Wednesday, February 10, 2010

Super Bowl Sunday commercials

The art of creating commercial experiences has to be a bazillion dollar industry. But with all that money some of their commercials still flop, while others will be talked about for weeks. The goal of the executives is to get their commercial money to spread by word of mouth (or these days the Internet---can we say "Twitter"?) to drastically multiply their business' awareness. Some companies like to draw you in through weirdness (Bette White playing football) others use comedy (Dave, Jay and Oprah) and others use emotion (Tim Tebow).

As teachers we can use these tactics to draw our students into our daily lessons to 'buy' what we are trying to give them--knowledge and experiences to benefit them in life. I do use these tactics in class. I have my favorite science jokes and comic strips. I like to dress up in my Einstein wig. I also share with my students that I don't tolerate name calling like 'retard' because my brother is severely handicapped. The aspect that I leave out is the visual aspect of the commercials and photographs.

Since the students of this generation are so accustomed to visual stimulation I may have been overlooking a key component to unlock student growth.

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