There should be a word in the English language that combines TEACHING and LEARNING into just one word because I don't think you can have one without the other. Case in point: I've learned more stuff than I can count this term and much of it comes from your projects, assignments and questions. I'd like to dwell on just one example in this post and then attach a piece of work that is the result of a student comment during one of our face-2-face meetings.
Danica and some other women, as some of you may recall, were giving me (and I think other men) a hard time about remembering birthdays and other things that some guys don't pay as much attention to as they might. Danica suggested somehow, I'm fuzzy on the details, that one might solicit birthday wishes from friends of one's wife and put them into a Powerpoint presentation and give them as a birthday gift. The idea stuck with me and I did just that... sent an email to Loretta's friends (I secretly copied her email list) and asked for birthday wishes, stories, photos, etc. The response was overwhelming. If bandwidth allows I'll post the resulting video here.
There are two points I'd like to make about this incident: 1) I learned from you all, and acted on what I learned. Students of all ages know things and have experienced things that we teachers have not and can benefit from learning. As a result of the project suggested in EDUC 675 I pushed myself to learn more about Powerpoint, iPhoto, converting .ppt docs into movies, adding a sound track, converting the whole thing to a DVD format, and burning a DVD that I'll send to our kids to prove that their mother is indeed a remarkable woman (see cow jumping over the moon cartoon).
2) On a whole other level/topic I learned that we all need to tell the folks who we care about and the folks who care about us how they have affected who we are. I've come to think about the project of gathering comments about Loretta as a "Eulogy For The Living". Too often we save the best for the last. That is we save all the good things we have stored up to say about significant others until after they are gone. By gone I don't necessarily mean 'dead' but gone from being an everyday person in our lives.
Let me suggest sending a note or email right now to a person who you admire or who has had an impact on your life. Be that person a parent, a student, a teacher, a preacher, a friend or a mentor... let them know they made a difference, made you think, made you laugh or made you the person you are today. If you get really inspired I'd be real happy to share with you the process that I used in making Loretta's Happy 16th Birthday video.
