There are a few issues that stood out to me in the videos. The first issues that was discussed in a few of the videos by the interviewee was access to technology. Some of the schools seemed to have limited access to the resources in order meet the daily needs of their program. For example, in Case Study 2, the teacher that taught his students to use the graphing calculators mentioned that it was almost impossible to have access to the computer labs because other departments in the school were always using them for other purposes. I was intrigued with how inventive he was with his use of the graphing calculators to teach coding. This was a device was portable and attainable for a relatively low cost through the Parent Advisory Committee.
The teacher in the elementary space science used a creative way to get the students to think about the complexities of space. I loved how she paired the students up to work collaboratively on a project with the laptop to create soundbytes. This was also a method that the teacher with the graphing calculators used. He made sure he had some at least one students in each group that would be stronger in terms of their knowledge of technology. When the students presented the work, he asked the class to help the one teen adjust his code so that it would accomplish something else.
The elementary space science teacher had a unique demographic to deal with in her classroom. Most of the students were not from the local area so that language skills were not typical for that region. She used technology to approach the curriculum in a way that was more visual and tactile to help the students grasp the concepts. Technology can be used as a way to bridge the gap in areas that a student may be struggling in. For example, a student’s written output could be weak but maybe they can demonstrate their understanding of the content through some sort of video or audio presentation.