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Heeeyyyyyy! Not funny!?! I wrote that article... although I didn't write all of the jokes.
Seriously though, by today's standards the humor might not be that funny. The humor was "of the time" from the late 80's, early 90's. There has been a bit of research which shows that humor will vary over time because it will relate to society/issues/politics/media of that particular time. An example that I like to use to help support this is the book Gulliver's Travels. These days, it's more of a fun, entertaining, children's story. When I was in Ireland last year, I learned that at the time it was written, it was a MAJOR slam against the establishment.
An another note, you make a good point about the audience being able to use the extra time to absorb the material, and therefore score higher on the test. However, the amount of blanked-out time was pretty insignificant, the overall length of the show was still the same, and the amount of time before the tests were given was kept standard, so I'm not sure that was the reason for the difference in scores between the "humor" groups and the "non humor" groups. If I ever had the time (yeah, right), it would be fun to research that angle a little further.
Thanks for the feedback!
Martin S. Fisher
Director of Education
Nauticus, the National Maritime Center
One Waterside Drive
Norfolk, VA 23510
36°50'51"N 76°17'53"W 13 ft.
phone: (757) 664-1003, (800) 664-1080 ext. 41003
fax: (757) 623-1287 cell (757) 617-7080
[log in to unmask] <mailto:[log in to unmask]> www.nauticus.org <http://www.nauticus.org>
-----Original Message-----
From: Christine Shupla [mailto:[log in to unmask]]
Sent: Thursday, February 12, 2004 6:50 PM
Subject: Re: Humor in large format
ISEN-ASTC-L is a service of the Association of Science-Technology Centers
Incorporated, a worldwide network of science museums and related institutions.
*****************************************************************************
That study in the planetarium tested for a show with and without specific
jokes. (The results suggested that humor interfered with learning.) I think
it implied that for the show without the jokes, they simply blanked out the
volume. Perhaps giving the audience that extra time to absorb the content
resulted in the higher scores, not removing the actual jokes. (btw, I'm not
sure they all qualified as humor; some of them weren't that funny.)
_______________________________________
Christine Shupla
Planetarium Director
Arizona Science Center
(602) 716-2078
[log in to unmask]
-----Original Message-----
From: Kirsten Ellenbogen [mailto:[log in to unmask]]
Sent: Thursday, February 12, 2004 7:57 AM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: Humor in large format
ISEN-ASTC-L is a service of the Association of Science-Technology Centers
Incorporated, a worldwide network of science museums and related
institutions.
****************************************************************************
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This might be relevant....
Fisher, M.S. (1997). The effect of humor on learning in a planetarium.
Science Education (Special issue on informal science learning) 81(6),
703-713.
-Kirsten
*******************************************
Kirsten Ellenbogen
Institute for Learning Innovation
166 West Street, Annapolis, MD 21401
Phone: 410-268-5149 Fax: 410-268-2179
www.ilinet.org <http://www.ilinet.org/>
-----Original Message-----
Hello-
I am looking for instances of humor in large format, either humor that
you
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