Caddickisms

Back in January I wrote a bit about Randy Pausch’s “Last Lecture”:

Everything about this recording is interesting to me:

• From a technology standpoint, what he has achieved and set in motion
• From a teaching standpoint, how he delivered the lecture - the design, “tech elements”, and presentation style
• From an emotional standpoint, how he pulls it together in the end. Absolutely perfect.
• From a personal standpoint, how he comes across as completely genuine and open. Someone you’d really like to get to know.

I never met the guy or heard of him before, but he is now one of the most impressive people I’m aware of.

Randy died yesterday, succumbing to the illness that informed his lecture and made it so poignant. It seems fitting to bring the lecture back again for those who may have missed it.

Another piece of his legacy is the groundbreaking “Alice” programming instructional tool. I wrote more detail about that in a previous post. The genius of it is that it entices kids (even more specifically, girls, an under-served demographic in that area) to learn how to program by introducing story-telling and fun into the learning process.

Take a few minutes to watch the lecture. It’s worth the investment. If you’re pressed for time, I have links to shorter versions on the original post - but I do encourage watching the longer version if you can.

Related posts

• Alice: Through the Monitor (or Creating new worlds for Novices) (0)
• What I’ve been thinking (0)
• VeinViewer (0)
• Media and technology issues for learning and persuasion (1)
• Links from Corporate Learning: Trends and Innovations Day 1 (0)

Tags: girls, kids, Learning, legacy, programming, randy pausch, teaching, Technology, video

This entry was posted on Saturday, July 26th, 2008 at 2:04 pm and is filed under Learning, Other, Parenting, Technology. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.