When I was performing stand-up (to pay for my Master’s degree), I got a 3-year class in scaffolding. I iterated bit upon bit, keeping the stuff that “worked” and removing the stuff that bombed. The stuff in the middle? Well, I had to noodle with it a lot, eventually seeing some of it stay and some of it go. When I would find a piece that killed instantly, I would pluck out a joke or a “bit” that was just ok and replace it.
It took me 2-years to have (almost) 12 minutes of legitimate stand-up material that would make an audience laugh 10-20 times per minute.
(That is why I did not go down the path of being a professional comedian. I’m not “broken enough” to create that much ‘funny’ in short bursts…)
As a professor and also as a keynote speaker, I have adopted that same iterative philosophy to build and craft my messages over twenty years. I look for 3-15 minute “chunks” of content (be it my content, videos, images that instill a response, games, inventories, etc) and I pick and choose those “bits” for every talk.
As of this writing, I likely have more than 150 “bits” to pull from, equating to about 12-15 hours of potential keynotes and far more options for instruction. (Note – I don’t lecture in my classes so I’m referring to educational activities and not my talking at students. I could not in good conscience tell teachers about the damage lecture does while performing lectures, after all…)
Jeff performing this “bit” more than 10 years ago.
As I have noted for the past few ‘Quarantinotes’ (academic keynotes during shelter-in-place), I think the time may be coming to stop. Most states are opening back up, at least to some degree, and so people may not be in need of video content like they were three months ago.
So, if this indeed proves to be my last video, I thought I should end with the “bit” that is more requested than any other I have used in 20+ years of speaking to audiences.
I can tell you why it’s so requested. It has it all. It is unusual, fairly creative, involves music (singing and playing by me, actually), and is fun / funny while still making a valuable point. It has to do with the Web 2.0 mantra: Create, Consume, Remix, and Share. The question? Does that apply to learning? Or is that a recipe for plagiarism and theft?
I have literally ended more than 100 keynotes with this segment and have been invited back again and again, with my invitations saying, “Oh, and you will do the singing thing again, right?” 🙂
So, as I (potentially) end my Quarantinote series, I hope that despite the poorly mixed audio (sorry, I don’t have recording equipment for my acoustic guitars…) you enjoy this ending. I think it punctuates a lot of important facets of education.
Good luck and good learning.