What does it all Meme? The whys and wherefores of a modern communication phenomenon.

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By Kay Oddone.

An internet meme is that thing that everyone is talking about. The blue/gold dress. Charlie bit my finger. LOLCats. Some of the most well known internet memes are the image with a pithy quote overlaid. They can be in turns hilariously funny, insightful or just crude, however they are a contemporary form of communication which many young people seem to instinctively ‘get’ and which leave many adults feeling like they are missing the joke.

The term meme was coined in 1976 by Richard Dawkins, in his book The Selfish Gene, as a way of using evolutionary principles to explain the spread of ideas and cultural phenomena such as melodies, catchphrases or fashion. These small units of culture were spread through imitation and innovation upon an original idea – a spread that is similar to a virus, as they go through the processes of variation, mutation, competition, and inheritance, each of which influences a meme’s reproductive success.

The meme above, known as ‘One does not simply’ is a good example. Drawn from a quote from The Lord of the Rings, where the character Boromir makes the quote “One does not simply walk into Mordor”.

The meme spread across sites such as Reddit, Tumblr and Imgur, with variations firstly on the word walk –

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and became so well known it was included as an Easter Egg on Google Maps:

Now, the phrase “one does not simply” is well known enough that memes such as the one shared at the beginning of this post can be applied to a wide range of scenarios, with an underlying understanding of the context – that whatever is being suggested is no simple matter.

It is this rich intertextuality that makes memes both worthwhile, yet challenging. One must know the context of the initial post before the meme truly makes sense, but if the shared understanding is strong enough, the meme becomes a powerful and viral mode of communication.

Internet memes, and their viral spread, are an example of participatory culture, as the reproduction, imitation and re-interpretation of these nuggets of society are practices which have become a huge part of contemporary digital culture. In fact, Limor Shifman, in her text Memes in Digital Culture goes so far as to say that we live in an era driven by a hypermemetic logic, where almost every major public event sprouts a stream of memes. He argues that although at first glance they appear to be trivial pieces of pop culture, upon deeper reflection one sees that they play an integral part in some of the defining events of the 21st century.

Limor Shifman also takes the time to define internet memes differently to the original concept of a single cultural unit as described by Dawkins. Her definition describes an internet memes  as

(a) a group of digital items sharing common characteristics of content, form, and/or stance; (b) that were created with awareness of each other; and (c) were circulated, imitated, and transformed via the internet by multiple users. – http://henryjenkins.org/2014/02/a-meme-is-a-terrible-thing-to-waste-an-interview-with-limor-shifman-part-one.html#sthash.NfZt8OrC.dpuf

So why do educators need to be aware of memes and their role in communicating culture? They don’t. Educators don’t NEED to be aware of memes, anymore than they must play Minecraft or read Twilight. However, there are several compelling reasons to consider taking the time to think about memes and how they might play a role in teaching – particularly of older students.

Reason One: Engagement

It is true – memes are fun. They can be playful, humorous and, well, there is a reason they spread so quickly. Select use of memes can hook students in, and challenging students to create a meme actually demands higher order thinking at a level students often are not required to meet. The need to not only respond to a context, but respond creatively and concisely is difficult, and the most successful internet memes are often actually very clever. This is not to say all memes are clever; like everything online, there are many in poor taste, and with little depth. However an example of inferential comprehension required to understand a meme is evident with the popular ‘Soon’ meme:

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What appears to be an innocent cow in a field is rendered threatening by the simple addition of the word ‘Soon’…why is this so?

Reason Two: Information Literacy

Dr Alec Couros argues that the digital participatory culture within which students communicate, socialise and learn provides essential opportunities for information literacy, and suggests that memes are a powerful way of discussing many different aspects of this literacy. He begins by suggesting that students examine memes with a view to understanding how information travels and is distributed online. The viral nature of memes means that whether by merit, messenger or manipulation, a chunk of information/culture/art may be spread via networks at an astonishingly fast pace. Students who understand this are not only more likely to be aware of their responsibilities when sharing online, but are also more prepared for a world where marketing is pervasive.

Reason Three: Critical understanding of current world events

The Australian controversy with our previous Federal Parliamentary speaker is a very recent example of current events becoming a viral meme (helicopters anyone?).

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One which we can examine with the benefit of hindsight is below:

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In a hypermemetic world, it is completely possible that current events filter into our Facebook feed as a meme before we even realise the deeper story behind them. A case in point is the Pepper Spray Cop (also known as “Casually Pepper Spray Everything Cop”) –
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which went viral after the image of a police officer casually pepper spraying a group of Occupy protesters at the University of California  was captured in 2011.
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The image was photoshopped into a variety of contexts, which enflamed what was already a very tense political situation, and when the police officer’s contact details were made public online, he was the target of a huge text and email campaign critiquing his actions. This meme influenced news reports, customer reviews of pepper spray available for sale on Amazon and spawned songs and videos. The repercussions of this single (questionable) action resulted in the resignation of the police chief and the loss of the police officers job, as well as compensation claims and legal suits. The full detail of this meme can be read on Know Your Meme, however it is clear that a much larger and more serious story lies behind what many probably thought was a humorous internet joke.

Internet memes are an interpretation of the fad joke that has always been there, however with the power of the crowd and the potential to manipulate and remix in the hands of so many, they have become a much larger part of internet and general culture. It is important to be aware of the complexity behind many of these simple jokes (and be able to enjoy the ones that are indeed just simple jokes).

Have you taught using Memes? Please share your experiences and resources in the comments!

 

References:

Couros, A. (n.d.). open thinking [Blog]. Retrieved 11 August 2015, from http://educationaltechnology.ca/couros/

Gladwell, M. (2002). The Tipping Point: How Little Things Can Make a Big Difference. Boston: Back Bay Books.

Internet Meme Database | Know Your Meme. (n.d.). Retrieved 11 August 2015, from http://knowyourmeme.com/

Shifman, L. (2013). Memes in Digital Culture. Cambridge MA: The MIT Press.

 

Making Creative Commons Easier: Greasemonkey and Flickr Creative Commons Images

Update! The script is now working again thanks to the incredibly fast work of Alan Levine – thanks so much!

PLEASE NOTE!!

Yesterday Flickr changed their entire layout, and as a result this script does not work in Flickr’s current form. Alan Levine has told me that he needs to change this script again for this to work – I’ll keep you posted on progress…this article comments on the constantly changing nature of Web2.0.

Flickr has a huge collection of images which users have uploaded and shared under Creative Commons Licences. This means that the owners of the images have licenced the images to allow others to use them, as long as they follow the conditions of the licence. If you have never heard of Creative Commons, you can learn more about it here on our Copyright Copyleft wiki.

The easiest Creative Commons Licence to work with is Attribution,  which means that the image can be replicated, republished or remixed in any way, as long as the original creator is attributed as such. The Attribution licence looks like this:

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported License.

There are thousands of gorgeous images available on Flickr under this licence, and attributing images is fairly simple; Creative Commons explains the process in detail on their website.

cc licensed ( BY ) flickr photo shared by steren.giannini

Although the process is simple, in practise it requires quite a bit of flicking from one screen to another, copying and pasting information. Alan Levine, known for his CogDogBlog decided to do something about this – and created an amazing little Greasemonkey script that places all of the information you need to correctly attribute an image on the actual image page on Flickr – pretty cool, huh?

Greasemonkey is a Mozilla Firefox extension that allows users to install scripts that make changes to web page content.

Greasemonkey can be used for customizing page appearance, adding new functions to web pages (for example, embedding price comparisons within shopping sites), and numerous other purposes. In this case, we will be using a Greasemonkey script to alter the appearance of Flickr pages, so that the attribution information is available for each image.

Please note that this solution works most easily on the Firefox web browser. If you cannot use Firefox, it is possible to achieve similar results in other browsers, although the process is more complicated. For more information on this check out this PC World article.

A second caveat: if you try the process below on a school computer and it does not work, it may be that certain security settings have been established to block scripts from running. While some scripts are malicious, this script is not. Talk to your IT tech about making changes to allow this script to run. I have never run into this issue, however it may come up as each school sets up their security differently.

Below is a step by step process for installing Greasemonkey and the Flickr Creative Commons script onto your computer, for quick and easy Creative Commons attribution! Although the process seems long, you only need to do this once and it should continue to work forever. I’ve included the process as pdf to download, so that you can share it with others.

Download the PDF here

Once you’ve installed this script, each Flickr image page should have the following information available, ready for for you to either embed onto a web page, or to copy and paste wherever you use the image!

This is a closer look. These handy little windows of information will save you loads of time!

6 Ways to Keep Track of Digital Information – A Resolution for 2013

Every day we face new influxes on information – in our email inbox, on our Facebook page, in our Tweetstream, in feeds for blogs that we subscribe to,  in discussion forums, and just the stuff we stumble upon while surfing the internet. As busy people, it is often at precisely the wrong time that we find that fascinating article, or when we are looking for something else that we discover a great resource for the future. Keeping track of all of this digital information is important – we all know how quickly our time is sapped away while searching online. Fortunately, there are a number of tools that are easy to use, and which we can use to manage our digital information, so that we can virtually ‘file’ and share with others the quality articles, resources and media to be easily drawn upon again, or to be read at a later, more suitable time.

cc licensed ( BY NC ND ) flickr photo shared by Will Lion

This blog post therefore focuses upon what is becoming known as ‘content curation’.

Traditionally the term curator refers to someone who looked after objects in a museum exhibition. Nowadays, many of us are curators of the knowledge that we find online, using tools to shape and organise this information around themes or topics, gathering together in one place these randomly placed discoveries. However, Beth Kantor, in her excellent primer on content curation hastens to add that being a quality content curator is more than simply aggregating links – content curators, like museum curators, choose the quality pieces connected by a meaningful theme, create a context for presenting them and organise and possibly annotate or extend upon them to them in order to maximise value for others.

Why should teachers and teacher librarians develop their content curation skills?

Content curation has always occurred in schools – resources were always gathered around the topic of teaching, in order to support and extend  student understandings. The difference is that in the past, this consisted of gathering ‘hard’ content – books, posters, newspapers, kits etc (and these were usually gathered together by the teacher librarian, the leading content curator in the school). Nowadays, the teacher librarian and teachers not only have access to these resources, but also to a huge range of digital resources – many of which provide fantastic, engaging learning opportunities for today’s students. In addition, content curation is very central to education – as Beth Kantor states,

Curation is all about helping your audience dive in and make sense of a specific topic, issue, event or news story.  It is about collecting, but it is also about explaining, illustrating, bringing in different points of view and updating the view as it changes. (Kantor, 2012)

It’s a pretty pithy summary of what an educator does on a daily basis.

So what do you need to know about content curation? Here are some tools that you will find useful. You do not need to use all of them. What is evident in many articles is that content curation is often done ‘on the fly’, so use the tools that best fit in with the flow of your day. For example, if you already use Twitter quite a bit, you may prefer to use Storify. If you have multiple year levels to manage, you might find Diigo lists a useful feature. If reading blog posts and other social media in a magazine style layout suits you, you may choose Flipboard for your iPad, or Scoopit.

The best part about content curation is the ability to easily create beautiful looking and interactive resources around topics students and teachers need access to. This is particularly useful if students are researching topics where quality information is difficult to find, or to support students who spend too much time being overwhelmed by the quantity of information and not enough time actually creating their response. Curation tools help to cut through the noise, and promote direct access to quality information.

In addition, students should also work on developing their curation skills. Being able to quickly and critically evaluate a range of information sources is a vital research skill, which is of growing importance when considering the huge amount of information accessible.

So here are 6 of the best content curation tools currently available. Check them out, have a play with each of them and decide which ones best suit your information management needs.

1. Storify: Create a story around a topic being discussed on Social Media

Storify allows you to search a range of social media (with Twitter being used most commonly) to create a newspaper style document with tweets, photos or videos that can be saved to read later, or shared among others. Storify is particularly useful if you are following a particular hash tag (for example if you know of a conference going on) and you wish to record all of the tweets posted by participants, but can’t view them all as they are posted. You can nominate to save all tweets with that hash tag, then go back later to read what was said. Here is an example of a Storify which captures a professional conversation which took place on Twitter.  Take a tour of Storify.

2. Diigo – Social bookmarking and more

I have written previously on the power of Diigo for saving, organising and annotating websites, and for making them available to others. Without doubt Diigo is a powerful social bookmarking tool, and a must have in the toolkit for any contemporary teacher.

3. Flipboard – Create a personalised magazine on your iPad

Flipboard allows you to import your blog subscriptions, Twitter account, Facebook account and many other interesting web publications into a unique iPad interface which ‘flips’ like the pages of a magazine. Each page is tiled, and with a tap on the screen, enlarges so that you can read the entire article, still in the magazine style layout. Flipboard is fabulous for when you want to gather together and browse multiple web sources, and allows you to quickly flick through and find particular articles of interest.

4. Scoopit – Curating articles from social media and online sources

Scoopit is a growing curation tool that gives you a number of different ways to collect information. You can connect your social media accounts, scoop items directly from the web as you discover them or draw them from a list of suggested scoops based upon keywords which you nominate.  Without doubt this last feature is a fabulous time-saver, as many interesting articles are provided for you to scoop onto your page without having to go searching for them. You can also rescoop from other members pages. Once you have scooped articles, you can also add your own comments onto them, making this tool particularly powerful for directing students to specific parts of pages or sections of material. To get an idea of how Scoopit could work for you, have a look at Gwyneth Jones’ page, the Daring Library Ed Tech Scoopit.

5. Pearltrees – building visual mind-maps of resources

Pearltrees is a visually beautiful tool, which allows you to store your digital resources as pearls, which are connected together in a mind-map format. It’s simple click and drag interface means it is very simple to organise your pearls into trees. You can also work with others to co-curate on a topic, which is useful if a group of teachers are all working on a similar topic. Another interesting aspect of pearl trees is the ability to scroll through the pages you have ‘pearled’; this makes it easier for younger students to select the weblink that they want. You  can see this feature in the video below:

6. Pinterest – a digital pinboard

Pinterest has grown exponentially since it was launched, and very quick and easy to use.  The open nature of Pinterest means that it is possibly more suited for teachers or older students, as there is no way to limit access to just particular boards. Despite this, many teachers are finding it a very simple way to collect great classroom ideas for later inspiration. The best way to start is to find some pinners who have similar interests to you, and follow their boards. You can repin their pins, as well as add your own pins from pages you like on the internet. Add value by writing a short description so others know what the image links to. To get an idea of how Pinterest works, check out one of my boards on mobile learning.

The most important thing to remember is that these tools are meant to assist the management of the flow of information. Use them as part of your work, not as an additional task which must be done. If it isn’t quick and easy, try something different – the beauty of having so many tools is that there truly is something for everyone!

Make a resolution to choose one content curation tool to manage your information in 2013- and at the end of the year, you will be amazed by how much you have collected!

cc licensed ( BY NC SA ) flickr photo shared by ransomtech

Reference:

Kantor, B. (2012, July 13). NTEN Webinar Reflections and Resources:  The Unanticipated Benefits of Content Curation. Beth’s Blog. Retrieved January 31, 2013, from http://www.bethkanter.org/nten-curation/

Successful Searching – an update to a valuable resource

The Successful Searching wiki has now been updated!

This useful resource has been designed for teachers and students, and aims to provide easy access to a range of strategies, information and tips about how to search effectively.

Why is such a resource important?

We live in a world of information overload. Whereas once students needed to attend school in order to access knowledge, they now have every fact and every source in their pockets via their smart phone.

Simply entering a word into Google does not guarantee a good search result. Students need skills in creating effective search terms, they need to be aware of the range of search tools available and the types of information these tools provide, and they also need to know how to then critically evaluate and reformulate what they find in order to solve the problem at hand.

This wiki will provide a starting point on this journey. It is hoped that complementar resources exploring the development of critical literacy and effective ways to search for re-usable, Creative Commons licensed materials will be available in the near future.

The wiki is divided into four parts:

Searching Library Catalogues and Databases

Searching the Internet using Google – Google Tips and Tricks

Going beyond Google – Search Engines, Directories, the Invisible Web & More

Additional Information and Printable Resources

 

The skills to conduct successful searches is a literacy that all students must develop in order to manage information effectively. As CEO of Google, Eric Schmidt could be said to know something about searching, and he sums it up thus:

Search is so highly personal that searching is empowering for humans like nothing else; it is about self-empowerment; it is the antithesis of being told or taught. It is empowering individuals to do what they think best with the information they want. It is very different from anything  else that preceded it. Radio was one-to-many. TV was one-to-many. The telephone was one-to-one. Search is the ultimate expression of the power of the individual; using a computer, looking at the world and finding exactly what they want, everyone is different when it comes to that (Friedman, 2005, p.156).

Take a look at our site, and let us know how you might use it in your teaching context!

Friedman, T. L. (2005). The world is flat: a brief history of the twenty-first century. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Info-what? Developing visual literacy through infographics

Infographics – not just beautiful!

The need to be visually literate in the 21^st century is continuing to grow. “In an uncharted world of boundless data, information designers are our new navigators,” begins a recent Times article, “When the Data Struts Its Stuff.”To bring home just how important it is to be able to navigate through a sea of data, check out how much content is created in just sixty seconds online:

This graphic was originally published by Gizmodo What Happens in 60 Seconds on The Internet. (20 June 2011). Retrieved July 4, 2011, from http://gizmodo.com/5813875/what-happens-in-60-seconds-on-the-internet

Now imagine trying to communicate even this information in any way other than visual….

To prepare students to be ‘successful learners, confident and creative individuals and active and informed citizens’ (Melbourne Declaration), they must be able to comprehend, interpret and extrapolate from information presented in a wide variety of formats. Increasingly, statistical data is being presented in creative and attractive infographics. Just as the old adage ‘a picture is worth one thousand words’, an infographic not only allows a great deal of data to be effectively communicated, it is also much easier for a viewer to make connections and draw conclusions from data that is presented in this visual format.

This infographic is from A Roundup of 25 Jaw-Dropping Infographics – Marked Lines. (n.d.). Retrieved July 4, 2011, from http://www.markedlines.com/a-roundup-of-25-jaw-dropping-infographics/

 

What is an infographic?

Literally, an infographic is a graphic (picture) that displays information.

PC Magazine defines ‘infographic’ as:

An umbrella term for illustrations and charts that instruct people, which otherwise would be difficult or impossible with only text. Infographics are used worldwide in every discipline from road maps and street signs to the many technical drawings.

On Dave Gray’s Blog Communication Nation, he explains that Infographics are:

1. A visual explanation that helps you more easily understand, find or do something.

2. Visual, and when necessary, integrates words and pictures in a fluid, dynamic way.

3. Stand alone and completely self-explanatory.

4. Able to reveal information that was formerly hidden or submerged.

5. Designed to make possible faster, more consistent understanding.

6. Universally understandable.

As Silvia Rosenthal Tolisano points out,Information, Knowledge, Visualization, and Communication are key themes that run through these descriptions – and are also key concepts for developing 21st Century Skills and Literacies.

Infographics and the Australian Curriculum

A very quick search of the Australian Curriculum also reveals emphasis placed upon developing student abilities in visual literacy and information management. From the Australian Curriculum:

Years 3-6

English – ‘To consolidate both ‘learning to read and write’ and ‘reading and writing to learn’, students explore the language of different types of texts, including visual texts, advertising, digital/online and media texts.’

Maths – ‘Students still require active experiences that allow them to construct key mathematical ideas, but there is a trend to move to using models, pictures and symbols to represent these ideas.’

Science – ‘Processing & analysing data and information’

History – ‘Historical skills include skills that are used in the process of historical inquiry associated with: historical questions and research; the analysis and use of sources; perspectives and interpretations; comprehension and communication. There is an increasing emphasis on historical interpretation and the use of evidence within this strand.’

Infographics in the classroom

There are three key ways to use Infographics in the classroom.

1. As a source of information
2. As a tool to teach visual and critical literacy
3. As a way for students to express their or others’ data

As a source of information:

There are countless Infographics online and in newspapers, magazines and books. What better way to introduce complex data to encourage students to draw conclusions and see relationships than through an inspiring and beautiful infographic.

Places to find beautiful and useful infographics:

Infographic a day for teachers– The always inventive David Warlick presents useful infographics for teachers. Check out David Warlick’s site also – he is an inspiring educator and you are guaranteed to learn something new every time you visit.

Information is beautiful – David McCandless’ beautiful site, that accompanies his beautiful book. One of my favourite infographic creators. The fascinating thing about David’s work is that in many cases, he shares where he sourced his data – and the fact that it was all available freely online is an amazing testament to the amount of information we have access to today.

Good Infographics – a collaborative site which focuses on providing good quality web resources – in this case, infographics

Infographic World – a business that specialises in  creating static and animated infographics – their portfolio has some excellent examples

A creative way of presenting a copyright quandry

As a tool to teach visual and critical literacy:

Infographics use a variety of tools to effectively display information. Colour, graphics, icons, text, shape and other elements are combined in a creative way to visualise data. Each of these elements may (or may not) carry additional meaning, which visually literate viewers are aware of. Also, a pretty or professional infographic can be very persuasive – viewers must be critical of the data in the same way they would be if it were presented as a list of statistics.

A great presentation: Visual Literacy and Nonlinguistic Representations: Infographics Part 1

One way to teach about being critical of infographics – deconstruct ‘bad’ examples – this post will give you a few ideas:

Imagine A Pie Chart Stomping On An Infographic Forever

As a way for students to express their or others’ data:

A list of numbers on a page may not always reflect a student’s understanding of the deeper meanings within data. Challenge them to create their own infographic, and you can be sure they will not only be familiar with the data by the time they are finished, they will also have examined it in ways only necessary to complete this type of process.

Resources to help students learn how to create infographics:

10 Free tools to create infographics

Chart Chooser – a tool to help visualise data

The anatomy of an infographic

Lesson Plan – presenting an essay as an infographic (for secondary students)

Get started with Infographics – places to start

A Lesson Plan for Infographics

Examples to inspire:

An example of using Glogster to create an infographic

Flickr: Infographics for the classroom – a growing collection

Enjoy the wonderful, amazing world of infographics! If you have been working with your students in creating or decoding infographics, share with us! Post a comment below!