In this episode - Camie and Alex discuss the concept of Technostress - students and instructors becoming burned out by overuse of tech in their education and daily living. They discuss how to decrease the impact of this type of stress in the fully online learning environment.

Stay tuned for a little end-credits blooper too!

References:

• BOLT Conference 2024 Recap and Recordings
• Kumar, P. S. (2024). Technostress: A comprehensive literature review on dimensions, impacts, and management strategies. Computers in Human Behavior Reports, 100475.
• Fredericks, S., ElSayed, M., Hammad, M., Abumiddain, O., Istwani, L., Rabeea, A., Rashid-Doubell, F., & Bella, A. M. E. (2021). Anxiety is associated with extraneous cognitive load during teaching using high-fidelity clinical simulation. Medical Education Online, 26(1), Article 1994691.
• Saleem, F., Chikhaoui, E., & Malik, M. I. (2024). Technostress in students and quality of online learning: Role of instructor and university support. Frontiers in Education, 9, Article 1309642.
• Mheidly, N., Fares, M. Y., & Fares, J. (2020). Coping with stress and burnout associated with telecommunication and online learning. Frontiers in Public Health, 8, Article 574969.

Just do blue light lenses. That fixes everything.

I do. It's not enough. I need. I need stronger.

Blue light glasses.

Navy blue light glasses. Welcome to the pedagogy toolkit. In this episode, Alex and Cammy discuss the concept of techno stress and how it can impact online learning stage.

It does lead into the idea that the concept of techno stress does have a physical and physiological impact on people, which is something we can cover a little bit.

And it.

It does, and if I had a better memory then I would remember that I didn't like driving at night and avoid it. But I, but I don't remember.

Sure.

Well, and sometimes it's just unavoidable.

That too.

Especially if you in the winter get off work at around 5:00 and it's already dark, you can't control that. It'll be dark at 4:00.

45 pretty soon.

That's true, but no, it's also interesting we we kind of stumbled into this topic because we were discussing a book which we might cover at some point down the road. The anxious generation by Jonathan Height.

And made me think.

OK, a lot of his focus in that book revolves around adolescence and their exposure to social media and how it's rewired their brains, the consistency, consistent use of screen time, the consistent use of he talks about general Internet usage, but he mainly focuses on social media as a main.

Well, social media has become not just social media but a learning platform as well, I would say. And whether you know those, it's quality learning or not, that's still to be determined. And I think that's the only case by case basis. But the way that we are.

OK.

So like.

Yeah.

Bringing information to our brains is very different.

Absolutely. And so that's where it kind of got my mind rolling into the concepts of, OK, we work more in the college age, undergraduate to adult learning sector with online education. Where are there parallels, particularly with the typical established methods of online learning and the possibility of an increase of anxiety?

And.

Difficulty navigating the online world mixed with the.

UN quote, quote UN quote real world and that's where the the concept that it's studied in academia is usually referred to as techno stress. And so there's there's different definitions out there based on all the research. But another one that I found that was really nice is.

To stress or the inability to cope with new technologies, increasing cognitive load, and so.

I don't know how would you define it if someone asks you what is techno stress, what would be the camwood definition of it?

I would actually say cognitive overload due to the increased use of technology.

OK.

Yeah, that's my weird framing of it, I guess. But. But I think that.

So for me I've I've actually done a little bit of research on this because I was writing a paper about something else, but this kind of, you know, coincided there a little. And so I did a little reading over this topic just because because of that and.

It's not just the students who are feeling this, it's also the instructors.

Yes.

Because now think about all the grading is no longer. You know, you're not looking at actual papers, which is great because you're not carrying them around with you, but.

But you're also having to look at screens that much longer. You know, if you're you have 100 students in.

Your class and you.

You know, gave an essay as an assignment.

And you got 100 essays to grade. Yeah, online.

Yeah, it's a different you. You had, at least in the past the opportunity to step away from if you use the screen a little bit.

OK, then I have a physical paper turned in. I can step away. I'm still getting my work done. It's much harder to get that work done.

When you can't, when you have to be forced to be at the screen, it's hard to get the work done to step by stepping away from the screen, and you could print all those out, but that's almost feels like a waste of resources and trees, and our, which I think is valid absolutely.

Yes.

Right.

Echo.

Also, even if you're printing them out, you all the commenting and actual inputting of the grades has to be done on the screen because that's where we're tracking it and all of our meetings are now, even if we're in the same building physically, they're on teams.

Yeah.

And what what the kind of negative of all of this is that it's, I think it applies to the workforce. I think it applies to the instructor. And I think it especially applies to the student is just a decrease in general engagement and motivation.

And we definitely if we roll the clock back.

You know, we we saw that rise in techno stress among the students and the instructors.

How overuse and exposure it just leads to burnout very quickly. I don't. I don't know if there'd be anyone who's arguing that that was a reality. So I want to, like, go ahead and get that out there on the table. But that isn't necessarily the primary focus of this topic of techno stress, though. There are lots of things we've learned from that, right.

Well, and we definitely learned that time period. The pandemic time period for me for online learning in general was not.

True to what online learning is generally or should be, but also it it was accelerated at such a rate that you know we.

Correct.

There wasn't time given to consider things like techno, stress and things like that, and often we didn't have other options.

Now we can look at this and say, OK, how do we manage that? We can use some of those takeaways from that kind of accelerated time period and look at those as an experiment almost which.

I hate to say.

Like that but.

Let's never recreate that experiment ever again.

Yeah, no. And and and to be fair, it wasn't a very valid experiment in terms of since it's not true to the nature of online education, but.

But.

Like you said, there are some key takeaways.

That we see that we're exacerbated during that time or sorry, exaggerated during that time. That's what I was looking for because it was so compressed because it was so quick, because there weren't those.

Care portions taken because?

We were moving so quickly.

Yes. And so with that in mind, I.

Think what we.

Move forward in especially now as we've gone back to you know what is quote UN quote normal in the sense of yes, there is still the lion's share of education happens in the face to face setting. But online education is a fully established norm even higher.

Percentages of regular on campus undergraduates take. I think it's something like 15 to 20% of them will take at least one online class every year. I don't know if it's every semester, every year I'll have to.

Clarify that data.

And we have fully online instructors. We have faculty who do onlines with some of their courses, and sometimes they'll even do hybrid or we have fully online programs.

As well, but.

I will say they are substantially different or should be substantially different than the things we experienced during the pandemic era.

Yes, I I mean this with all the love and care, but if you were an online instructor and you say, hey, I know online teaching because I did it during COVID.

You know that experience in that bubble? That is not the same as fully online asynchronous online learning programs or even fully 100% synchronous online learning programs that are structured and implemented with the intention of that and.

Plenty of runway to plan have regular substantive interaction. All these things we talk about regularly, and so if you aren't aware of that, or you're going into an asynchronous learning model, whether as a student or as an instructor.

Without some of these factors, I think it can cause that burnout and techno stress much more quickly, and so let me let me.

Highlight. Oh, go ahead.

Can we? Sorry.

Hey, good.

I do want to just note that online instruction is inherently different than in person instruction, not necessarily because of the distance, but because of the distance. You have to be very intentional with how you're spending your energy and time and how you're resourcing students and that.

Yes.

I think is what really leads to our burnout is the fact that.

We are having to be so intentional. We are having to do that and so thinking that through.

You know, as an instructor with balancing that for ourselves.

Yes. And I think that will actually dovetail into a couple of the the main dimensions of techno stress that I have highlighted here.

The one on number 2 will pick up, especially here in just a second, but techno overload, so just feeling forced to work faster and longer due to technology because we have the ability to make things more efficient.

Especially in the workforce that almost can spill over into learning and things must happen much faster just because the information is more readily accessible. That's not how learning functions. Just because a tool is able to be delivered at a rapid rate doesn't mean the learning.

Yes.

Cognitively or psychologically?

Happens at that same rate. The techno invasion #2 here was the one that made me think of what you were just thinking of, which is basically just technology intruding on personal life and time. Actually, as I looked through some of the literature, this is the one that probably has the highest impact because it's just that ubiquity of technology in our everyday world, we just.

Feel constantly connected to it and that we can.

Pull away from.

It or it's?

And we're constantly getting notified.

Yes. And So what that means is for that instructor where you maybe haven't because in in a fully in person course a lot of the I don't again I mean this with love and care, but the lack of preparation that sometimes occurs or just the oh, there's those details that I omitted in the syllabus or that I needed to.

To communicate earlier, and I just forgot to, I can make up for it when I meet face to face with people three times a week or two times a week and can clarify things in person. All those things need to be very clearly expressed.

Written down like built into the learning management system, clearly articulated in the course. And if you don't get that clearly articulated in the course we'll then you're getting lots of notifications and emails and questions from your students on the regular, and especially then with the ubiquity of technology as an instructor, you're getting pinged with that multiple times.

The.

And so sometimes it's that experience teaches you versus the preparation ahead of time. Oh, I'm not going to do that next year. Next year, I'm going to make sure I have a clear communication plan. I'm going to have a clear policy of this particular detail in my schedule. But because we've been so invaded by just the presence of technology, our stress levels can can be.

Enhanced.

Right, because now we are not cut off from these levels of communication. Instead, we have to be the ones to say no. I'm going to cut them off. I'm going to turn my notifications off. I'm going to.

Do these things.

Right. Yeah, another one. And I think this is something that especially goes both for the instructors and the students is just techno complexity.

So that feeling of inadequacy when certain technologies might be new or just might be more complex than what you're used to. Or maybe, I mean, we've been navigating this for the past year and a half over here at Global campus with with AI, but also just a mass learning management system conversion. We switched from the original format of Blackboard for.

Were they I ohh also.

Yeah.

Many a years to very recently the new upgraded.

Display and that's and user interface and that's caused a lot of navigation.

Although.

There's been a lot of, I think, more than anything.

Hesitation on the ultra, but once people switched over, I think there was a pretty fast learning curve on it.

Yeah.

But for me, the AI seems to have. I guess it's a lot more questions about it even after you've.

Used it because of the capability or potential capability of where it could go or how it could be used in academia. Because AI is used very differently in academia than it is in the workforce. And so how do we prepare our students for the workforce use of such things?

While also holding.

Academic standards.

You know to what we're used to.

If anyone's curious, they should watch the better online learning and teaching conference that U of A global campus hosted just recently or myself and an instructor talked about navigating assignment usage with AI. That's right, link in the description.

No, but those are the types of conversations that need to be had, right? That's just one example that I've had with a marketing instructor and.

Yeah.

We worked on how she she noticed AI was being used in a in a not so beneficial way by students. So she's worked to get ahead of that to safeguard against it, filter it properly, but then also deploy it in assignment so that students can actually leverage it as a tool that actually helps their ability and retail strategy.

Healthy breads.

Which is ideal and that's what, though we're still learning how to do that across multiple disciplines.

And I think that's difficult. That's part of the complexity part of techno complexity that that contributes to techno stress is that it's not just the complexity of learning it as an instructor, but also the complexity of then.

Saying OK and ciphering through how do I need to teach students to leverage this as a skill and how can I incorporate that into my class?

Yeah.

And that's going to constantly be evolving. That's never a settled.

Topic the technology is going to constantly have new features, new updates, new complexities, AI throws a curveball into that that's completely different and we're in a lot of unchartered territory.

With it so.

Right.

This one was unique. I'm not sure that this one is.

Always something we can sift out or guard against. Especially, but techno insecurity and this, I think, was focused more on the student side of things, but just feeling threatened by peers who seem more tech savvy. And so some data and some of the research said that that it may be something that adult learners coming back into the learning space and those fully online.

Courses.

Might.

Struggle when they see younger learners who pick up.

And run with technology and don't have to deal with that with the concept is is in cognitive load theory extrinsic load. So you've got intrinsic load which is just the general difficulty of the the learning and then extrinsic load is all the the background stuff that you have to manage to focus on the learning. So working through the actual system managing the technologies you can.

Right.

Focus on the concepts and so in security.

Right. But.

Thanks.

What's funny is I think this is a stereotype because a lot of our younger learners are not necessarily adept at the technology and still have to be taught. And so I also think this definitely applies to instructors because I know several instructors who feel like their peers may be ahead of them.

Sure. Yeah.

Absolutely.

And learning about AI or learning about other technologies and.

I just want to say it that doesn't matter. Number one, no, it feels like it does. But start where you are, but also for your students. If you're using technology, one way to reduce this for them, this techno insecurity is to have little tutorial videos and.

You're not asking your students to do something in your class, but you're not familiar with. So do a little screen share video. Show them.

What it looks like and exactly how to approach it and that can reduce some of that.

Yeah.

That's the whole concept you're bringing up is the the myth. It's almost a mini myth in this episode of Digital Natives versus digital immigrants. The idea that those who are born in the era of technology already being ubiquitous are just naturally.

Adept at using it because they've always been around it, and again it.

Freshman.

It's.

Not the case. What you know, navigate the learning management system. Sometimes while I'm I teach face to face while I'm in class with them disproves that very quickly. And then there are some who. Yeah, some folks who are beyond the typical undergraduate age who work with technology. It's it's more of your openness to learn.

No.

And your awareness, right of your skill sets that man that have a bearing on how.

Secure. You can be in a digital space, and there's that's. That's also a very.

Malleable skill. You can learn it like you said by providing those, and if you're an instructor, like man, that's so have to build a lot of these types of tutorials. Not necessarily so many of those things are going to be out there on YouTube already if you're just looking for how to get them to navigate certain parts of the learning management system. Most of that stuff can be pre built. You can search on YouTube, you can search your institutions.

Tech help page and at the University of Arkansas. That's tips that we have teaching.

Yes, we have tests or we also have blackboard help for students.

Backward out. Yeah. So a lot of those materials are already built and it's just a matter of embedding those within the course in a way that's accessible. So the last one is #5 here, techno uncertainty, feeling uncertain about keeping up with frequent technological changes. And to an extent that's we're all in that boat together.

MHM.

That's something that we're always everyone's gotta always kind of be aware of, but.

I'm just gonna say.

I don't really try.

It's not, but it's not something that's going to be.

Very common in the deployment of a learning management system space for for online education. Right? Like much of the time, instructors aren't expected to just be deploying every new shiny tool, and students aren't expected to be able to navigate and manage every new shiny tool, every, every weeks.

No.

And and to be frank, in academia, that's not common in general to have the brand new shiniest tools because you have a lot of people and to resource that many people with the brand new shiniest tools, that's a big chunk of the budget, right? We can't, we can't do it all the time but also.

Yes.

Yes.

So.

I think the thing here for me is something that I.

First of all, I was never interested in the brightest new shiniest tool because I knew it would have bugs. And so I like to wait till the bugs get out. That's that's just my personal approach. But even, you know, beyond that I think the best thing that you can do is find the technology that's working really well with your material.

Yeah.

That suits your discipline. Like what are ways that we can research efficiently in history and what technology uses that? How can we leverage the things we do have access to?

Yeah.

You know to be most effective and I'm not going to say productive because I think that technology should not make us more productive.

It's a different conversation, but initially technology was supposed to reduce our workload so that it was taking over some of the jobs we were doing, and instead we've leveraged it so that we're supposed to be smarter, faster, better, you know, right.

Yeah. So we can do more work.

And burnout faster. Yeah. That is a different conversation.

But absolutely and.

I like the point you brought up of find the technologies that actually matter and meet the needs. This is where alignment and just understanding your objectives matter so much. And I was a history major in my undergrad and I remember at my undergrad.

How did I not know that?

Oh, sure, I mentioned it.

Before, I'm sure you did. In fact, I know you've laughed about both not being English majors.

Yeah.

In here, but because we're few and far between in the design team on global campuses, staff. Yeah. But I remember our rare books collection at my undergraduate institution. We was hanging out with the the librarian there. One day we were talking. It was one of my classes. We were.

Oops.

Really funny.

Chat with him looking at some of the book.

And it was kind of at the time where.

E readers were becoming more popular and I have a Kindle Paperwhite. I love it. I also still love a book and we were wondering we're having that conversation, our our books going to be a thing of the past because of these E readers. And one of things he brought up and he says that's that's you're going to see a market share that it's going to take up more of I think especially from the convenience factor.

Especially for people who travel a lot. I mean it was it was. It's super used for me in the newborn stage when I'm holding a baby at 2:00 in the morning and I'm reading a book because I only need one hand to do the e-reader and it lights up and.

MHM.

Right. You don't have to turn the page and hold your place and.

Yeah, it's it's a beautiful technology for that. But he brought the point that well, look at a book I do itself, it's a very.

Efficient.

Powerful technology it the binding the spacing of it the the like weight of it all these things.

Matter to why it's lasted for so long is it's actually unto itself a really solid piece of technology. And I think the, you know, that was 15 years ago, I think the.

Data has shown like books aren't going anywhere anytime soon, so if even if you're an online class that does mean all of your learning has to be facilitated from a screen you know you want to make it accessible. So if a student wants to use the screen, they can.

Right.

Yes.

Well.

When I could, because I just needed a break from screens.

Yes.

Absolutely.

And and that's the thing. It's just making sure. Yeah, when I when I put a PDF or a document in my course, do I allow students the ability to download it? It's it's something as simple as that can help decrease that.

Techno overload, techno uncertainty, techno invasion, all those kinds of.

Dimensions that we're talking about here and you know, simple as the textbook that you required, does it have both a physical?

Copy available and a digital copy available can can they choose what works best for them and self select into that, and so those are some of the dimensions. And I think just understanding.

If we engineer the course in a way that avoids certain.

Common hazards? It's not up to us to ultimately, we can't mitigate what students are doing outside of their time that we expect them to be interacting in the class, right? If they're going to be on social media, they're going to be watching Netflix. That's their own choice and their their techno overload. But we can set up the course in a way that makes it a.

No.

Not a limiting factor to their ability to enjoy the course.

Right.

So well and it's self management then and not that.

You know, it's great for us to encourage and design it in a way where it reduces people's load where we can, but ultimately that is self management for an online asynchronous course. And so putting the choice of screen or off screen in the hands of your students and also as as much as possible.

For yourself.

That's a big help.

Yeah. Yeah. So I know we we've kind of been circling around some of the ways knowing those are the dimensions that that techno stress can materialize in. We've kind of talked about some of the ways to get around that, you know, make offline learning available make.

Technology, or the the consumption of material available in print form versus just a digital form?

I think some of the other tips here that we've kind of written down and worked through here.

Are really good and some of them are just things that you could just remind students of when you when you start the course. Having that good, solid course introduction from an instructor standpoint. And then if you're a student who happens to be listening, apply this to yourself when you're stepping into that online space.

Right. Well, also not just in your introduction, but throughout your course on your pages at the very you know at the top of your lesson information. Hey, don't forget to take frequent breaks from your screens when you're reading through this or watching these videos.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And and so probably the first one and this is this is I think true for the online learning, but I think it's just true for life in general. You don't need probably 80% of the notifications turned on that you have turned on your phone right now. I don't have e-mail notifications on my phone. I don't have teams notifications on my phone. I have texts.

Yes.

That's what I get and I have like four people who text me so I know who's who's messaging messaging me in my life. But.

The the the idea that we have to have that instant response is kind of the wrong deployment of that technology in the 1st place. The whole point of sending a message is that it doesn't have to be synchronous. There doesn't have to be.

That immediacy of response?

And.

So even if you have like structured times, whether it's a student or an instructor, that you check your messages, that's OK. Say I'm going to check for this window in the morning. This window in the afternoon, and then this window in the evening and and set that boundary and stick to it.

MHM.

That alone will.

Cut down so much on the overload and the invasion of the technology in your life because hey, I'm in control of what these messages.

Do when when it comes to my time and how I let them or how I let myself interact with them versus they're coming at me and then I feel that I have to be reactive.

Right.

So I mean that I don't know that's that's good for for learning environments, but it's it's so important. Just I think for for human sanity in the first place.

Yes, I I don't have very many apps that notify me about things.

And I still sometimes feel like it's too much, so I may turn off a.

Few more.

Sure.

Yeah. And that's that's up to each individual person's conviction, right, that's. And that's, but that's what's nice is.

You get to determine how frequently do I let myself be notified or how frequently do I go to it? But the the more you're able to build those habits, the easier it becomes over time to stretch that muscle and go longer periods of time without looking and without checking. Maybe it's just, maybe it's just 20 minutes.

Right.

At first and then it's 40 minutes and then it's an hour.

Y'all just dive in and take a whole day. Just do it.

Ogre.

You're going detox route, you're going, we're going to take everybody to A to a cabin in Arizona.

Detoxing.

Blindfold you and sit you in a dark.

Room. We are not doing that, but I mean the idea between having that boundary is that you are stepping away from your work or your academic.

Wife. And you're taking time to be a person.

Yes.

Right. You you are taking time to be with your friends. Call them on the phone. You know, actually or or better yet, meet them in person. If you live near them. I know that's not always true. Call your grandma. OK. She wants to hear from.

You.

Last time you called your mother, you didn't know you're getting that from. And here on. Yeah.

I didn't either, honestly. But but here it is.

Well, that's that's just taking taking breaks right? Like just.

I I know I personally thrive better when I've moved a certain amount throughout the day.

And so I used my watch to track, like, my movement and how many, like, hitting a goal every single day.

Yes.

But and and often we think it's counterintuitive. If I've sat it, if I'm, if I'm sitting down trying to get work done. If I take this 15 minute, 20 minute step away from the computer that's going to be true on my time. I I can't tell you how many times I have stepped away.

Gone for a walk around the block here at our building and actually thought of an idea. Or I'll listen to to audio books while I walk sometimes or an audiobook has inspires me to think about, oh, I didn't think about that. Oh, that applies to to this and it just the idea that sitting.

Yes.

And looking at.

A screen is going to inspire new ideas or inspire. Creativity is very antithetical to learning, which is ironic. Yes, 100%.

What's funny?

That there's research about this, there's a lot of research about this, but also that's true for me too. I just feel better when I do get movement in and and then I feel.

One better about my work and so I feel like I'm doing a better job. Whether that's just my own.

You know, perspective or not, it it does make me feel better. And then like you a lot of times I do get those ideas.

For those who may deal with techno uncertainty or technical security, I think a key way to help manage that is to seek out resources and seek out help when needed and at the simplest level, hey, Google is your friend. It's OK to Google.

I have a we both have masters degrees. You're pursuing a doctoral degree in working in education and.

You Google things all the time.

And I Google things all the time and.

And if you need some encouragement, reach out to broken bare AI. He'll give you some good encouragement and some good tips on how to help yourself.

Ohh yeah, that that's the. That's the one that's only that speaks affirmations, right?

Yeah, well, it does speak affirmations, but it'll tell you like tips on how to reduce your tech, your stress too. If this is the one James found and.

OK, nice.

OK.

Fun.

He is the cutest AI you'll ever see.

So it makes it all the more sad when he turns on us and.

He will not turn on us broken bars, our friends.

Wheels wields weapons of destruction against us. When the overlords come.

Broken Bear will never join them.

A2 Broken bear A2 not broken bear so, but so again at the bare minimum it's it's that let Google be your friend.

But from a student standpoint and an instructor standpoint, know your institutional resources that are available tips.uark.edu for instructors Blackboard help for students, blackboard help for instructors here at the University of Arkansas. Your institution has something. I don't know how complex or robust it might be, but.

I've found plenty of great resources and tutorials and videos from other institutions, right, and we're very collaborative in higher Ed. We want to make sure that things are accessible and we want to share.

We.

And if things work, they work and so and incorporate those things as an instructor, incorporate those things early and often in your course. So the students know they're there. We built a blackboard ultra instruction tutorial for students that went into a lot of courses at the beginning of this past fall. Since this was our first full semester.

With it for everybody, for the online courses, it wasn't anything.

Overly complex, it was just five or six different pages that had step by step walkthroughs of hey, if you work in videos or if you work in discussions or if you work, want to learn your grade book, read these 6 steps and it's a little bit more helpful for you to navigate the new space you're in, right?

We have a lot of resources that are underutilized here at the University of Arkansas and most of the time it's because people don't know about them. I can't tell you how many times I've said, oh, well, have you tried this? I didn't even know that exist.

Did and I was like that for a long time and.

Still, sometimes I mean that's that's what's great though, is there can always be more out there that assist us and helps us learn more and helps us achieve our goals and just being being open and being willing to ask question. I think it's it's a better and I tell this to my students.

The time I would rather you ask me a million questions.

And actually then have clarity on the process of something versus.

Right.

It be crickets because someone's nervous to raise their hand, but then you all walk away feeling unclear. If I've like explained a process or explained an assignment.

But maybe I missed a step or maybe I didn't think of it through your vantage point. And so you're wondering.

Right.

That no one's, I mean, I don't want to say no, sorry. There might be some instructors who get annoyed at that. I'll. I'll never be annoyed at that students wanting clarity. Same. So go out, go after it. And part of that is is also just being aware as an instructor that you're creating a supportive online community in your class, creating a supportive.

Space.

Regular and substantive interaction. We're big on this here at Global campus and on this podcast, not just because it's a federal regulation, but because it enhances and makes a course a more enjoyable experience when the students know the instructor is there, things are like there and they're going to respond.

Well, and not just more enjoyable, but.

Available.

They're actually more successful at learning. And so yeah, having having that kind of.

Yeah.

Supportive community that you've built where it's positive and inclusive and students feel comfortable asking for help. Not only they feel comfortable asking for help, but it's a place they feel good about being online.

Yes.

You know that's a positive online experience for them. That's also I think part of techno stress sometimes is the negative experiences we have in online spaces. And if you can reduce negative experiences by creating a positive, inclusive community in your course.

Yeah.

OK, that that's an easy win, right?

Yeah.

And I think the.

This.

Other point kind of dovetails from it and it's.

Clear planning. Clear scheduling. Having a clear map of the.

The landscape of the course so students can plan ahead, or they know, especially for fully online learners, they may be traveling for work at certain times of the semester. They may know that they're going to be offline, or they can be on vacation and but they want to still get their work done so they know, hey, during this week, I know I'm going to be out of the country, but I want to make sure that I plan ahead of time and get my.

Assignments submitted or my paper submitted ahead of time, or they can talk to you about an extension on a certain date.

Fail that helps.

Tear down that worry of maybe I'm going to be in a place where Wi-Fi isn't as stable, but I don't have to worry because there's a supportive community. I know my my path ahead of time and I have an instructor who is positive and communicative and.

So the the stress, if any, doesn't come from the extrinsic circumstances. It can just then focus on the intrinsic, the actual learning of material, which is what you really want.

Well, and that's the same thing too, for technological skills. Whether this is, you know, posting on a discussion board or it's something more technical that you're using specific to your disc.

And having that.

Tutorial in there and how to use it. That's a huge game changer because then students aren't spending their energy focusing on oh.

My gosh, how do I do?

This they're spending it on. OK. How can I look at this topic, this knowledge that I'm supposed to do and integrate it into what I'm doing? And so then they're spent on the actual learning instead of.

Right.

Trying to get up to pace with whatever technology you're.

Using.

Right. And Speaking of technology, you might be using, I think one last tip here and I'm I'm going to go out on a on a limb and it's funny because we're doing it on a podcast that make more audio only consumable material.

For your online learning, simply listen. I know there's there's going to be times where yes, they absolutely have to look on a on a screen and they need to be.

Where people can listen.

Yes, they don't have to view.

And they should, but.

Here's the truth. Having both is helpful and we talk about this in universal design. You should have multiple things on the same topic where people can consume it in different ways.

Yeah. Well, and and not only that, think about it, not just in the process of week by week you're introducing new concepts, but.

Retrieval practice, space repetition. Maybe the first week that you're introducing a concept. It is a video lecture and then you provide their assignment for their learning activity. You provide some small assessment, but then maybe next week you're producing a new concept, but there's good data to show, hey, if you're cycling them back to re.

Yes.

Assess or re interact with.

Concept one. Maybe that's a 15 minute podcast episode from this like they're going to that retrieval of that information, that space repetition of hearing the concept in a different time of the different setting and context will link better to their memory and link better to their learning.

Yes.

So just know that we're not saying in a single module throw the kitchen sink at them, right?

Over the course of the term.

Yes, and that's where.

Us as instructional designers, we really. I mean this is what we thrive and just enjoy problem solving with instructors on how can we, how can we structure the course in a way that leverages those data-driven.

Yeah.

Learning procedures and decreases techno stress like how? How cool would it be if your students get excited to log into your course, like to open up Blackboard and they're excited because they're gonna interact some really cool material in really cool ways.

In your class in particular, not just think, I gotta log in. OK, I got to find that discussion. I got to post. OK, but no.

Like.

There are ways that we can engineer it is it is going to be all things to all people and be amazing 100% of the time.

No.

Absolutely not. Nor should it be.

But.

It'll be better. It will be better and it could reduce techno stress not just for your students, but also for you.

Yes.

Also, you don't have to be in a development to contact your instructional designer.

You don't.

If you are teaching online.

With the University of Arkansas to those those UI listeners, if you're another institution, hey, we, we we love you. We're glad you're listening. We hope first and foremost you have folks and resources at your own institution.

Yeah.

We.

May or may not be able to help you, but you should have somebody at your institution.

No. Shoot, shoot. Shoot us a message. It's seawood at UA.

No CDW 057. I have a really weird e-mail. CDW 057 at Urg dot.

CD.

It was from when you were no, your undergrad wasn't here. I.

Was going to say usually.

No, it's my grad though.

But yeah, I I think it's just kind of close here. It's like this is a real real.

That you it does impact everyone in the online space, it impact impacts everyone in the world who's interacting with any type of ubiquitous technology, but again.

Period. Yes please screen.

Yes, if you have a screen, it's it's coming for you.

This is this is one of those that's definitely directed. Since our primary audience listening are online instructors. But no, this is what your students are dealing with too, and empathize with them and work through the ways that don't just.

Decrease your techno stress, but.

Keep them in mind as you're designing the course. Just because they chose that fully online program, that doesn't mean that they aren't already inundated with it and don't need a break from it and can't find other ways.

To.

To learn while still using the learning management system.

But their learning can happen outside of that.

And techno stress is not the consequence you have to pay for taking an online course. You can manage you there are there are ways to be supported.

Sure.

Yeah. And I think we'll just continue to see new ways and new management techniques come up. But I mean, I think the core.

Principals are always going to be there, take breaks.

Just turn off notifications and other other times says great. Turn it off.

Like, just turn off your phone, turn off your computer.

There was a time I can remember in my adult life where I wasn't connected 24/7. It was my early adult life, but I managed.

And I know life has changed a lot, but.

I think we'll actually come up with better ideas and I think we'll have more creativity.

In our work, in our instruction in our learning, the more we're able to disassociate.

And then return back to it fresh.

Thanks for joining us today on the Pedagogy toolkit. Be sure to subscribe. We'll catch you.

Next time thanks.

Did I tell you when I I had a I, the notebook LM?

Read through some of my notes here and give me the little 10 Minute Podcast summary to see how they would. Did I tell you how they pronounced it?

What they say.

So today we're going to be talking about this really interesting concept called technostress. Technostress. Huh? Fascinating.

Oh.

OK.

Technostress. So it sounds like Astrodome minus is it gonna be making?

No nostradamus. Yes. The guy who made the predictions, yes.

Maybe so technostress it is cousin.

It's his. It's his second cousin.

He never got anything right.