Mythology Memes Project

As I often do near the end of the school year, i joined the remaining students in our high school Mythology class after the seniors graduated. We took two class periods to try out a creative project based on popular memes.

This was an entertaining project that provided room for humor and plenty of room for references to material the students learned previously in the semester. Below I'll present the outline of what we did and also the presentation I used in class. At the end I'll give a few other thoughts of how I'd improve the lesson next time.

1) I introduced the project with a definition of memes, some examples and an explanation of why I find them valuable for a lesson.

2) We played a caption game using funny pictures I found online. See below for more details on the game.

3) I presented a few memes I created that refer to the mythology class or myths in general. (The teacher wasn't too thrilled with my couple jabs at the course, but I'm a former math teacher and the Mythology class is one of the most popular in the high school. I guess I was bitter!)

4) After that, I gave them the assignment of creating four memes using the pictures I saved to the network drive.

5) The next day I started with some thoughts about copyright and fair use.

6) I showed examples of memes that combine two or more pictures along with some text.

7) I assigned the second part of the assignment which required them to create one of these more complex memes.

Here are the slides for the presentation. I made some minor adjustments after the lesson, but this will give you a good idea of the flow and it includes all examples I used.



Other notes and thoughts for improvement:

• The lesson could be expanded to allow students to explore the copyright issues surrounding memes themselves.
• I planned on getting pictures of the students and the teacher so we could make our own memes, but we ran out of time.
• The teacher and I agreed that next time we need to give them more material to work with. I would list some myths and characters that they could refer to specifically in the memes. I also needed to provide some specific examples along those lines.
• I wanted to have students share their memes on social media and get extra credit if they received any attention from friends and followers. Again, there wasn't enough time for this part of the activity.
• For the creativity game, I chose one student to be the judge. I displayed one of the pictures you will see in the presentation. I gave the other students about two minutes to write one or more captions for the image. I read them (making sure they were appropriate) to the class and the judge picked his or her favorite two. We only had time to do this with three pictures, but it was good practice that loosened everyone up for the creativity required for the memes. See this page for many other examples of my creativity games for the classroom.
• I was going to use the meme creator at imgflip.com to create the memes, but there couple that were slightly inappropriate. I downloaded the blank meme pictures and showed the students how to use Paint to make simple memes. That very basic program worked well enough for the first part of the project, but it was tricky to use for combining elements in part two. I would have preferred to use GIMP, but we didn't have time to learn that more complex image editing program.
• As you might imagine, it did take some effort to make sure students were keeping their memes appropriate for school. I had to remind them a few times, but overall they were a great group to work with. Depending on your students, you might have to provide more boundaries on possible humor or limit the options in the pool of meme templates.

Four Tips I Learned in the 2013 - 2014 School Year

I just finished up 20 years in my career in education. Many times I said it was my best year yet. I saw students get excited about using their talents and pursuing their dreams. I worked with some great teachers who were stretched and who stretched me. I received heartfelt thanks from administrators, colleagues, students and a few people who encountered my work online or at conferences where I presented.

I also had some setbacks. Several teachers took action through the local union in response to a professional development program I had been excited to share. This year also marked my sixth full year as an instructional tech coordinator. In evaluating overall growth of the staff over this time, I had to face some harsh facts. Not everyone has been following where I'm supposed to be leading. I have to claim responsibility for my shortcomings and oversights in that area.

In reflecting on the highlights and challenges, I came up with these four main lessons I found.

Teach like an artist.
Just before school started last year I wrote a blog post about some parallels I see in teaching and creating art. It struck a chord with some teachers and it fueled my passion for months afterward as I put the principles into practice.

In short, it is my way of staying inspired so I can inspire. It involves chasing a vision. Pushing through all the fear, risk and doubt, we do what it takes to make that vision real in our classrooms and for our students. Everything I learned and continue to learn about this shows up at my new blog.

It's OK to learn together.
I worked with a few teachers this year on ambitious first time projects. They made for quite an adventure. Either I or the teacher started things off saying something like, "This is the first time any of us have tried this, so we're not sure what to expect. We need your help."

Contrast that with the classroom environment most of us grew up with. In the past the teacher was the expert in the room. He or she had the answers. The game was to guess what was in the teacher's head. I consciously made it a goal in my writing to simply tell the teacher what she had told us. I knew it would earn the A. And why shouldn't it? There was comfort in certainty. The right answer was known and had been spoken.

But now the only certainty is that there's more to know. This is not just true in the classroom, but everywhere. When the goal is to do better, the learning never ends. The comfort of knowing right answers is gone.

This year the students I worked with saw me turn to Google more than ever when it came to a new tech obstacle we encountered. I had to take notes and tell them I'd look for solutions after class. I had to admit I was stumped. I had to thank students for finding an answer before I did.

Giving up my "expert at everything" status is still uncomfortable at times. It is hopeless to perpetuate the illusion, though, and it is far more important to model good learning strategies.

Go with the goers.
There's nothing fresh or insightful in this thought on its own. It's obvious that personal growth takes place most when we surround ourselves with others who are growing. I most recently reflected on this, though, when I read Jeff Goins' blog about what makes a great leader. Quoting one of his mentors, he put it that way: Go with the goers.

I will add only two thoughts here. First, it might be easier for writers and speakers to hang out only with the movers and doers as they share their insights with those who pay to hear what they have to share. Those of us in education are paid to reach everyone, though, and that means we also have to stay in touch with those who are not yet goers.

And I also have to speak to the power of connection and my virtual PLN. Going with the goers is a lot easier now when we can almost continually be in touch with experts online. I learned so much this year skimming recent blogs in Feedly and finding wisdom and best practices on Twitter. This year more than ever my online presence transitioned to face to face meetings. I was able to see the reach to which my thinking was bound and I found help in stretching beyond that.

Find strength in personal growth.
I rarely hear this advice offered, yet I had to return to it a lot this year when it was tough to go on. I hear my colleagues turn to any number of hobbies and (more or less jokingly) chemicals to recharge amid the stress of the school year. I want to submit this additional option:  Take strength in measuring your progress toward your personal potential.

I know it can sound very prideful to point this out, especially within the circumstances and conversation in the teachers' lounge. I can only say there's a strong spiritual element in this for me and I see the insight, practice and the strength I find in its truth to be a gift. It is with gratitude and humility, not my own ability, that I return and rely on the blessing.

Lifelong learning is a process of becoming who we were meant to be. The journey will be necessarily difficult. There's nothing innately wrong with recharging through moments of recreation, but let's remember when there's no time for that, fulfillment of purpose and further steps toward our potential provide deep peace and energy necessary to continue.

As teachers (the lead learners) we should know this best and pass the lesson along to our students.

Along those lines, I'll end with a suggestion to all teachers: Take a few hours to reflect on what you gained this past school year. If you write anything online, please share it in the comments.

On to Something Good (Right Now) - Motivational song for the classroom

Here's a song I wrote based on several thoughts I've posted elsewhere on the blog. It would be appropriate as a motivational song to start the day in an elementary classroom.

The main idea is that students can be learning for something big now, not just some date in the future.

John Dewey said it this way:
"Education, therefore, is a process of living and not a preparation for future living."

I put a few of my usual thoughts and sayings in there such as, "It's a great time to be alive." It brings to mind that we are connected and therefore on the edge of doing something meaningful. It has reference to passion, purpose and potential, the ingredients of a full life.

Also, the bridge of the song is based on my old "key to success":

Always do your best

at what's most important

whether you feel like it or not.

Crystal Owen performed the vocals. She is the music teacher I worked with on our Smart Jams math music video project. When we presented at the MACUL conference in March I asked her to sing this song with me.

The music for the recording was done mostly on my iPad using GarageBand. I recorded her vocal and my guitar part using Audacity.

Two Great Party Games for the Classroom

Here are two great party games that never made it to the shelves of Walmart, but that have entertained us for years. I enjoyed them with friends and with students when I ran the game club.

Both can be played with homemade cards, so with some work you could tie them into your content area.

First is Thingamajig.

Because of its elegance, it is by far my favorite of the "guess the word" variety of party games. The boxed version comes with the Thingamajig--a small electronic device that reveals a single word when the button is pressed.

The active player must give a "definition" of that word to the other players. They all write down what they think the word is. If a player guesses right, he or she gets a point. The player who gave the definition gets a point for everyone who scores it, except if everyone guesses it. That's the twist that makes this game so amazing! If everyone guesses it, that player gets 0 points.

I've found this game to be an excellent study in communication. It quickly reveals how good or bad a person is at thinking from the perspective of others. By seeing the word yourself, it feels like every clue you give is too obvious. Then when you hear the answers, it's often clear you overlooked a variety of interpretations. Good stuff for further exploration.

One time I used this game with a small class of around 15 students. We played as a class, so it had an interesting dynamic. There was the possibility of getting a big score, but there were some other issues with playing this way that made it less than ideal. In general I'd recommend it for groups of five or six students.

Full rules for the game (which are still very brief) can be found here. As a bonus, if you have the Thingmajig device or you have your own set of words, here's a list of variations or other games you can play using it.

Next is What Were You Thinking?

I had almost forgotten about this fun game (which was created by the designer of Magic: The Gathering, if that means anything to you), but recently I dug it out to try with my two teenagers at home. They loved it and I was again reminded of the fun we'd had with it in class.

There are several types of questions in this game, but the general idea is that you don't necessarily score for getting right answers. You score if you match answers of other players. So, it's not great for review in class. On some questions, the winning answer might be the most popular wrong one!

For certain topics, especially pop culture or opinions, it works very well. My favorite type of questions are the ones where you are required to list four or five things in a category. For example, we had one that asked us to list celebrities who go by only one name.

After a minute or so, each player reads off his or her list. For each item, the players who had that item (including the reader) raise their hands. Each item is worth the number of hands raised. So every item is worth at least one point since you can count yourself!

This game lends itself to some interesting discussion as you'll often have to decide if two people have the same item, though they worded them differently. The rules indicate that a general answer (like "super hero movies") does not match a specific answer (such as "The Amazing Spider-Man 2").

I don't recall ever using this game with a whole class, but I think it might work with a relatively small one. Small groups of four to six students will have a lot of fun with it. Official rules are here, but I'd suggest ignoring the spinner. Just make interesting questions and write one per note card.

Note that some questions in the boxed version of this game (which is probably hard to find anyway) might not be appropriate for the classroom. Also, there are penalty cards that the lowest score player has to read aloud each round. Some of those refer to drinking.

If you're new to this site and you want some games designed for the whole class to play, here are a few links to start with:

• Many ways to use my party game What's It to Ya? in the classroom
• A ton of resources on creativity style party games
• I made some activities for North Star Games' great hit Wits & Wagers. One is for U.S. History and the other is for Life Science.

Three Simple Tutorials for Creative Project Based Learning

I'm preparing for a P^3BL session I'll lead this weekend and all that work is filtering into my Teaching Like an Artist blog. I didn't realize I hadn't updated this one in over two weeks!

Here are three tutorials for short digital projects that are worth pointing out:
Narrated Image Slideshows using Pixlr and Videolicious on iPad - These make great ways to present spoken poems or short stories.
Narrated Image Slideshows using iMovie and GarageBand for iPad - This is another method for creating slideshows. By using Garageband for the narration it also allows the opportunity to make up simple music too.
Quick Songwriting with UJam - I have created other tutorials for UJam on this blog, but this one shows the simplest way to turn a short tune into an mp3 of a fully arranged song.