It was a typical classroom event. The students had gathered to culminate a Reader’s Workshop and invited parents.

My son attends a traditional school for the most part. It is not a technologically savvy school. So I did notice when the students were using phones to record their classmates presentations.

Record

The devices belonged to parents. Students had prior knowledge of the operation of the devices – although that is not provided in that school.Record, Consume, Repeat
They were able to record from their seats and had the background knowledge to pan and zoom. In no way were they disruptive while recording.

Consume

Record, Consume, Repeat

 

The startling part was that sometimes in the what I deemed the middle of the event, the students would stop recording and play back what they had just recorded.

 

They were actually consuming the content before it was completely preformed.

Record, Consume, Repeat

Repeat

I watched a total of three students repeat this same behavior. Parents did not intervene, although they were parent devices. No students seemed to find it abnormal.

 

In fact my son (third picture, lower left of image), watched the video being captured over the actual presentation in front of him.

 

Consume or Produce?

Is there a conflict between being a producer of content and a consumer of content? If so, are these students simply immature in these roles and so are flitting between the two?

Attention Narrowing?

Are students just demonstrating to us their attention spans, just giving us a visual clue? Or could they be narrowing their own attention spans inadvertently without any adult guidance?

What do you think is going on here?