We all know the old adage "a picture is worth a thousand words". Well today I saw a cartoon by Randy Grasbergen that inspired me to put my creative remix juices to work. So I hopped over to Flickr and borrowed this photo from Don Fulano who had posted it with a Creative Commons license. I dumped it into PowerPoint and added the caption and saved it as a JPEG image. (In case you can't read what's on the chalkboard it says, "This chalkboard has never been written on before! Or again.") And viola', I had created a picture that delivered the some message as Grasbergen's cartoon.
I believe this is what is going through the mind's of students in too many classrooms across our country. Why should they tune into teachers who are delivering information they can access 24/7 in a much more user-friendly way? What do they want with chalkboards and overheads? Why should they trust our information? They have their computers and cellphones. They get to interact with others outsides the walls of their classrooms at the end of the schoolday. They can hardly wait for that last bell to ring. Shouldn't we allow them this same kind of interaction during the schoolday? Shouldn't we be allowing them construct their own learning? They have the tools available. We should be there to guide them, not talk at them.
What is your reaction to my picture? How do you think your students would respond?
