Ed Surge – Jenny Abamu
” Introducing videos in her lessons helped Garcia control a rowdy classroom. But by shortening her lectures from ten minutes to five in order to include more videos, some researchers wonder: How much is too much? Is giving students screen time because they want more videos the optimal use of the medium? Is showing videos an appropriate way for teachers to deal with a rowdy class? “This this the little secret in the K-12 sector that nobody wants to touch,” says Dr. Renee Hobbs, the founder and director of the Media Education Lab and a professor of communication studies at the University of Rhode Island. “It is super sensitive and complicated.” Hobbs is one of the few researchers who has written critically about the use of videos in the classroom. Her research paper, “ Non-optimal Uses of Video In the Classroom,” published by the Learning, Media and Technology Journal in 2006, is one of the few papers that addresses instances where teachers used video for non-optimal purposes in classrooms, including in lieu of classroom management and to give the teacher a break.”(more)