Wednesday, October 25

A Short Experiment: Six Word Lesson Plans

I don't know how many of you have seen it, but over at WIRED, they did an article in which they asked a series of writers to follow in the footsteps of Ernest Hemingway and write an entire story in just six words. Hemingway wrote "For sale: baby shoes, never used" and declared it his finest work.

I have always been a fan of the Webby Awards and their restriction of only 5 words for acceptance speeches. You can see the great results here. I have also just listened to the podcast from IT Conversations featuring Kathan Brown talking , in part, about how constraints push creativity into new places. Along those lines and with a big tip o' the hat the the genius behind the creation of the Big Question - I have my only little contest going.

Let's see who can write the best lesson plan of learning objective in only six words. I have also posted this challenge on my humble blog and would love to see the results go either place (I promise to share all results in both places).

Let's have some fun and see what ideas constraints might bring us!

UPDATE

Harold Jarche picks up the gauntlet first - here
Peter Isackson adds one with an artistic feel
Geetha Krishnan weighs in with an over-arching set
Dave Lee jumps into the mix with this great entry
Lee Kraus has one here that really resonates
My buddy Brent Schlenker has the Apple-induced six worder here
Jay Cross make his move and brings some other 'possible' entries with him like one from Roger Schank. p.s. Buy The Book.
Stephen Downes joins the fray and follows the narrative idea from the original WIRED story nicely.

8 comments:

Peter Isackson said...

The following six words could apply to any learning venture:

Perceive; find the rhythm; join; evolve.

Mark said...

Peter - I like it. Very art - very discovery - very community.

Anonymous said...

If you're interested in a related meme, I hope you have seen Dick Hardt's (nearly infamous - or getting there real quick now) 'Identity 2.0' presentation. Downloadable or streaming versions to be found at:
http://www.identity20.com/media/OSCON2005/

Geetha Krishnan said...

Another set, like Peter's, that could apply to most ventures:
forget, learn, reflect, forget, re-learn, synthesise

Dave Lee said...

Mark:

the link to my post is http://eelearning.typepad.com/main/2006/10/six_word_plan.html
but here's my six words.

share -> connect -> forget -> reflect -> learn -> reconnect

thanks for the fun challenge.

Karl Kapp said...
This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
Karl Kapp said...

Great idea, I took a slightly different approach than some of my colleagues . My contribution can be found at
Design: Six Word Lesson Plan

Anonymous said...

They heard...they considered...they did.