Video Cases

I watched Case 4 (Elementary Space Science) and Case 5 (Middle School Life Science). Immediately, I noticed how noisy both classrooms where. It is my assumption that the students were engaged in their activities. Consequently, I found it difficult to listen to the interviews. I personally like a noisier classroom, as long as much of the noise related to “on-task” discussion. Therefore, I was not overly disturbed at the noise level. However, I do wonder how students, who prefer quieter classrooms, function in this environment. Another thing I noticed was the flexibility and amount of activities going on all at once in the classroom. Is this controlled chaos or is it just plain chaos? I teach in an alternate program and lack of structure is familiar to me, however; is there too much free roaming allowed in such a classroom? By comparing the interviews, I was struck by the obvious frustration of the new and retiring teacher in Case 4. I believe that there is not enough support and professional development opportunities for teachers to truly “catch-up” with technology. As mentioned in Case 5, the teacher states that much of his knowledge is self-taught. Moreover, it is an ongoing, dynamic process or learning. I have self-taught most of my technological knowledge as well, and I can see how frustrating it is for some teachers who neither have the background, resources, time, support and/or desire to learn cutting-edge technology.In both examples, I was pleasantly surprised the use of technology was not limited to merely surfing the web to find information. It was used as a medium to create original works. The hurricane example in Case 4 was pretty neat, since the students used the laptop to create sound effects, while still using the old paper and pencil crayon method for visuals. Nice combination of the old and new with that assignment. In Case 5, I liked how the teacher introduced more advanced assignments such as creating animated GIFs. One particular issue that stands out from the 2 cases is the loose structure or “nouveau” structure in the classrooms. I am not saying that there wasn’t structure, but it appeared relaxed. Coming from an alternate classroom, I actually like it that way, but it concerns me a little to see a bit of confusion and chaos. My concern is whether the abundance of technology has created a classroom culture of distraction or interaction?