So what are you going to do? Have you decided? How are you opening your class? If you were one of the new bright-eyed and bushy-tailed students in your class, what would excite and impress you in class numero uno, other than your limited Spanish vocabulary? Here are a few ideas to break your 1st class mold wide open:
As you open the flood gates and the students start pouring into the room, greet each student at the door
Have music playing as they are searching for seats in the back of the room and settling down
If the air conditioning is on the fritz and the temp is 90 or above, pass out autographed head bands to absorb their buckets of secreted bodily fluids
Start class from the back of the room instead of standing at the lectern to grab their attention and watch their head-banded heads spin around like the kid in the Exorcist
Blackout the room for dramatic effect and begin with
- a pre-recorded welcome (on a black PowerPoint slide)
- special music the students would know
- a video clip with a relevant point
- an hilarious video clip from YouTube
- a parody of a popular movie or TV program scene or image (e.g., Avatar, Glee)
- an impersonation of a well-known personality
- a creative, relevant rap
Any one or more of the above openers will charge (or “jack”) your students more than a can of Red Bull or will knock them loopy. I’m not sure of the final effect. There must be something you can do with your unique gifts and talents that will create an amazing opening. It’s like teaching in a gorilla suit on Halloween.
What opener have you always wanted to try, but were afraid to do? If you can sing, play an instrument, or perform the finale from Riverdance, do it. Boggle your students. Set yourself apart from the rest of the pack. Be bold. Take a swig of Red Bull, if you need it. Kidding. You’ll need more than one swig. Think hard and release your inhibited self and repressed, but, probably, fertile, imagination.
These techniques can make your opening memorable and, possibly, unforgettable, plus they can set the tone for what’s coming next. You do have something planned for the rest of the class, right? You better hurry and think of an activity quickly or you’ll be nailed to the whiteboard.
Let me know what unusual opening you tried and your students’ reaction.
COPYRIGHT © 2010 Ronald A. Berk, LLC
WEB 3.0 (2010–present)
This 3rd generation is “read-write-execute” (Berners-Lee). It is actually the 3rd decade of the Web. However, don’t start celebrating yet. We need to figure out what it means.
TECHIE JARGON: John Markoff (2006), who coined “Web 3.0,” called it the “intelligent Web.” Unfortunately, I’m not intelligent enough to grasp his tech definition:
“using semantic web, microformats, natural language search, data mining, machine learning, recommendation agents, and artificial intelligence technologies.” I don’t have a clue what that means.
INTERPRETATION W/ EXAMPLES #1: However, Todd Lucier (2009) provides a little more insight with: “location-aware and moment-sensitive Internet.” He emphasizes that Web 3.0 affords people all over the world the opportunity to engage with one another on a variety of devises, particularly handheld ones, which are easier than ever before. Examples with which you may be familiar include the following:
• handheld 3G and 4G devices, like the iPhone 3GS and 4.0, for fast access to Internet almost anywhere
• iPhone apps like Around Me, OneTap, LocalPicks, iTV, and StarMap, plus a bazillion others by Apple
• real time face-to-face communications like video calling with Skype Video and Google.com/videochat
• multimedia group messaging with Utterli
• gps-triggered driving directions
The iPhone 4.0 can perform most of the above functions and a lot more. Web 3.0 adds a layer to Web 2.0 tools to allow mass diffusion of video to TVs, laptops, tablets, and mobile devises with simpler interfaces. It makes tasks faster and easier than Web 2.0. Content is recognized by its context (aka “semantic”).
INTERPRETATION W/ EXAMPLES #2: Calacanis (2008) describes Web 3.0 as the creation of high-quality content and services based on Web 2.0 technology by recognizing talent and expertise:
• a Web 3.0 version of Digg would involve experts checking the validity of claims and correcting errors
• Funnyordie.com adds a layer of talent and trust to standard YouTube features like syndication and social networking
• Wikipedia is locking pages down as they reach completion
CONCLUSIONS:
Are the differences among the 3 generations of Web any clearer? Although the shift between static, read-only pages to nonstatic, interactive Websites seems kinda distinct, the actual improvements in Web 3.0 over Web 2.0 are muddier, as our earlier inklings suggested. Maybe those changes, occurring as I type, will pop out and become more meaningful as we experience them. Web 3.0 emphasizes higher quality and easier communications of every kind. I bet consumers of the iPhone 4.0 or iPad can already appreciate those changes and the popping; even better, maybe I should go buy one.
HAPPY WEBBING! Please let me know your thoughts on any of the preceding blogs, especially corrections and clarifications by any of you techies out there in cyberspace.
COPYRIGHT © 2010 Ronald A. Berk, LLC
Are you ready for 2.0? Me neither. Hold on to your keyboards. Here we go:
WEB 2.0 (2004–present)
This 2nd generation was “read-write” (Berners-Lee), social Web with interaction, active participation, and content generation. The term was coined by Darcy DiNucci (1999). It’s been called the “participatory Web” compared to Web 1.0 as the “Web-as-information source” (Decrem, 2006). It had a user-centered design to foster interactive information sharing so that users could be contributors, producers, and consumers. Examples include web applications, social media, video sharing, blogs, wikis, mashups, and folksonomies (categorizing content through tags) (see Wikipedia on Web 2.0).
USER-ORIENTED AND INTERACTIVE: Encyclopedia Britannica Online was replaced with Wikipedia, which relies on users (collectively) to constantly and quickly generate content. Users can write their own content and comment on others’ content through blogs, network groups, and social media. They can post their own social and professional profiles for others to review and create pages to advertise their businesses, events, and products on these sites. Users can even build their own social network with Ning. Other interactive services include Skype, online banking, and job and employee searching on LinkedIn and many other sites.
RELIANCE ON USER CONTRIBUTIONS: Some Webs rely almost entirely on user contributions, such as (a) social (Facebook, Twitter, Digg) and professional networks (LinkedIn), which permit users to create and share audio, video, text, and multimedia content, (b) photo (Flickr) and video (Flickr, YouTube) distribution and sharing sites, and (c) professional listservs. Without these contributions, most of these sites might vanish into cyber-air.
BOTTOM LINE: Overall, Web 2.0 facilitates creativity, information sharing and dissemination, dynamic, ever-changing content, and collaboration which has led to Web-based communities and the hosted services listed above. It radically changed the way people use the Internet, from 1-way to every which-way.
Tomorrow I’ll examine some of the criticisms of Web 2.0, and then on to Web 3.0.
COPYRIGHT © 2010 Ronald A. Berk, LLC
SEXUAL CONTENT AND INNUENDO
Sometimes our thoughts just travel down this road naturally. That’s what evil minds do. For many of you, these naughty trips may be more frequent than for others. They can be stimulated by the bombardment of media that permeates so much of what we see, hear, and do or over-advertised medications you may be taking. Our students are exposed to these same stimuli.
MEDIA BOMBARDMENT: This topic is the core of many stand-up routines by comedians who appear on HBO, Showtime specials, and Comedy Central. It is also the primary vehicle for many popular TV shows, such as Desperate Housewives, Private Practice, Cougar Town, Nip & Tuck, and Reno 911!, the syndicated Boston Legal and Sex and the City, a large proportion of R rated movies, and a bazillion YouTube videos.
CLASSROOM BOUNDARIES: Regardless of the gender composition of your class, sexual humor is out of bounds. Be sensitive to sexual comments and innuendo in the music and video clips you select to illustrate various types of content. It is up to you to place blocks on sexually-based material in any jokes, references, or media.
Try not to even think about it as you are lecturing. Move rapidly over anything suggestive. Students’ comments on what you say can get out of control very quickly. They take their cues from the way you handle everything in class, especially edgy issues. (Note: These guidelines do not apply in the same way to those of you who teach courses on human or rodent sexuality. You have even more problems to address.)
As the beloved Sgt. Phil Esterhaus of the classic TV series Hill Street Blues said every morning at the end of his precinct briefing of his police officers: “Let’s be careful out there!”
WORKPLACE BOUNDARIES: Read my letters: S E X U A L H A R A S S M E N T!! If adulterous, evil political, sports, and entertainment celebrities are your role models, get clinical help. Unless you want to be reprimanded, fired, sued, shot, or worse, don’t even think about it in jest with co-workers in your department—at meetings, at retreats, in training, in the elevator, at the water-cooler, in the storage closet, or in business travel or conferences. (ALERT: If you're not sure how to get in BIG trouble in these venues, watch reruns of Boston Legal.)
My next blog moves into the “locker room,” so to speak, with the use of profanity and vulgarity in the classroom and workplace. I know this is a topic near and dear to the hearts of a few of you who may see nothing wrong with that language on the job. You can dig your tongues in, but please remember that this blog material is not about you or me; it’s about your students and co-workers and the effects it can have on their learning and productivity, respectively. At least, think about it.
COPYRIGHT © 2010 Ronald A. Berk, LLC
IMPACT ON STUDENTS (continued)
My previous blog listed 6 possible negative effects of offending any student in your class. So what’s the impact?
DISCONNECT: Does the word disconnect come to mind? It should. It's the paragraph head. Those emotional effects can squash a student’s motivation and spirit. More importantly, a single offensive comment can irreparably damage your relationships with those offended students. If collaborative learning activities are an integral part of your teaching repertoire, that collaboration could be uncomfortable or impossible based on the offensive remarks you made to any student. That student may intentionally avoid you to minimize the chance of confrontation. This is an individual issue in each offense because what is offensive to one student may not be offensive to other students.
CONNECT: The aforementioned negative effects of offensive media content are exactly the opposite of the positive effects to accrue from many of the uses of media in the first place. One primary purpose of humor, music, and videos is to improve relationships and connections by leveraging content and media to which students can relate. For example, nonoffensive humor and media content can break down barriers, relax, open up, and reduce stress, tension, and anxiety to foster connections between you and your students. It can grab and maintain the students’ attention and ability to focus or refocus on a particular point.
BEST TEACHERS: Furthermore, consider the characteristics of the “best teachers.” Use of offensive material is inconsistent with some of the affective character attributes of effective teachers, such as sensitivity, caring, understanding, compassion, and approachability.
MAJOR CATEGORIES OF OFFENSIVE CONTENT
In the humor research literature, joke types usually fit the following themes: superiority, aggression, hostility, malice, derision, cruelty, disparagement, stupidity, sex, and ethnic put-downs. Is there anything positive or nonoffensive in that list? I don’t think so.
The problem is that these themes are also prominent in music, movies, music videos, YouTube, and other media products that we could potentially use in our classroom as teaching tools. For example, some music, videos, and comedy with big name performers carry warning labels of “Adult Content.” These media have become increasing risqué by attacking and maligning the police, women, and political and “establishment” figures and issues. They are also chock full of obscenities, profanities, vulgarity, and other crude and explicit language.
I’ve identified seven major categories of offensive content: (1) put-downs, (2) sarcasm, (3) ridicule, (4) profanity, (5) vulgarity, (6) sexual content and innuendo, and (7) sensitive personal experiences. This material appears in jokes, music lyrics, and video content.
My future blogs will address those 7 categories.
COPYRIGHT © 2010 Ronald A. Berk, LLC
WHY STANDARDS?
The issue of offensive material in the classroom is usually not discussed. We have academic freedom to do just about anything we want under the guise of “teaching.” The problem is that NOW the intersection of our culture with the technology has significantly changed the rules of the game.
Yup, the Standards Police have arrived! BEWARE! As many of you already know, I have written on this topic in all of my books and several articles and blogs. Why? Because what we model or permit in the classroom, especially anything negative or contentious, will most likely be emulated by our students and pushed to the next level.
We have a responsibility to set appropriate guidelines and standards in our classroom as a learning environment and in our workplace. We need to filter what is in the culture before it contaminates our domains and diminishes our control and effectiveness. We need to sift through all of the material and extract what is positive, uplifting, and constructive to facilitate learning, not impede it. Anything that can offend our students can destroy their learning spirit and our classroom atmosphere.
SO WHERE’S THE PROBLEM?
The problem is (Are you ready? Do you want the truth? Can you handle the truth?): Media in our culture are OUT OF CONTROL. What we read, listen to, and see on TV, the Internet (particularly YouTube and social media), and Comedy Central, and in movies, theaters, and comedy clubs is now stretching the limits of decency. Much of that material is blatantly offensive and would be inappropriate in the classroom. I’m not saying that it is not entertaining; it just doesn’t belong in your classroom or department.
This blog series will address this problem and how you can set standards for a safe, productive, yet, also exciting, learning environment. I hope you will stick around.
COPYRIGHT © 2010 Ronald A. Berk, LLC
3. VIDEO CLIPS (CONTINUED)
SOURCES OF VIDEOS: There are three principal sources from which to obtain the videos: original DVD, the Internet, CD clips with book. There are several factors to consider in using these sources. If the video segment needs to be extracted and converted to a format compatible with Microsoft’s PowerPoint® (PP) for PCs, you will have to do the extracting and conversion with specific software.
SOFTWARE ISSUES: Here are a few key questions that you should be asking me:
a. Why do you need software? The videos from the above sources are in the form of complete tracks and typically NOT in a format compatible with PowerPoint. You may need only a tiny clip. The software allows you to extract that clip and convert it to an appropriate format.
b. How expensive is the software? Ones I’ve used range from free to $100. The cost is minimal.
c. Once you pick the video, how long does it take to extract the clip, convert it to MPEG, WMV, or AVI, and insert it into your PowerPoint slide? Once you learn the process, it can take 15 min.
d. Not all software work with all videos. The “blocks” on the DVDs to prevent piracy can prevent the software from functioning. The software are inconsistent also because the different manufacturers of DVDs use different blocks. Sometimes you may need to try several pieces of software to do 1 extract and conversion. Check with your IT experts or computer services for their assistance and recommendations.
SOFTWARE OPTIONS: (NOTE: Mac users may not need the software described below.) As a nontechie, I taught myself how to use some of the software programs 4 years ago and have been using them ever since, although they have been inconsistent. Here are a few to try. There are many others.
Sony Vegas Movie Studio Platinum Version 7 or 8 (~$100)
DVD Shrink 3.2 (FREE—for extracting clips only)
Cucusoft Pro Version 7.07 (~$30—for converting clips to MPEG only)
MPEG Streamclip 1.2 (FREE, requires Quicktime Player)
Jingproject.com (FREE)
Zamzar.com (FREE—for YouTube conversion)
Tubesock (~$30--for YouTube conversion)
JibJab ($4 and JibJab will sent you version for use in PowerPoint)
RECOMMENDATION: Just as with the music software, I strongly suggest soliciting HELP from personnel in your IT department, a computer science student, one of your students, or your own kid to walk you through the above software.
Once you have completed your 1st video clip insert, you will enter another new world. Your conference audience or students will be very appreciative of your video clips. What a way to start 2010 and your spring semester. Have a blast.
COPYRIGHT © 2010 Ronald A. Berk, LLC
3. VIDEO CLIPS
In our Top 10 countdown of techniques you can use to pump-up your PowerPoint, we’re down to the final 3. These are duzzies. They can make or break your presentation. I think I may have said that before. Sorry. Anyway, let’s leap into videos before the new year arrives.
BACKGROUND: Videos permeate every aspect of our lives. “Why?” you ask. Perhaps it’s because they have such a powerful and memorable impact. Once we have seen a particular clip from a movie or TV program, YouTube video, student-created video, or one that we wrote, directed, choreographed, or starred in, it may be deeply etched in our noggins.
Using videos in conference presentations or teaching can have a similar effect on our audience. Of course, some of you have incorporated videos into your presentations for centuries. They date back to prehistoric times when cave instructors used 16mm projectors to show cave students examples of insurance company marketing commercials in business courses. Now even DVD players are history.
SO WHAT’S NEW? There are changes in four areas: (a) the variety of video formats, (b) the ease with which the technology can facilitate their application in most any venue, from classroom to coliseum, (c) the number of video techniques a presenter can use, and (d) the research on multimedia learning that provides the theoretical and empirical support for their use as an effective teaching tool. A PC or Mac and LCD projector with speakers can easily embed video clips for a PowerPoint® presentation on virtually any topic.
When I have seen video clips in national and international conference presentations, I walk away with those images and they stick over time. Sometimes I can't unstick them. I want my presentations to be just as memorable.
My upcoming blogs will list the (1) types of videos you could use, (2) generic techniques for infusing music into any presentation, and (3) available software for importing video clips into your PowerPoint. Before proceeding with those topics, check out the source below.
BERK SOURCE: I recommend you download my most recent article on videos from my Website (see link in right margin) which reviews the research and describes the techniques in depth with loads of examples (click Publications, then Articles):
Berk, R. A. (2009d). Multimedia teaching with video clips: TV, movies, YouTube, and mtvU in the college classroom. International Journal on Technology in Teaching and Learning, 5(1), 1–21.
My next blog will cover types of videos and a dozen generic techniques. See you then. Let me know if you have experimented with video clips.
COPYRIGHT © 2009 Ronald A. Berk, LLC
Jokes about placing your oxygen mask on your child's face, seatbelts, FAA regs for landing, landing the aircraft, etc.? Are you kidding me? Are jokes appropriate on an airline flight? According to SA, you bet they are. They’re part of Southwest’s “casual” branding or image, along with singing, wearing shorts, the Southwest hokey pokey and the flight announcement rap on YouTube, funny hats on Halloween, “Adopt a Pilot” program, and other behaviors that have helped build an enormous client base.
No other airline regularly engages in these behaviors. Of course, occasionally, some comedian on US Airways, Delta, or Northwest might provide a winner, but it’s rather rare. Typically, it’s all business formal and serious. Sound familiar? Is business casual with humor unprofessional? That’s for you to decide. Which airline has been the most profitable? Take a wild guess. Granted, there are several factors that have contributed to that success, including a single aircraft and cost; however, the humor has made a significant customer-relations impact. Ask anyone who flies Southwest regularly.
I have written extensively on the topic of offensive humor in my books and articles. If you skim through the flight attendants’ jokes, I think you will notice that most are self-deprecating. They poke fun at their own practices and mistakes. None is a put-down of passengers or mean-spirited attack of their competitors. On every one of my flights, the joke or song has produced laughter and enthusiastic applause throughout the cabin. You be the judge. Below are a few of my FAVES. Google “Southwest Airlines flight attendant jokes” for loads of sites for other jokes. Enjoy.
During Preparation for Take-Off
“Welcome aboard Southwest Flight whatever. To operate your seatbelt, insert the metal tab into the buckle, and pull tight. If you don’t know how to operate a seatbelt, you probably shouldn’t be out in public unsupervised.”
“In the event of a sudden loss in cabin pressure, margarine cups will descend from the ceiling. Stop screaming, grab the cup, and pull it over your face. If you are traveling with two small children, decide now which one you love more.”
After a Very Hard Landing
“Ladies and gentlemen, please remain in your seats with your seatbelts fastened as our captain taxis what’s left of our aircraft to the gate.”
“We ask you to please remain seated as Captain Kangaroo bounces us to the terminal.”
Let me know your reaction to these jokes and Southwest’s behaviors. I fly them frequently and look forward to their shenanigans. Maybe you do too. What a breath of fresh air from the stuffiness of the other airlines, plus I get to use words like "shenanigans" in my blog.
COPYRIGHT © 2009 Ronald A. Berk, LLC
