Its no secret, I’m in a new school this year… and I miss my former students and coworkers so much… but the technology vacuum no longer exists for me. It was such a fun yet frightening start to the year! How was I (the one with no WiFi and no devices) going to adapt quickly and seamlessly to a school with smart-boards, 1:1 iPads… and my husband who is one of the two directors of tech even set me up with dual monitors on my computer so I could use both the PC and the smart board… Um… what?
My first thought was this smart board. I wanted it to be in use, every day… even when we weren’t directly using it. So I started theme by meme. First order of business, secretly teaching Spanish 1 the days of the week… I put up a new meme every day… EVERY DAY… for 1 quarter. Each meme was specifically targeted to the day of the week. Not only was it great for Spanish 1, it was great review for Spanish 2-4. I didn’t have to waste valuable class time with a “calendar project”, I subliminally packed those days into their minds! 🙂
From there, the memes turned to comedy. I looked for some idiomatic expressions I’d like to share, cute pets, etc. Just anything that would get a laugh.
At Christmas time, we shifted to all holiday memes and after break, we came back to los 3 Reyes. Since then we have been in “love mode” with both sweet and sarcastic love memes every day.
My big moment is yet to come! After Valentine’s day, I am shifting to ALL travel memes. It is my subliminal message to them that America IS GREAT! but that it is just a corner or an amazing globe! I want them to love their country but long to see ALL the countries. My hope is that in the 9 weeks I spend meme-ing them messages about wanderlust, they’ll have this unexplainable desire to GO… and if they GO… they’ll never be the same again!
Tips for meme by theme:
- Google! Just type your theme in your TL plus the word meme and see what you find.
- PINTEREST! There are memes galore on Pinterest!
- Keep a folder within a folder. My folder is called “a desktop background for everything”. Inside the big folder I have “haven’t used yet”. This folder contains all the memes I collect when I have a few free minutes… It helps me NOT need to search every day!
- Change the meme before you shut down your computer. If it is already there in the morning, you don’t even have to remember to change it!
- Be prepared to be called the master of dank memes. 🙂