Week 5- Cold Turkey

This week I focused my research on a piece of technology I could use in a classroom of older students. Right now i am teaching kindergarten so I tend to think about technology based on their age and forget about what would work for older aged students. In my research I found cold turkey.com which is a website that allow teachers to temporarily block online distractions to help students stay focused and finish their work faster. Honestly this seems like something I could use while I am in school. To often we are distracted with many different websites and things to explore instead of staying focused on our work. I think this website would be very beneficial for middle school and high school students in a classroom to prevent them from visiting distracting websites.
According to the website Cold Turkey can be set to block specific webpages to the entire internet. You can allow exceptions, block applications, or even lock yourself out of a computer.
This technology is free to download (basic- unlimited number of websites using timer and enable user to keep track of those who waste the most amount of time). Pro allows the use everything basic does in addition to scheduling, password, application blocking, and daily time limits. One negative about this website is that it is required to be downloaded separately on each computer.

Comments

  1. Rachel LaSotaFebruary 18, 2018 at 8:57 AM

    This is awesome! I decided to try it out since I was being distracted by Facebook and not finishing my blog posts :)

    It works!

    Can I use it for my whole class? Or is more of a personal tool?

    ReplyDelete
  2. UnknownFebruary 19, 2018 at 7:11 PM

    This looks like an invaluable resource! Students are so sneaky when they're using laptops for class that I would love to use this so that I don't have to worry about them playing games or being distracted when they should be working. I honestly think it would be okay if I had to show the kids how to download it on their computer themselves, but I would have to make sure they're actually blocking the sites I want them to...

    ReplyDelete
  3. AnonymousFebruary 20, 2018 at 8:40 PM

    This is super awesome and I am going to share it with my nieces and nephew who are in college. My issue is that I waste my time on my phone and not on my computer...it's my gaming apps that kill me! What an awesome find! My school district has many sites blocked, but it would be helpful to use to block YouTube. Many of my students try to sneak to watch videos and (maybe because they are in 4th grade) forget to turn down their volume. They get caught almost every time! But this would solve that issue!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. AnonymousFebruary 20, 2018 at 8:43 PM

      Oh and I just wanted to add that the Pro version isn't that expensive at just $25 Canadian dollars. The exchange rate is as follows:

      25 CAD =19.7521 USD

      Delete
  4. UnknownFebruary 22, 2018 at 12:03 PM

    This is great! It's so hard for me to focus on work when I have so many distractions at my fingertips - so I can sympathize with how hard it is for students to stay on task, too. I know some colleges have ways of turning off wi-fi in a particular classroom, but this seems like it would be a much more customizable way to achieve that same goal. Thanks for sharing!

    ReplyDelete
  5. NorskiFebruary 22, 2018 at 10:40 PM

    I think that is a great resource to set up while students are at school. I haven't taught older students but I can only imagine that given the chance they would be checking social media sites instead of doing school work. I remember saying that students seem to always find loopholes and share them with their friends.

    ReplyDelete
  6. Dr. FFebruary 26, 2018 at 1:14 PM

    This looks like it hit a target for most of us. Interesting possibilities.

    ReplyDelete
  7. UnknownMarch 4, 2018 at 9:21 AM

    I was hoping someone would post a blocking website! Thank you - I went and looked at the site. It sounds great. I am going to ask my administrators if we can use this! I agree middle and high schoolers really need some blocking apps. It is a constant struggle to monitor them. Thanks! Do you ever need to block grade schoolers?

    ReplyDelete

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