Blog Assignment 7

Randy Pausch's Last Lecture

Randy Pausch spoke of various techniques that he has used over the years. One technique that Randy spoke about was teaching his students to be self-reflective. He did this by making charts that showed how easy his students were to work with when it came to working in groups. This chart let each student know if their peers thought they needed to work on skills within themselves. I think this is a very interesting technique. I think more classes should do something of this sort.

Randy also talked about something he calls a head fake. This technique allows someone to do one thing, while actually learning something completely different. One example he tells us about, an example that a friend of his thought of, is using storytelling to teach students computer programming. I think this is an awesome technique to use. It can take something that may seem hard or boring and turn into something completely different.

I really loved the way he talked about this childhood dreams. The one thing that stuck out to me was the fact that he values, so highly, the one dream he didn't reach. He tells us how the experience of football bettered his life. He says he learned so much more by not getting to the NFL than anything else. I guess the experience made the difference.

Randy Pausch has to be one of the most inspiring people that I have ever seen. He showed us that he is a strong person. He showed us that he has the ability to find the humor in anything and everything. I think what I loved most about this speech was the fact that it wasn't meant for any of us. It was meant for his kids. My thoughts go out to his family.