He Stood, He Delivered, He Will Be Missed

Almost everyone has a teacher in their formative years that made school special. I was fortunate enough to have several special teachers. Sometimes we are even moved by teachers we never had, but heard about. For me, Jaime Escalante was one of those teachers. I never met him. I never knew him. I did see his movie, Stand and Deliver. It really made me appreciate in a broader sense what it means to be called to share your passion.

Mr. Escalante died on March 30th. He will be missed by many.




It also leads me to ask the average person, have you used your passion to have a significant, positive impact on someone? Mr. Escalante touched the lives of many through teaching.

zomm

Earlier today, I was listening to the radio. The guy mentioned how some things just strike you as special pretty quickly. It doesn't take days for it to sink it, you see it and you get it. It is the stuff of great ideas. Not too fancy, not too complex, just good stuff.

While wandering about the internet today, I got knocked over by one of those great ideas.

I have ZOMM love!

Even though I cannot even get one yet, I saw the slickest useful technology idea. I need one. I want to give one to some folks I know because they often cannot find their mobile phones.

Without working all the bells & whistles, just imagine a bluetooth device for your phone that is part speaker phone and part phone locator. Now I can find the dumb thing when it slips between the sofa cushions and I don't notice.

I even had to tweet about this. I hear that you can see something about it on the Today Show this Thursday (1/28), but this CNN video did enough to confirm my interest...and it includes some other fun stuff from the Consumer Electronics Show.


Now why didn't I (or you) think of this!

Burst and Pace

Is it better to be quick or steady?

There are many things that we can categorize into the burst things and pace things. Sprinters, surgeons, and firefighters are roles that rely on bursts of excellence. Distance runners, family doctors, and police officers are more pace roles.

I don't believe one style is better than the other, but they both come with different expectations. You want your pace folks to be on their game all of the time. Parts of their roles may become automated because technology can do some roles all the time. One example is the role of surveillance cameras in police work. They watch all the time, even when people are not there to observe.

Burst roles require a high level of competency in small periods over the day. The tricky part may be the political perspective of the non burst periods. The firefighter needs to be very good when beating back the blaze. When the firefighter is at the station, we are not getting the bang for the buck.

More Burst & Pace to come. It's a long year, I'll have to pace myself ;-)

Parents--Let your children grow

Hiatus over...the unsorted thinker is back with a lot on his mind!


I came across the embedded video at Edutopia. It is a part of their Digital Generation Project. I encourage you to dive in and learn more about it. I am doing the same. I like the basic message. The next generation will usually understand more about future technologies than the current one. Now it is social media and video games. Once upon a time it was television, radio, telephony, moving vehicles, air travel, or getting information from a printed page instead of word of mouth. Think of how you life would be different without these things.

I understand that there are downsides to the brave, new world. I also see that there are opportunities that older generations may never have imagined. Your Spidey sense will tell you that with great power comes great responisbility. Share that lesson with the next generation and let's see where they grow.

Note the links on the right side of the page. I strongly urge you to browse the content and particularly the share link. It provides ways that you can get involved.

These are the discussion questions that followed on the website. Find a tech savvy youth and have a thought swap meet.

Discussion Questions

1. What is the cultural shift that technology is enabling? How has technology changed your life and the life of your kids?

2. Are adults really afraid of technology? Why, or why not?

3. Why do adults need to be actively involved with the digital-media habits of the kids around them?

4. What does it mean to be a citizen of the world? What are practical ways we can prepare kids for this role?