7th grade time in the lab is split between two lessons today – bridged by digital identity:

1. OK GO is a band that became popular through some awesome YouTube videos.  Instead of signing a recording contract and spending millions on advertising, they made a couple of low-budget, hilarious films and posted them online.  The videos were so popular that they got signed by EMI.  You can see the famous “treadmill” video (more than 49 million views) at YouTube because embedding has been disabled at the request of the record label.

The band recently made a new video  and posted it on their website for all their fans, but EMI (the record label) was not happy and made them remove it.  This is bizarre because the internet made them famous but now their bosses asked them not to use this tool to connect with fans.  To watch this video, you have to go to YouTube so that EMI can get paid by the advertisers.

OK GO has a great online presence, using Twitter, Facebook, YouTube and their own website to promote their brand (band).  We took a look at their Facebook page and found out that they are performing at the Sasquatch! music festival in Washington in May.  That took us to the second part of our class…

2. We opened Google Earth and searched for the The Columbia Gorge, where the music festival takes place every year.  From there, we prepped for the upcoming Washington State History quiz on notable locations around the state.  We used Google Earth to locate the Coulee Dam (pictured below), Adams and other mountains, major freeways, lakes, tribes and more.

HugeFloods.com Coulee Dam photo