Pecha Kucha Critique
I was excited when I began reading about this storytelling technique and it’s possible applications to the classroom. I watched the teacher who learned to listen, make it so and the telling technical stories pecha kuchas while sitting in the Salt Lake City Airport on my way to Mexico. I found some strong upsides to the medium and the stories I viewed, but ultimately didn’t find much that would be extremely applicable to my classroom for a couple specific reasons.

Across all three stories I enjoyed very much how the photos complemented what the narrator was talking about and seemed to help guide them through their discussion. My favorite story was the one about the woman who got drunk and woke up to a social fiction she had created about Captain Picard of Star Trek.
This was the most entertaining story, perhaps because it spoke to me on a personal level. Last summer I befriended a couple of Scots who were working at the same rafting company as I on J1 visas. At some point during their journeys, they befriend a small, plush lion who they named Scrump and began documenting his adventures from the highest mountains of Colorado to the lowest depths of depravity in Las Vegas.

I also enjoyed the stories behind the Teacher who learned to listen and Telling technical stories Pecha Kucha, but I ultimately found little that I could use in my classroom. I really like the idea behind the Pecha Kucha that demands pacing and uses visual media to supplement the audio, but I feel like it falls both long and short of what the typical teenager I have in my classes will find engaging.
20 seconds per slide, times 20 slides means that they would be listening to someone talk for 400 seconds without much engagement on their part. It’s hard enough for me to sit still for 6 minutes and 40 seconds listening to somebody talk unless I’m already passionate about the topic; I doubt I could get my kids to listen to something that long in Spanish, no matter how compelling the pictures I used to complement my words might be.

If I were to try to implement the Pech Kucha idea, I would definitely want to start much smaller. Rather than the 20x20 format, I would start with a ratio around 10x10 or maybe even as small as 5x10 to try and save myself the paper towels I would waste mopping up unconscious student’s drool from their desks by the end of it.
