You know how educators or other professional groups are trying to make learning fun, so they attempt to “update” things to cater to the newest generation. Not just the basic idea of making learning fun (which have succeeded in various ways by making edutainment games like Oregon Trail or SimCity) but rather attempts that involve specifically including current pop culture or trends.
What inspired me to make this topic was learning the YouTube series “Epic Rap Battles of History” made censored versions of their original videos so they could be shown in class-rooms. I can’t imagine being in a classroom nowadays and seeing one of those videos and not cringing at the attempt, like how they had MacGruff the Crime Dog rap in videos I watched back in my youth and even when I was 10 I knew that was incredibly lame.
I also remember as a kid they tried to make educational comic books under the idea that kids like comic books so if you put Anti-Drug messages or Historical Figures in them kids would enjoy them, not understanding that kids read comic books because they were exciting not because they just like the medium.
Some of the ERB episodes are amazing, however. Thomas Jefferson vs. Frederick Douglass is a personal favorite, as is the Western vs. Eastern Philosophers - I love how the squads end up quibbling with each other at the end! I can see how some of them could be used as supplementary material to try to get a point or two across.
And to back up galen ubal, I’m from the generation Schoolhouse Rock was aimed at, and it certainly worked on me.
TED Talks seem to have built a business model around it. I don’t get it, but there it is.
Love Schoolhouse Rock!!
I have gotten started on a number of topics I have been curious about via graphic novel books. The Cartoon History of the Universe by Larry Gopnik, for example, is frickin’ brilliant.
Yep, I think Schoolhouse Rock is the big flashing neon sign of an answer here.
I have all the Cartoon History of the Universe/Modern World books (by Larry Gonick) but read them as an adult.
However, my daughter was heavily influenced by the children’s videos by They Might Be Giants - they had a series of video podcasts (I refuse to call them “vodcasts”) using material from their Here Come the A-B-Cs and Here Come the 1-2-3s CD/DVDs, and their excellent Here Comes Science DVD resulted in her deciding to be a palaeontologist at age 3, an aspiration she continues to maintain six years later. Very highly recommended.
Sesame Street also did (and possibly still do) an excellent series of short video podcasts as well, for the parent on the go.
Oh god - how could I have forgotten Horrible Histories? The books are good but the television show is phenomenal. I don’t know how available they are outside the UK but they are both very funny and very informative.
I don’t know how hip it was, even at the time, but You Are There stoked my interest in history. It showed historical events as they would have been covered by TV news.
For what it’s worth, my son just started college this year and liked the Epic Rap Battles series while in high school. Granted, he saw the straight versions and not a bowdlerized classroom version but the concept worked for him.
I introduced Bill Nye the Science Guy to my kid when he was younger. I thought it was pretty a good series. Educational, entertaining and not condescending.
Not mentioned: Beakman’s World. It kinda went down in history as a Bill Nye The Science Guy wannabe, but it’s good stuff even in retrospect. Beakman even cameo’d in a recent Captain Disillusion video. And on that note, Captain Disillusion, too.
Also, the Carmen Sandiego franchise is pretty hep, sometimes, particularly Where on Earth is Carmen Sandiego, however all the cool is concentrated on Carmen herself and she isn’t the focal point.
I remember a film I saw at least twice back in school called Hemo, the Magnificent; part of series of films made by Bell Laboratories back in the '50s. Don’t know if it was ever cool/hip, but I definitely remember it years later. I wouldn’t have recognized the name back then, but it was directed by Frank Capra.
I also remember the Life Science Library book series. My uncle had the full set and I thought they were fascinating (well, a few volumes more than others). I happened to see him when he was planning to get rid of them, so he gave them to me.
Nye got his start (pretty much) on a local Seattle show called Almost Live. He did Science Guy stuff, and other characters like a superhero who fought crime while racewalking. Considering how far he has come, it’s interesting to see some of the early evolution of the character.
