It’s a known fact that the BBC produces some of the best television in the world and the Deadly 60 series is no exception. What makes this series different is that its target audience is children. And it’s given me a great idea for the classroom.
Deadly 60 is a wildlife show whose presenter, Steve Backshall, tracks down the world’s 60 deadliest animals. His ‘Deadly 60′ lists include top ten fastest, top ten toxic, top ten lethal weapons, six top tens that go on to make the Deadly 60. The show is a stunning example of how to take an already favourite learning topic of children and turn it into something awesome, something that gets everyone talking. It’s a simple idea and one that is being used in the classroom today; we have all asked children for top ten lists of some description. But why stop there? Why not try to involve the whole school, schools further afield, schools all over the world?
Are you talking about creating some sort of huge top ten collection site?
That’s one of my ideas. Creating a ‘Classroom 60′ site where children from schools anywhere in the world can visit and vote on top ten lists created by other children and teachers. Lists can be created in the classroom and uploaded to the site where others can vote for their favourites. Does a site like this already exist? I think it could be incredibly powerful and it would involve children of any age being able to participate.
Why not use social media?
Well, many schools, like my own, have no access to social media tools due to strict web filtering measures but a website ‘should’ be a lot easier to get through filters and be accessible by many.
What else could a teacher do with this?
Well, creating lists is always going to be a classroom favourite but it could be extended, developed, pulled apart further so that it becomes much more than just a simple list. Here are a few ideas.
- Create a short film of your top ten list
- Upload presentation slides of your top ten onto Animoto, and let it create a short animated film for you
- Design posters using online tools such as Glogster Edu (free for 50 students)
- Create an online presentation using Google Docs and share with the rest of the world
- Build a wiki of your own classroom 60′s so that you can include rich media with your lists
What about copyright of images, isn’t that going to be a problem?
It’s the perfect opportunity to teach your class about copyright and the use of images found online. Use image search set up to search only for images labelled for reuse. You can also use Flickr Creative Commons, Creative Commons Search and MorgueFile for starters. It’s also a great opportunity for your class to be creative with their lists so that they can take their own photos which bypasses copyrighted images completed.
Sounds like a great idea, I think I might try it out.
If you do give this a go then I’d be grateful to hear how it went and what type of lists your class created. If you are on Twitter then use #classroom60 to let me and others know. As for the Classroom 60 website, I’ll need a bit of time to create that 
