Blog Post #7

In this video, Randy Pausch did a phenomenal job. He talked his childhood dreams, and he explained that some of them he got to do, and some he didn't. Some were; experiencing ground zero, playing in the NFL, winning huge stuffed animals, and becoming a Disney Imagineer. Of these, he tells that he got to experience ground zero, he never got to play in the NFL but he learned a lot from his football coaches, he won a bunch of huge stuffed animals and showed them to the audience, and lastly he told about how hard it was, but he got to be a Disney Imagineer.


He said something that really stood out to me, and that was "Experience is what you get when you didn't get what you wanted." He told about how even though he didn't get to play in the NFL, he got some really good experience from it, and he learned a lot from his coaches. I found this statement pretty powerful, because it is so true! It reminds me of that saying, Thank God for some unanswered praters. He also told of some things that he learned during the time. Another cool thing that he said was "Brick walls are there to show us how badly we want stuff." I thought that this was awesome. He said this when he was talking about how hard it was becoming a Disney Imagineer. Eventually he made it, and he got to work on the Aladdin project. I found this to be really cool! It was definitely very motivating listening to him talk about these dreams of his that actually came true, especially since at the time he was dying. We should have all learned a lot from him!


After he talked about his childhood dreams, he talked about enabling dreams. He talked about a course that he taught on virtual worlds. He showed a video of a student's virtual reality, and then he showed a slide show of the students he taught. I thought that it was extremely interesting! Then, he went on to talk about a course that he and a man named Don Marinelli taught. It was a course that focused on people and learning to work in groups. He also talked about a project called "Alice", which is a way to teach computer programming. It has become very popular, as he stated over 1 million people have downloaded it and ten percent of colleges are using it.


Last, he tells about the lessons he has learned. One is that many people have helped him a long the way, like his parents, his teachers, and more. Another is that we learn from many people, such as our bosses and also our students. He talks a lot about how it is important to help people. I found this video really inspiring. It is important for us, as educators, to encourage our students to shoot for their goals and to help them as much as we can along the way. This was a great video!