What Will Your "Mullet Strategy" for Learning in the Future Be?

An English teacher loves semantic "mouse chasing word cheese in the evolving mash-up language maze" games.  In other words, if language has no life, why should life require that we spend so much school time mastering it?

I officially nominate -- from the business world -- "mullet strategy" as my future-of-learning phrase of the day (perhaps week/month!).

Thanks for DK/MediaSnackers via his Twitter post today for pointing me in the direction of the following "Double Tongued" post:

The biggest sites on the web are all embracing the “mullet strategy”—business up front, party in the back! User generated content is all the rage but most of it totally sucks.

That is why sites like YouTube, MySpace, CNN, and HuffPost are all embracing the mullet strategy. They let users party, argue, and vent on the secondary pages, but professional editors keep the front page looking sharp.

The mullet strategy is here to stay because the best way for web companies to grow traffic is to let the users have control, but the best way to sell advertising is a slick, pretty front page where corporate sponsors can wistfully admire their brands.

So, what is your "mullet strategy" for teaching/learning in the year ahead?

How will you help your kids be "all business in the front" and "party in the back" on creative terms?  How about your teaching style and curriculum development and classroom demeanor/atmosphere?

And will it make a difference?

*****

Image: this can't-stop-looking-at-it drawing/image is from Matt Feld.  Please check out his entire portfolio.  Brilliant top to bottom!

Comments

[diane]

I hear your message and agree - sat through too many MS projects where the classroom teacher was so grateful to get anything handed in that he/she rewarded slapdash, shoddy efforts. Of course, I've also endured "professional" presentations where the speaker simply read the PowerPoint to the audience, using the screen as a teleprompter.

What are your suggestions for a project rubric? How specific can we be without killing the creative spark?

I hope to encourage more image-enriched slideshows but worry that our filter will block flikr and students will blithely ignore fair use issues by trolling Google Images to copy and paste.

There are so many possibilities in the 2.0 world, but we need digital equity for our students and more sensible filtering policies.

[Christian Long]

Diane -- Perhaps you meant to post this to another post that I did recently that focused on the "4 Slides" and PowerPoint (et al). Link: http://thinklab.typepad.com/think_lab/2007/07/4-slides-of-inn.html

Either way, thanks for taking the conversation further.

As for suggestions re: 'constraints', I think that it depends entirely on the assignment and learning goals. UofC's choice of 4 slides offers just enough challenge in addition to the 2 essays that must be submitted, and helps the admissions team 'get' the student as a person and business thinker/brander. The goal for any teacher is to focus on the long-term goal...and then to help the kids frame their efforts just enough so they can then innovae like mad. I always focus on how the real world will review their work...not me. So, the kids have to think beyond me, and make sure their work is rigorous enough to go global...today!

You asked: "How specific can we be without killing off the creative spark?" Remember, we often do more with less...but we have to push hard to do so. It is not the constraint that holds us back, but the ability to work with something tangible in new ways that allows us to move forward.

As for Flickr, you can always copy a few key shots to use as 'examples' and bring in 'off the web'. It gives them the idea. And definitely think about talking to Dan Meyer (http://blog.mrmeyer.com/) about his ideas for presentations. Smart (and young) teacher!

Cheers -- Christian