Instructional Timetoast and Blog 7

Carnegie Mellon:

This video was well worth the watch! I have always been a huge fan of Disney World, and the Disney Imagineer, and animation studios. To hear how passionate Dr. Pausch was, and is, even in his last days of life, about learning in a way that is 100% fun was awesome. I agree with him that having fun while learning is the only way to do it so that what you learn sticks with you forever. Learning through having fun builds relationships, memories, and ensures a well-rounded education for students. If learning isn't fun for the student then the things we hear from them today like "Why do we have to learn this?", and "Why is this subject so important anyway, I'm bored!", will be very accurate, legit things for them to voice. Learning must be, must be fun or else it is pointless and a failed attempt to teach by the professor. I love the idea of the Alice Project software as a tool to help students of all ages to learn computer programming and java script. I'll admit, I hate having to learn about how computers' innards work in the traditional boring ways of reading websites, and Google searching, these ways are not fun for me. I would much rather the internet be set up in an almost imaginary world setting that was interactive and colorful and interesting. I say this, and I'm a college student but age has no boundaries for fun! Look at Dr. Pausch, he is in his last days of life, and the man is full of fun. His whole hour long speech was a fun roller coaster if you will. He started off with jokes, and interjected throughout his whole speech to keep the audiences attention. Throughout the whole lecture I kept my interest in what he was going to say next. Another thing he spoke about was to be encouraged when you hit a brick wall in your life. "Brick walls let us prove how badly we want things." This is such a great quote, and it is also such an incredible truth. When students and teachers alike hit brick walls in life, if they are really passionate about what they want when they hit said brick wall, then it is so very important to find a way around the wall if it is truly a goal in your life that you are dying to reach. Otherwise, the goal wasn't that important after all and you move on to other things. However, Dr. Pausch I feel thinks it is very important to look beyond brick walls in our lives and strive to the best that you can to achieve your goals. You never know how important your knowledge is going to be to another student or colleague, and if you don't have a positive, fun attitude toward what you are teaching, I believe it is fair to say that the student won't either.

Audacity recording: