Seeing things differently
When I first came to the UK from Sweden I got a job as a Guest Porter in a fancy hotel in Cambridge. This was a real learning experience for me particularly when it came to day-to-day language. For example colleagues would ask, pretty much daily, if I was ‘alright’. Now this may not seem like an odd question to most, however, I felt that although they may be concerned about my well-being, I certainly was ‘alright’ as there was nothing wrong with me mate. Today I see what they meant. Strangely enough I was never lynched.
In a similar vein, the 3 minute talk below deals with those simple issues that can very easily be misunderstood although you wouldn’t think that asking for direction could be so different?
What are you doing, you know, generally?
I came across dawdlr whilst browsing Russel M Davies’s blog. According to Davies, he wanted to create a really slow version of Twitter. In his view:
Something less rushed and immediate but still brilliantly rich and daft.
To contribute to this tiny global community you must answer the simple question: What are you doing, you know, more generally? – on a postcard and send it to Russel Davies. When Davies means a ‘slow’ version of Twitter, he really means slow as he scans each postcard and uploads it to dawdlr every 6 months. The point, according to him, is to see how far something this slow can become viral or if it will stop all together. Ingenious.
example from dawdlr
It would be very interesting if this was replicated for education. Perhaps if it was aimed at students the question could be:
What have you learnt in school, you know, that you can use in life?
Or if it was geared towards teaching professionals, perhaps something like this:
Have you made it relevant enough, you know, so students really got it?
If you can think of more creative ways of using this approach, just add a comment. By the way, what are you waiting for, head over to dawdlr and get the address!
If you find these videos interesting why not also take a look at the Eat.Sleep.Teach channel on YouTube.com?
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