Tuesday, February 17, 2015

#WeirdEd Week 44- Commercials


We're always being sold something. It's part of existing as a human now. It's been part of existing as a human for as long as we realized Grog might be better at growing carrots and Ook might be better at catching rabbits and hey why don't we share? The mechanism of selling products has changed somewhat over the years. No longer does Jon Stewart stop in the middle of his show (Jon, I mention you because I'm dying to be on The Daily Show before you leave please call me) to talk to us about dog food the way Johnny Carson used to have to do. Now we have to watch the first five seconds of an ad and then quick fast click  SKIP AD before we can watch the funny YouTube video of the cat falling off the windowsill. Or sometimes the ads are unskippable! Then we have to waste 15 precious seconds, fifteen seconds of life that we will never get back, before we get to that darn grumpy cat, what's he so grumpy about now? Oh, ads on YouTube. Huh, that's meta.
Teachers are always being sold things. We need to be acutely aware of this. How many meetings have you sat in that sounded like a PD when they were described to you but halfway through you realize, "Wait a minute, is this a sales pitch? Are you about to tell us we should buy your computer thing? Because I've been sold to before, that's why I have that timeshare in Oklahoma I never visit, and this sounds very much like that." Then you turn to your grade level team member to scoff about it and they look at you like this:

Yeah. We've been there.
Tonight's #WeirdEd is going to be in the form of ads. Sell us on your answers. You need to come up with catchphrases. What will get the attention of the mob quickly and efficiently? We're not talking edumemes. Those aren't catchy enough. It needs to be more catchy and simpler. Now is your chance to be Don Draper*.


*note: the character of Don Draper is not actually a human you should aspire to be like and anyone telling you differently doesn't understand the show

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