A new way to face the challenges of students’ digital distractions and academic performance with Deledao's Real-Time AI
The strong association between student engagement and academic performance makes it imperative to solve the problem of digital distractions. Deledao ActiveInsights™, powered by InstantAI™ technology, approaches this problem by filtering unsafe and distracting browser-based content in real-time and allowing teachers to monitor and manage students’ classroom engagement. In addition to classroom management, ActiveInsights™ monitors and identifies students with mental distress, instantly sending alerts to staff and parents.
With Deledao’s ActiveInsights™, students will waste less time with off-task activities and engage more actively with teachers in the classroom, allowing them to achieve greater academic performance. Eventually, students will acquire self-regulation skills for life beyond K12, building the ability to prevent digital distractions on their own. This article focuses on learning sciences research as the basis for Deledao’s suite of products and how its features support students’ skill development while leveraging their learning community to enable academic success.
Topics covered in this article:
Digital Distractions and How Deledao Came to Be,
What is Deledao ActiveInsights™,
Goal Setting and Self-Monitoring,
Decluttering the Environment,
Providing Mental Health Resources,
Checking in with Students,
Engaging Family Members,
Deledao’s Impact on Digital Distractions and Students’ Learning.
Background on Digital Distractions and How Deledao Came to Be
Digital distractions obstruct effective online instruction [1], and it can take up to 30 minutes for students to refocus after being distracted by technology use [2]. When students are assigned to watch a YouTube video in class for learning and discussion, they often find themselves bombarded with video recommendations and ads tailored to their interests. The user interface is designed to keep the visitors online and clicking, diverting student attention from the intended lesson objectives and potentially losing engagement in the educational material.
Shuang Ji, CEO of Deledao and co-inventor of the proxy filtering technology, witnessed the digital distraction challenge through his daughter’s educational experience—Chromebooks and iPads become ubiquitous, teachers embrace digital resources, and students are tasked with online homework.
Concerned about the evolving digital landscape impacting his child's education, Shuang's realizes that the filtering technology he pioneered in the 1990s may not adequately shield his school-aged daughter from the complexities of the modern internet.
Determined to address this gap with real-time AI technologies to automate content categorization, Deledao ActiveInsights™ was created to alleviate the burdensome manual maintenance plaguing K12 IT teams, ensuring a safer and more relevant digital learning environment for today's students, and helping school districts reach their academic goals.
What is Deledao ActiveInsights™?
Deledao ActiveInsights™ is a browser-based content filtering, classroom management and wellness monitoring solution. It uses patented InstantAI technology to screen and analyze each webpage in real time.
The Deledao ActiveInsights™ suite includes three main components:
ActiveScan™ views web content just as a human, recognizing ambiguity and inventive spelling. It can also identify and blur harmful and distracting images and redact foul language in digital learning environments.
ActiveInstruct™ allows teachers to control student access to websites during class by locking browsers and closing tabs. It can also build flexible grouping arrangements and provide a pathway to facilitate student-teacher engagement with instant messaging.
ActivePulse™ monitors student wellness and mental health. It identifies students spending time visiting unsafe websites or engaging in cyberbullying. Featuring a case management system to document and record student activity, ActivePulse sends real-time alerts to schools and parents immediately upon harmful digital behavior.
Thanks to Teacher, Admin and Parent portals, everyone involved in the student learning environment can be an active and supportive part.
Goal Setting and Self-Monitoring
Using Deledao’s ActiveInstruct™, students can set their learning goals, and the system sends students immediate alerts if any activity indicates distraction, ensuring their focus and engagement. For example, our patented technology GameChanger™ can analyze keyboard input and mouse movements to detect game-playing.
This form of self-monitoring package (SMP) is highly effective in increasing task engagement while decreasing disruptive behavior [3]. With an SMP, students waste less time on off-task activities, achieving improved classroom engagement, which correlates with improved academic performances [4]. Alerts sent to students allow them to increase their awareness of how much they go off-task, promoting self-regulation skills that will follow them for life beyond K12 [5].
Decluttering the Environment
Deledao’s ActiveScan™ uses patented InstantAI™ technologies to view web content just as a human, recognizing ambiguity and inventive spelling and even redacts foul language. And with MediaMonitor™, it can also identify and blur harmful, unsafe, and distracting images for students engaged in digital learning environments.
These foul language and distracting images are high-load visual stimulations in students’ learning environments that reduce their cognitive performance [6] and their neighboring students' learning [7]. Our patented InstantAI™ technology reduces the clutter in students’ environments, preventing distraction and promoting engagement in students and their peers.
Providing Mental Health Resources
Deledao’s ActivePulse™ uses patented InstantAI™ technology to detect any students’ activity indicative of self-harm and send immediate alerts to them, directing them to mental health resources available. Increased awareness and accessibility to mental health resources allow students to get help when needed.
With Deledao, students and teachers have guided digital access to mental health services, allowing students to have increased mental health support, achieve better outcomes in school [8], and, more importantly, enter adulthood with knowledge of positive mental health management tools.
Checking in with Students
Consistent formal and informal check-ins allow educators to understand learners' experiences more deeply, promoting trust between them, which supports students' Emotions and Learner Mindset [9].
Deledao’s ActivePulse™, powered by InstantAI™ technology, provides schools with a comprehensive understanding of students’ experience and current frame of mind by generating a Spotlight Report on students’ internet usage. Real-time alerts will be sent to schools when student activity raises concerns related to self-harm or distress, allowing for timely intervention and support.
Engaging Family Members
Parental engagement in students’ school life allows students to feel valued within the school community and less likely to miss school, resulting in positive effects on their academic achievement [10]. Technology can be a valuable support in this parental engagement process.
Deledao’s Parent Portal gives parents 24/7 insights into their child’s online activity on school devices. It allows them to partner collaboratively with schools to help their child develop responsible habits and behaviors while engaging in digital content. It also facilitates advocacy for parents in developing shared goals and becoming empowered to contribute to decisions for their children.
Deledao’s Impact on Digital Distractions and Students’ Learning
Deledao ActiveInsights™ uses patented InstantAI™ technology to screen through each webpage and email in real time to analyze text, images, and videos. Product research suggests that students are developing digital self-regulation skills by restricting distractions.
A study of over 1000 students from school districts across the U.S. showed that 42% of students completely stopped attempting to access distracting content after just four weeks of ActiveInsights™ use [11].
The significant drop in attempts to access distracting content indicates that students who previously engaged in chronic media multitasking during class are changing their behavior and developing digital self-regulation skills.
With greater self-regulation skills, students will achieve improved classroom engagement, which correlates with improved academic performance. Deledao improves the effectiveness of digital learning by ensuring that school devices remain used by students as intended – for learning!
Research Citations
[1] Klein, Alyson. (2022). What’s Getting in the Way of More Effective Digital Learning? Education Week. https://www.edweek.org/technology/whats-getting-in-the-way-of-more-effective-digital-learning/2022/03
[2] Chen, L., Nath, R., & Tang, Z. (2020). Understanding the determinants of digital distraction: An automatic thinking behavior perspective. Computers in Human Behavior, 104, 106195.
[3] Dunlap, G., Clarke, S., Jackson, M., Wright, S., Ramos, E., & Brinson, S. (1995). Self-monitoring of classroom behaviors with students exhibiting emotional and behavioral challenges. School Psychology Quarterly, 10(2), 165–177. https://doi.org/10.1037/h0088302
[4] Glass, A. L., & Kang, M. (2019). Dividing attention in the classroom reduces exam performance. Educational Psychology, 39(3), 395-408.
[5] Karaoğlan Yılmaz, F. G., Olpak, Y. Z., & Yılmaz, R. (2018). The effect of the metacognitive support via pedagogical agent on self-regulation skills. Journal of Educational Computing Research, 56(2), 159-180.
[6] Rodrigues, P. F., & Pandeirada, J. N. (2018). When visual stimulation of the surrounding environment affects children’s cognitive performance. Journal of Experimental Child Psychology, 176, 140-149.
[7] Hall, A. C., Lineweaver, T. T., Hogan, E. E., & O'Brien, S. W. (2020). On or off task: The negative influence of laptops on neighboring students’ learning depends on how they are used. Computers & Education, 153, 103901.
[8] Swick, D., & Powers, J. D. (2018). Increasing access to care by delivering mental health services in schools: The school-based support program. School Community Journal, 28(1), 129-144.
[9] Ross, S. W., & Sabey, C. V. (2015). Check-in check-out+ social skills: Enhancing the effects of check-in check-out for students with social skill deficits. Remedial and Special Education, 36(4), 246-257.
[10] Henderson, A. T., & Mapp, K. L. (2002). A New Wave of Evidence: The Impact of School, Family, and Community Connections on Student Achievement. Annual Synthesis, 2002.
[11] Deledao. (n.d.). Deledao Pilot Case Study. Retrieved October 9, 2023, from https://www.deledao.com/case-study-aggregate-pilots