Ermahgerd! Mermes! (Memes)

Today, discussing the topic of "Nurture" as an influence on development led us into a discussion of memes. As tiny units of culture, memes influence our speech, dress, behavior, and thinking, but often in subtle ways.

No example of memes are more powerful than the fast-spreading, often nonsensical memes generated via the Internet. From LOL Cats to Planking to Gangnam Style, Internet memes showcase both the speed of cultural transmission and the creativity of Internet users, who seem endlessly capable of spawning new variations of popular memes.

In class today, we got a look at the history of the now-popular "Ermahgerd" (Oh My God) meme, whose history is described in the video below.



After you're done completing your Nature-Nurture projects tonight, see if you can come up with a AP Psych-related incarnation of the Ermahgerd meme. Then post a link here or on the Facebook page. We want to see it. :)

New File-Sharing Web Tool

I've recently discovered a handy tool for easily working with files that I have to transfer between home and work. Since a number of my students today encountered frustration when attempting to send their files back and forth between home and school, I thought I might share this in the hopes that some of you will find it useful.

Dropbox is a free, web-based service for storing files and syncing them between different computers. You can install Dropbox on your home computer, and when you save files there (just like saving them in a folder in your regular documents files) they are automatically accessible anywhere you have web access. This is GREAT for those who use multiple computers, because you can install it on all your computers, and every time you save the file it updates the version online. No more worrying about making sure the latest version is the one you are dealing with! Yay!

Although students wouldn't be able to install this on the school's computer desktop, they can access a dropbox account via the web (with their user name and password), so it seems an elegant alternative to the sometimes cumbersome process of emailing files back and forth.

As a bonus, if you are working on a group project, Dropbox allows you to create public folders that you can share with friends. So members of your group/team could all access and work on the same file from different computers, at different times.

Did You Know?

On the eve of another school year, it's a worthwhile use of your time to consider the journey we're about to undertake. This time of year, I find myself feeling at first apprehensive, then excited, and, finally, eerily calm about all the change that is happening around me and in my life. We don't always think about it, but the world is in a constant state of flux that presents challenges and opportunities for all of us.

Perhaps you've seen a version of video clip I've embedded below. It's a great reminder that tomorrow is NOT yesterday:

What does it all mean? Here's what it means to me:

• As teachers, we must constantly be challenging our students to learn more, do more, and be more because of the obstacles they will face.
• EVERYONE (including teachers and adults) must ALWAYS be learning! It's not enough to "maintain." We grow or get left behind.
• Students face challenges we did not, even a few years ago, and will encounter problems we did not anticipate. Therefore, an intensive education that allows them to be flexible thinkers is not simply a good idea, it is necessary if we wish for the US to remain globally competitive in employment and for the world to solve the problems that face our interconnected planet.

Psychology is fun, of course. But there's a bigger reason we're all going to be here at 8:00 tomorrow morning.