Sea Lions

Achieving your Childhood Dreams

Randy Pausch is an amazing and inspiring person. He has spent his life dreaming, working to achieve those dreams, and aspiring others to do as well. He states in the beginning of his clip that he has always been a dreamer. From wanting to be in the NFL to experiencing zero gravity to wanting to become an Imagineer for Walt Disney, he was determined to excel. He spends a lot of time talking about how he achieved most of his dreams. Through determination and persistence, he was able to experience the zero-gravity. Although, he didn't make it quite to the NFL he spent years playing football and learning what it meant to be a team. This values would later expand his horizon to new heights earning him a job with the Disney Imagineer team.



Picture Credits:
Zero Gravity
Imagineer
NFL


Once he achieved his own dreams, he wanted to help others achieve them as well so what better way to do that than become a college professor. He spent his years teaching not only how to do things but also the skills you need to do them. Any teacher can babble on for hours about how to work algebra equations or explain punctuations but it takes someone special to tell you that you need discipline and good work ethic if you fully understand and truly learn. Randy always told his students that they could do better even if what they did do was not short of amazing.



Photo Credit:
Virtual World

Towards the end of Randy's video, Achieving your Childhood Dreams, he stated the lessons he had learned and thanked all the mentors that made it happen. I believe the most powerful lesson is when one of his professors told him that he needed to get a doctorate degree in education because he would make a perfect salesman and what not better than to sell education. Wow. I never knew how much of a prestigious position a teacher had until that statement.

Overall, I would rate this video a five out of five. He was an excellent speaker with great organizational skills. He was very inspirational throughout the whole video and I think that everyone needs to take his ideas to heart and live them on a daily basis.


Achieving your Childhood Dream's Video Clip

A Vision of Students Today

Video Clip of A Vision of Students Today by Michael Wesch

The part of the Video Clip that discusses education is very accurate. In most college level courses, teachers do not make it a priority to develop a relationship with their students. I can honestly say there have been classes that I have taken that not only did the professor not know my name, I did not know their's neither. This is a problem to me. The more inpersonal a class is, the more monotonous and irrevelent it becomes. This brings me to a point; how can someone fully learn and apply it if they are simply there to watch the clock and leave.

It was quite enlightning to find out that I am not the only student that would rather check my Myspace and/or Facebook than completing my online school work. The internet is full of distractions. Catchy headers, flashy photos, and a slew of advertisements are to name a few. It makes it near impossible to focus on the task at hand.



I if could add anything to this video clip, it would be the prevelance of texting in the classroom. This would relate to the majority of students. Every class I've attended I have at least witnessed one person recieving or sending a text. The picture below illustrates my notion.

Karl Fisch: The Fischbowl

I thought this blog was both funny and informative. Fisch uses Terry Freedmans blog to open his blog. Here are some quotes: "School inspectors who are technologically illiterate should be encouraged to find alternative employment,Schools, Universities and Teacher training courses who turn out students who are technologically illiterate should have their right to a licence and/or funding questioned, and we should stop being so nice. After all, we've got our qualifications and jobs, and we don't have the moral right to sit placidly on the sidelines whilst some educators are potentially jeopardising the chances of our youngsters."

Fisch later elaborates on Freedman's blog. He states that today's world is becoming more "tech" dependent. This would reflect that a student will have to learn technology as if it were a new language. It is imperative for a teacher to be able to teach this language. Fish agrees with this quote, If a teacher today is not technologically literate - and is unwilling to make the effort to learn more - it's equivalent to a teacher 30 years ago who didn't know how to read and write.


Is It Okay To Be A Technologically Illiterate Teacher?

"What I've Learned This Year" by Mr. McClung

Mr. Mcclung gave several pointers on how to become a good teacher. These points include: read the crowd, it will help you gain and keep their attention; be flexible, you will never know how the day will go; communicate, it is the best remedy to prevent and resolve conflict; be resonable,not everyone will hold up to your expectations; listen, it will show that you care; do not be afraid of technology, it will open up doors to oppurtunity; and never stop learning, it will broaden both yours and the student's horizon.

I thought that Mr. Mcclung's essay was very interesting. I do believe that teachers today get wrapped up in what their supervisors want them to do. Why wouldn't they? They are observed at least once a year and forced to teach material that was chosen by someone else. I think, that if this mold was broken and a teacher could teach what they thought was important, a better connection with the audiance would be established.

Also, I like Mcclung's argument about being reasonable. Not all students are going to perform at the level that you would like them to do. Some students might have learning dissabilities that might put them behind other students.





Mr.Mcclung's article "What I've Learned This Year"