Who, Meme?!

This week for the CLMOOC Connected Learning activity we had to make a meme or two. I had dabbled in making memes last year for the ISTE 2013 conference so I already had some experience. Here are my previous attempts and the blog post about them.

Now, it was great to look at the different resources that were provided for this assignment and learn more about the history and theory behind memes. The blog about memes and why they matter by Eli was informative and interesting. I especially liked the in depth information about how difficult it is to make a successful meme and the steps to follow to (hopefully!) make that happen! I don't think I'll be reaching any viral numbers any time soon, but it's good to have some guidelines to get started! The other really informative site about meme's was know your memes which goes into some of the famous and trending memes on the internet today. It certainly gives a great bank of ideas to search! Ultimately, my very favorite site was the Visual.ly page giving information and clarification on how to say the word meme in the first place! Glad to have that cleared up!

Click below to read more....

I did try out a few of the tools that were offered and particularly like the memegenerator.net site since it was so quick and easy to use. I can see how generating quantities of memes would be quite easy with this tool. It also had some already established meme images to use which might help with viral aspirations if you have them! The Mozilla Thimble maker was daunting and I couldn't help thinking about how a teacher would feel if they encountered this site! The idea of teaching HTML while creating a meme was a bit more than the average teacher may want. Lastly, I decided to go back to my tried and true Image Chef site that also has a quick and easy meme maker to get you started. While you can use popular memes with this site, there are not as readily available as those on meme generator. Because I know the layout and how it works, I did like the site and the options for sharing that it had available.

After learning about the history of memes and different sites to make them, I needed to pick my topic. I didn't want to revisit the ISTE theme again so I decided to focus on something that I could possibly use in my work. We've recently made a makerspace in our school and one of the things that we deal with on a constant basis is getting all the kids (and teachers!) to put all the materials and tools back where they belong! While we do have all of the drawers and shelves labelled, many people still ignore the signs and put things where they want. This seemed like the perfect opportunity to make a commentary on the behavior that we are seeing and use a meme to re-direct them in a funny way! So, here are my attempts at "meme-ing" them into subservience using popular meme images!

Okay, okay. They're not going to go viral anytime soon but I think they might work! I'll put them up in the makerspace and let you know what happens!

Have you made any memes to help solve some behavior problems or "meme" someone into correct behavior? Has it worked? What popular images have you found to be effective?

Looking forward to your thoughts!

Jessica :)