This TOPkit Digest issue is brought to you by Melissa Comer (Mcomer@tntech.edu), EdD, Professor of Literacy, Department of Curriculum and Instruction at Tennessee Tech University. She discusses "Personalizing Your Course and Embedding Memes to Build Community".
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Video Tip - What is a MEME?
- Announcements - 2024 Florida CanvasConnect, 2024-2025 FL-IDN Professional Development Webinar, Florida A.I. Learning Consortium (FALCON)
- Top Tips - Exploring the Use of Memes Beyond the Scope of Engagement
- From the Community - Start at the Beginning & Keep Going
- Ask ADDIE
- Top Community Topics
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Melissa Comer, Professor of Literacy at Tennessee Tech University, provides a brief rationale for using memes, discusses what they are, and highlights the benefits of using them. Examples of memes are also shared.
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2024-2025 FL-IDN Professional Development Webinar Schedule
The Florida Instructional Designer Network (FL-IDN) is pleased to announce 2024-2025 Professional Development Webinar Schedule! The webinars are designed to help to address the most urgent professional development needs of the instructional design and technology professionals, online education professionals and other educators who support teaching, learning and student success. Webinar registration is free but required on a first-come, first-served basis. Start registering for the webinars now by following the registration links included in the webinar schedule linked above. We will send reminders to the email address you use in webinar registration before each webinar. We will send webinar announcements and reminders to this IDN Email Listserv (free subscription) as well. Share the webinar schedule with your colleagues and peers. We look forward to seeing you in the upcoming webinars.
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Florida A.I. Learning Consortium (FALCON)
FALCON is an informal group to connect higher-education faculty and staff interested in the intersection of artificial intelligence and higher education. There is no membership fee and anyone can join.
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Exploring the Use of Memes Beyond the Scope of Engagement |
Memes and the 4-Cs of 21st Century Skills |
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Many faculty development workshops, conference presentations, pedagogy, and websites are enhanced from an engagement perspective through memes, i.e., relatable explanations of the world with images and texts. Often, the purpose of the meme is to grab an audience’s attention, infuse humor, and possibly introduce the topic in a creative manner. But, what else can they do? The answer is quite a bit.
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Introduction: Hummel (2024) states that there are four C’s of 21st-century skills. These are critical thinking, creativity, collaboration, and communication. For tips for using memes that go beyond the scope of engagement and center on the 4-Cs of 21st-century skills see below.
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C-1: Critical Thinking. Use memes to promote critical thinking, e.g., design memes, and pay close attention to images and captions, as a unique way to explain a topic, a thought, or even a position on a political stance. The explanation benefits from the correlation of the visual aspect and concise caption found on memes, encouraging critical thinking. Critical thinking can also be enhanced by evaluating existing memes, requiring viewers to go beyond the superficial realm, and questioning the connection between or the incompatibility of the caption and the picture.
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C-2: Creativity. Use memes to focus on wide-ranging innovation and the discovery of possibilities. Using memes creatively will be much more manageable, similar to gamification suggestions, if you focus on a particular objective or goal. For example, memes work well as a method to build community in online classes, allowing for creative expression. As Dedier (2023) points out, they also serve to bridge the gap between creativity and relatability.
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C-3: Collaboration. Use memes to promote collaboration to ensure the goal is realized while informing practice and meeting learning needs. The key is to leverage the inherent shareability and humor of memes to foster collaboration, idea generation, and interpersonal connections. Start with simple experiments, such as having groups annotate existing memes for discussion or create memes to reflect key takeaways from a class lecture.
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C-4: Communication. Communicate ideas using memes for thoughtful exchange by analyzing their purpose, context, and delivery mediums. Reminiscent of the Universal Design for Learning (UDL) approach, memes can be adjusted to meet the needs of diverse populations and for varied purposes, and because they are a familiar means of digital communication. Gen Alpha’s comfort with technology makes using them an ideal way to express complex, sometimes difficult, thoughts succinctly. As a side benefit, the use of humor often found in memes makes communicating an unpopular or controversial idea or stance more tolerable.
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Summary: The versatility of memes makes using them a natural choice for encouraging critical thinking, creativity, collaboration, and communication. Additionally, their use of relatable images and text boosts accessibility, fosters fun within academia, and promotes engagement.
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Start at the Beginning & Keep Going |
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Checking Out TOPkit’s Guides to Inform Practice |
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As with any decision to change or implement something new, especially something involving technology, planning should be executed before putting anything into practice. Reflecting on the five questions (Different Types of CoPs) that consider the role of a tech steward will help with the planning process. Particularly, question one, i.e., Why are you doing this? What do you expect? should inform the decision-making process. Because technology is ever-evolving, it is also recommended to check out Tools, Techniques, and Strategies for additional ideas.
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How Can K-12 Classroom Teachers Transition to Instructional Design Roles? |
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Dear ADDIE,
I am a K-12 teacher looking to transition into an instructional design role. What steps should I take to make this career change, and what resources and best practices can help get me started? Read more →
Sincerely,
Ready for a Change
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Generative AI may have been used to retrieve relevant research, generate suggested language, and enhance original content.
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Bren Bedford, MNM, SFC®, Web Project Analyst II, Center for Distributed Learning, University of Central Florida
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Florence Williams, Ph.D., Associate Instructional Designer, Center for Distributed Learning, University of Central Florida
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