A Deep Dive into Memes with a Meme Lesson Template

Today’s site article is all about a silly (but potent) way to promote important contemplating and creativeness about any matter: working with memes with learners! We’ll acquire a deep dive into memes, and I’ll share an activity idea together with a meme lesson template.

I’m psyched to share a fast meme action as very well as a few distinct resources to get you begun. Just one is a photo look for device, and the other is a slide deck software. The ones I’ll point out below are Unsplash for photographs, Dropbox for earning a shareable folder, and Google Slides for slide decks. But you can certainly substitute these with other equipment in your instrument belt.

Deep Dive into Memes

If you are a normal reader of the web site, you know I often use the phrase “embrace your spot.” It’s a swift reminder to usually come back to the tools in your instrument belt. Or the equipment you presently have entry to. You can use the types you are presently acquainted with and instruments your students practical experience with in the previous. Of course, you could get started new with the applications that I’ll highlight in today’s web site write-up. These are fantastic types for educators who are in the method of constructing out your EdTech tool belt.

Though memes can in some cases feel foolish, they usually have to have a further knowing of a topic to “get” the joke. The concept of critical imagining and employing memes is essentially 1 I featured in the December masterclass for users of my Uncomplicated EdTech Club. If you’re by now a member, you can log in and obtain all the articles from December with the meme routines. If you are intrigued in getting to be a member, I open up the doors to members a couple situations a 12 months.  You can get on the waitlist listed here.

This site write-up is a modified version of the transcript to a past episode of the Easy EdTech Podcast. It’s a minimal extra conversational than how I generally compose — mainly because this is from the episode’s transcript. Relatively pay attention than read? Click in this article or press engage in earlier mentioned.

Let us dive into a fast meme exercise to use with pupils!

What is a meme?

In advance of we go by means of the stage-by-phase for this swift activity, let’s commence with an overview of the concept or plan of a meme. If you haven’t used the term meme before, you have most likely witnessed memes in your social media feed. Or a pal or loved ones member may have shared one particular in a textual content or electronic mail.

Merriam-Webster defines meme (noun) as “an idea, conduct, design, or utilization that spreads from a person person to an additional in a society an amusing or interesting picture, video, etc., that is unfold commonly by way of the Online.”

Memes in Motion

One of the most effectively-regarded illustrations is a picture from the movie Willy Wonka. In this meme, the title character creating a considerably snarky confront. This kind of meme ordinarily involves terms or a information on top rated of it and has a snarky sense to it, much too. Working with memes in the classroom is very similar to bringing in pop tradition references from television or flicks in the earlier. For the activity example I’ll just take you as a result of these days, we’ll glimpse at a meme exactly where we use the sentence starter, “That emotion when…” and fill in the blank with our response, and use a photograph that conveys that experience, way too.

Memes are usually established employing illustrations or photos that have gone viral across social media. Occasionally attribution is missing or ignored completely. So in the quick exercise we will get a glimpse at it nowadays, I’ll clearly show you a way to develop a assortment or library of illustrations or photos for college students to use. We’ll look at a software that enables you to entry illustrations or photos that you have permission to use. I’ll wander you by a workflow you might want to test out with a group of college students.

A Rapid Meme Lesson Activity

In today’s web site post, I reference an exercise you can try out ideal absent. In this article is the hyperlink that will choose you to a template that is all set for you to use or customize.

Curating and Sharing Images

1st up in the actions to abide by for this swift activity is to share illustrations of memes with students. You may possibly head above to a lookup motor like Pinterest to find some pupil-friendly memes. Or you may possibly have a handful of to share with learners collected through your possess social media consumption. You’ll want to provide a handful of illustrations to assist them wrap their heads all over this medium. This is just like sharing an example of an ebook or motion picture in advance of kicking off a project with pupils.

Some pupils may be acquainted with the idea of a meme. But some students could not. To get ready pupils for this activity, I recommend sharing some examples. To enable pupils put together to produce a meme, you may possibly want to collecting decide on a number of pictures for college students to use. These images could have expressions or emotions learners can use to produce their memes. 

Scholar-Helpful Photographs

There are a number of factors to give pupils a several image options for their meme rather of possessing them search for shots. I presently described the copyright or attribution challenges that are often current with the memes that are unfold on social media. Yet another cause you may possibly want to obtain photographs you is to make sure that college students produce memes that are acceptable and delicate to some others. I like to use the device Unsplash to uncover visuals for pupil tasks.

Despite the fact that the website for Unsplash isn’t great, it is a good room to look for for basic conditions. For instance, when I shared this action final year with a group of Arizona educators, I confirmed them Unsplash and applied the lookup phrase “dog faces” to pull up a handful of silly images with dogs of all designs and sizes. Some of the photographs clearly show dogs that ended up surprised, many others with a foolish experience, other people with a serious glance. So it lends alone perfectly to the action we experimented with out alongside one another, which bundled a reaction-type prompt. For this activity, I ask the lecturers to assume about the prompt “That experience when…” and fill in the blank.

A speedy note: Sometimes memes can be insensitive or offensive if they incorporate exaggerations of persons or perpetuate a stereotype inside of a group of people today. That’s 1 of the motives I like using animal faces as a substitute, to keep away from any circumstance like this. Here’s an report that speaks more to this topic.

Meme Lesson Plan

For my case in point, I chose a picture of a pug with a astonished and variety of stunned deal with to go along with a sentence, “That feeling when… you cannot believe that how the novel finished.” So after I went to Unsplash to search for puppy dog faces, I downloaded just five to my pc. You could use a different image-sharing web-site, but this one particular is in my software belt. 

Then, I additional the 5 pictures to a Dropbox folder and shared the backlink to the folder with everybody who would take part in this activity. You could also incorporate the five images you share with students to a Google Travel folder as an attachment to an assignment or even use Dropbox, also. Whatever workflow is very best for you is the 1 to stick with. If you want to skip this phase, you can incorporate picture alternatives to your template, like I did in the example above. Then college students can select the slide and graphic they’d like to use for their meme.

Creating and Sharing Memes 

As soon as your learners have the assortment of photographs you have curated for them, it is time for them to decide on an impression that goes along with their reaction. So if they fill in the blank by stating: “That experience when… your speculation was location on” or “That emotion when… you experienced to try out three distinct techniques to get the suitable response to a math problem,” they can choose a dog confront that illustrates this emotion.

So how can you blend the phrase with the image to make a meme? You have a several diverse choices to think about. You could possibly use a graphic design and style resource like Canva or Adobe Inventive Cloud Express (previously Adobe Spark). Or you could possibly use 1 that’s worked nicely for me when foremost this action – Google Slides. I like utilizing Google Slides for this when doing the job with educators due to the fact they’ve ordinarily experienced working experience utilizing this or yet another equivalent slide-primarily based instrument.

Measures for Generating Memes

To get commenced, I’ll established up a Google Slide deck and improve the web page format to a sq., so it appears more like a social media publish. Then I’ll make my demo to show everybody how to insert an image to the track record (one particular of people puppy dog photos) and layer textual content on leading of it. Immediately after I have established my demo, I’ll make a bunch of empty slides so everybody can jump into the doc and insert their personal meme.

When performing with a group of students, you could possibly want them to use their individual slide deck if they are not employed to collaborating with so quite a few classmates. On the other hand, if they are comfortable collaborating, you can share a person Google Slides deck with them and assign a slide selection to every of them. 

If you make your mind up to have one large Google Slides with everybody inside at the same time, you can set up sharing permissions for “anyone to edit” and ship the link out to students in a way that matches your workflow. This could include submitting it in an LMS or turning it into a QR code. Now, of course, you want to “embrace your place” for this action, so if your learners are now applying Microsoft PowerPoint or Apple’s Keynote, you can pick out a different collaborative place.

If you have assumed about introducing memes to students, I hope this brief exercise has your wheels spinning! And of training course, if there is an additional educator you do the job with who you think may possibly want to test this out, also, just send out them a link to today’s website publish and you can check out out the exercise together!