When teaching, at some points I sometimes have to go over "boring" technical stuff. By doing so, I see students attention decreasing: they look at their mobiles, at their laptops or, in lab environments, fool around in facebook, youtube etc. Their attention comes back when the lecture moves on to "lighter" subjects.
The thing is that you cannot just omit the content from the slides, as it is crucial for the course (e.g. IPv6, TCP/IP protocols etc.). However, only a small percentage of the students seems to be interested, even after I underline that the material will be examined in the final exam.
The question is: how to increase student interest and maximize the percentage of students that actually assimilate the lecture content?