Brian Lamb, CEO and co-founder of California-based technology company Swivl, has observed classroom settings around the nation to learn how teachers balance digital learning tools with personal engagement. The key, he said, is paying attention to attention spans.
Swivl’s new subscription-based software tool, Engageable, launched last month to help educators do this by pausing lessons and instructing students to take a deep breath to sharpen their focus, according to a recent news release. It can also time student activities, whether in class or on homework assignments, so the teacher can track how long students take to complete activities in different environments. Significant fluctuations in completion times could be a flag for decreasing attention spans or other issues, Lamb explained.
He said the tool’s engagement score system is inspired by metrics used in fitness tracking devices, and the software can be used to observe the entire classroom or individual students.
“Good attention comes from regular routines,” he said.
Engageable has capabilities that work in real time, but some functions are not meant to be used live, Lamb explained. Rather, teachers will be trained to record classroom activities and review the engagement scores later on.
“[Recording] becomes part of the activity record,” he said, “but the idea is not to have teachers concentrating on a dashboard during class. We want teachers to pay better attention to all the students.”
Lamb said measuring student attention spans can be a sensitive topic, and he is careful to use the word “observe” instead of “monitor.” Classroom participation and activity completion times can be recorded, he said, but the tool does not analyze facial patterns or other physical behaviors to gauge concentration levels.
“We just want to give kids a little extra structure,” he said, “not place more eyes on them.”
Lamb cited research by a professor of informatics at the University of California, Irvine that found the average attention span has declined to just “47 seconds per screen” — and that factors in people of all ages. Lamb said it’s up to the adults to set an example children can follow.
The hope is that Engageable will be useful as artificial intelligence becomes more prevalent in classrooms. Lamb said some students could become disengaged when using programs that generate so much content with minimal effort.
“AI’s impact on education will be 10 times larger and faster than the Internet,” Lamb said in the news release. “We believe that creating an intentional process for how students manage their attention is a necessary part of the education community’s response to AI.”
“It’s a perfect storm of powerful forces,” Lamb added Monday in an interview with Government Technology. “AI provides a wealth of so much information so quickly to learn from, but at the same time we need to elevate the strength of behavioral routines to avoid attention struggles.”
Lamb said Swivl is also marketing Engageable as a tool for managing employees or employment activities, and as a personal app for time management and wellness activities. Educators are testing Engageable now, and the company hopes districts will begin signing on in the coming academic year.
