Multimedia technology...Ruining our students or helping them?

I am a believer in incorporating technology in the classroom, but somedays (earlier this week is a good example) I find that it encourages students to be LAZY learners or not to be learners at all.  

I don't allow laptops in my lectures because they have crippled students' ability to spell, take notes efficiently, and, of course, pay attention. BUT, I have not yet figured out how to maintain the level of attentiveness (Active Learning, if you will) that I want them to be at while lecturing using technology. 

Anyone who teaches English understands this dilemma. The finer points of MLA format, grammar, punctuation, and structure can all be a bit daunting to illustrate fluidly on a chalkboard (plus volunteers to correct sentences are always few and far between) and you never want to bombard your students with worksheets (they checkout and you have tons to grade), so you turn to TECHNOLOGY!  However, when you put up Power Points (no matter how interactive...AND MINE ARE SUPER INTERACTIVE....I'm talking movie clips, sound bites, practice sentences with answers so it's like a game, images, cartoons to examine...THE WORKS!) its like students switch into HIBERNATION mode.  Pens stop moving, eyes glaze over or begin to droop, heads slowly become acquainted with their new best friend, the desk.  I literally have to go for shock value in my lectures that include technology or resign myself to the class morphing from  ENGLISH 101 into REM CYCLES 101. 

I didn't have the luxury of tons of technology in the classroom when I was in college, but that made me a better student. A student had to stay on his or her toes. If you didn't take notes well, you learned. If you wrote too slow, you learned to speed up or else you would miss important information. We all made friends with one another so that if we missed something the teacher said, we could consult each other, not blame the teacher/professor for not "POSTING" the information to said school/courses website. We came to class and were engaged in discussion and debate, instead of asking "WILL THIS PPT BE ON BLAHBOARD?" because we wanted an excuse to mentally checkout! (I don't think one professor I had on college posted notes, you came and learned or you were not granted the "pleasure" of gaining their knowledge)  In essence we were more actively involved in what went on in the classroom because it was our RESPONSIBILITY... a concept that I feel is very lost on many of my students.

I guess this is a different generation of students and the demand for technology in the classroom is here to stay. Maybe, students will miraculously change, become more engaged with the technology in the classroom, and I will learn to love technology it...

 or maybe not.