Blog Post #15 Final Reflection

Project 12 Book Trailer

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Dr. Pausch does a great job on how he has lived his life and is motivating others to pay it forward. This video was humbling to me because Dr. Pausch had cancer but is so upbeat and enthusiastic about his life. When he videoed his last lecture, he was given a few short months to live. The topics discussed were his childhood dreams, how he enabled dreams of others, and lessons learned. I think the most fascinating part of this video was learning about his participation in theDisney Quest Interactive Theme Park in Disney World. One of his contributions to Disney Quest was the Pirates of the Caribbean3D ride.

Dr. Pausch has numerous quotes mentioned in this video. One of my favorites is "Brick walls are there for a reason: they let us prove how badly we want things". This was noted in a lot of the dreams he talked about.
For example, he wanted to experience zero gravity and had the chance upon winning a competition to fly with his team but he was told that faculty members were not permitted to participate with the team members. He found a way to get around the "red tape" and was going as a journalist. He has determination to get the things he wants. Another quote that stood out was "Experience is what you get when you didn't get what you wanted". This is exemplified by his dream of being in the NFL. Obviously he never was drafted as a professional football player but his coach pushed him hard and was always criticizing him. He learned from that, "when you are screwing up and nobody is saying anything to you anymore than that means they gave up". Dr. Pausch says, "your critics are the ones telling you they still love you and care". The football dream is also acknowledged by the term "head fake or indirect learning", as Dr. Pausch refers. He says "we don't send our children out to learn football, we want them to learn about sportsmanship and teamwork as they play the sport". This was directly related to a major project he was involved in called "Alice". Students under his direction were learning to computer program without realizing it cause they were creating a game. What? Learning and having fun while doing it? Genius is what that is.
Dr. Pausch has touched so many lives that he has came in contact with. In the video of his last lecture, Tommy Burnett is one of his former students that he helped enable his dream of working on the next Star Wars movie. Dr. Pausch wants us to pay it forward. Always dream big and knock down those brick walls we encounter and have fun while learning. As a future educator, we want our students to learn while having fun too and it our job to encourage them to think outside the box. Dr. Pausch was such and encouragement to me to keep going and going for what you want in life. Because no matter what life puts in front of you or what sort of obstacles you have to go on you will achieve.

Project 11 Short Movie

My Final Report on My PLN

I love my PLN. I chose to use, Symbaloo. Over the past few months I have slowly built up my PLN and enjoy adding new website tiles to it often. I have made Symbaloo my homepage and all my favorite websites are available right in front of me. This class has definitely improved my computer skills and I have learned so much. I know I will continue to add to my PLN in the future and I love the freedom I have to change it to suit my preferences.