that my students from America and myself might not have thought of. Taking other people's view into account is something that we all should do when attempting to make informed decisions.
     With the drastic increase of technology and the sudden availability to connect around the world immediately, what is known as the classroom is rapidly changing. Students in France could take a class electronically without ever having to step foot in America. This allows us to interact easier than we ever could before. But, this also drastically influences the way we have to think about teaching our classes. Students that are born in France, Nigeria, etc are taught in a different environment and a different setting which changes the way they learn and expect to be taught. In a way, we almost have to learn about the other countries and the way they are taught. Some of them will not be expecting the ability to talk in class while others may think that they can talk over other students or make fun of the opinions of others. We have to be aware of these differences and try to ensure that they know how to learn and participate in an American college classroom. There is no reason these students should be made to feel isolated from the rest of the class or the university as a whole.
      The world is rapidly shrinking and there are no signs that this shrinking is slowing down. We should therefore embrace it and attempt to encourage students to go abroad to learn. We should also work to incorporate students from other cultures to make sure they feel welcomed into our classrooms without overloading them with the new culture. These students want to be here and we should be embracing that and trying to learn how we can teach differently.