I had a funny, when-I-was-their-age moment. I had found my way to this Teachers Network website and saw this headline: IF U CN RD THS U CN LRN TO RITE, which linked to an article about adding a twist to the typical “what I did this summer” essay by having students start with texting their responses. For some reason, I flashed to an old, rainy day worksheet I used to have that gave a list of vanity license plates that the kids had to decipher. Maybe they represent the original text messaging, and a little googling showed that having students create personalized license plates for themselves or other characters was a popular lesson plan. Everything old is new again, this time around with a few more characters allowed.
I use to have my students create vanity license plates too as a get-to-know you beginning of the year activity. We hung them around the room.
As we have been talking about why teachers do not utilize or accept new strategies, practices, technological devices, etc, I have found a small group of teachers that will still say that the new ideas/strats will be gone soon, just wait it out. Some of these particular veteran teachers will also say that if you wait long enough the old strategies/ideas will come back around. Is that what is happening here, just in a different format? or is it a good idea/strat being updated to meet the time period?