The contest is to design a button with the phrase I am here for the learning revolution on it in some way, shape or form that Scott and Wes will distribute at NECC during EduBloggerCon 2008 and Classroom 2.0 LIVE . I had been thinking about this for a week or so and had not come up with any really good ideas, primarily because my work laptop is devoid of any font or graphic that is out of the ordinary. I struggled with this over and over and had resigned to not entering anything.
I was searching through the Flickr images to get some ideas - a photo of a shift key or an enter key were my original ideas with the above phrase superimposed on it. But I did not find anything that caught my fancy. So, I did what any normal person would do, I "Googled" revolution. I went to its Wikipedia entry then went to the list of Revolutions and Rebellions and there I saw the name Julius Caesar and it hit me - the Rubicon River.
I could use the "Crossing the Rubicon" as my analogy to I am here for the learning revolution. Crossing the Rubicon means to commit to the point of no return - and stems from Caesar's crossing the Rubicon River with his Roman Army to "invade" ancient Rome in January 49 BC. Roman Generals were forbidden by law to cross the Rubicon with their army and when Caesar crossed, he made conflict or revolution inevitable.
I thought this was an apt analogy for the contest in that it suggests we, as educators, make that commitment to the learning revolution needed to ensure our students thrive in the 21st century!
So, here it is -- My entry emailed before the end of the day on May 1, 2008. What do you think?
