Recently we saw Ira Glass, the host of the popular radio show and podcast This American Life, speak about "Reinventing Radio." One of his first points was about the seriousness of how news and events are usually covered. His show strives to be different - and look for ways to approach news from an original and remarkable perspective.
My first thought was to compare this to education and especially educational videos. So many of them are so very serious. I will teach you this...you are learning this...click here. No fun at all.
We need more fun. We need resources that entertain and educate. Lately I've seen a number of video explanations that use music to present ideas in a truly remarkable way, and that's the big idea in my mind - to make an explanation remarkable.
A few examples:
OK Go Explains the Primary Colors on Sesame Street. (hat tip freetech4teachers)
Coma Niddy Explains Dark Matter in a rap song.
Explainer Music explains fracking in "My Water's On Fire Tonight."
Econstories.tv explains the competing economic theories of Hayek and Keynes.
Of course, we can't leave out Schoolhouse Rock!
I wish I could have learned more subjects like this as a young person. I have a feeling we'll be seeing more in the future. Do you have examples? Share them in the comments...