What Can We Learn About Teaching and Learning From Randy Pausch?

Randy Pausch was a professor of computer science, human- computer interaction, and design at Carnegie Mellon University. He was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer in September 2006, and learned in was terminal in August 2007. He gave his final lecture two months later. It was recorded and has been seen on YouTube more than 16 million times. He also wrote a book with the same theme that became a New York Times best-seller. 

Randy Pausch started his lecture by talking about his childhood dreams. His dreams were to be in zero gravity, Play in the NFL, write an article in the World Book Encyclopedia, be Captain Kirk, win stuffed animals, and become a Disney Imagineer. In some way, he accomplished all of these dreams. He accomplished being in zero gravity when he led a team of students to win a contest with NASA. He never played in the NFL, but he did become a coach. He said he was always more comfortable on a football field than anywhere else. He wrote an article for the World Book Encyclopedia about virtual reality. He never became Captain Kirk, but he was able to meet him. He won may over sized stuffed animals at amusement parks. He brought a few of them on stage to prove they were real. He became a Disney Imagineer and helped create the Aladdin project. He also talks a lot about the brick walls that he  encountered while he was trying to achieve his dreams. He says that the brick walls prove how badly we want things. 

Randy Pausch was also involved in a lot of new developments regarding virtual technology. He helped develop a program called Alice that allowed students create virtual worlds and learn programming skills. Alice is being used at many schools and 10% of colleges. He also created a class called Building Virtual Worlds. Students were put into groups and completed the project of building a virtual world. They had 2 weeks to complete the projects. Randy was really impressed with his student's work and said that he would have given them A's if it was a semester project. He also partnered with Don Marinelli to create the Entertainment Technology Center. It partnered computer science and drama students into groups so they could create together. The CTU offered a 2 year Masters degree in Entertainment Technology.