Education and Technology

As I start back to work Monday, I look forward to new horizons, challenges and a better Edutechation.com. The items in this look back are items that did well, FCAT posts, and items that show the direction I have started to take as the New Year begins in earnest.

• New Baby is Here – The birth of my son.
• Twitter and Facebook – Are the useful in Education? – Social Media in schools?
• Delicious as a Tool for Teachers – Social Media in schools?
• The 5 Things To Do before Calling Tech Support – You can help youself, really!
• FCAT 2009 Underway – Prediction on Scores – One of my biggest posts of the year.
• Service Desks Need Real Techs – Real people that have actual tech experience, not someone reading a script.
• Bleeding Edge Technology in the Public Sector – It takes longer than most people realize to migrate to new software.
• Stimulus Money Getting to the Right People? – We got money, but did the government get it to the right people?
• Reading Under the Stars – This is what Elementary School and teaching is all about.
• Technology Can Hinder Education – Technology, yes but is it adequate?
• Students Are Affected by Teachers – Teacher can make a difference and the students can see that.
• I’d Rather Have A Root Canal – Our personal experiences shape our lives.
• Budget Cuts Mean Layoffs – Being shortsighted leads to problems.
• Family Before Anything Else – If you don’t take care of the family, everything else has no balance.
• Manatee School District Hurting or Helping Students? – A case where common sense is absent.
• Teamwork is Nice, But Do It Yourself is More Reliable – Sometimes you need to step to the plate and win the game.
• FoxNews Clueless on Education and Safety – Media and their one sided, uneducated view of education.
• Technology Doesn’t Help Without Parent Support – You can’t do it all, parents have to be involved.
• Set a Goal and Reach It – Singapore Marathon 2009 – A friend shows us what you can do if you try.
• Runas Command for Elevated Privileges – You don’t have to run as an administrator all the time.
• A Date Which Will Live In Infamy – My birthday and no one teaches about Pearl Harbor. Lest we forget our history.
• When Outlook Express Won’t Delete Emails – This is the direction I am taking Edutechation.com. Tech Support.
• Rain Man, Kim Peek Passes Away – We are all different, we all need someone to teach us at our level with respect.
• Happy New Year – Goals, not Resolutions. If we set goals we are more apt to complete them.

The last 5 or 6 links are the direction of Edutechation.com. Real life, how does it affect me, education and technology. Straight from the hip, all connected in one way or another, but all different.

Technology, Society, Education, School, Personal Development

Kim Peek, the man that inspired the movie “Rain Man” has passed away recently at the age of 58. The movie was not a real life recounting of Mr. Peeks life, but the screenwriter thought so much of him after a meeting that he penned the story. Dustin Hoffman spent time with Mr. Peek to learn his mannerisms and about his unique gift of memory. What most people don’t know is that Mr. Peek was not autistic, instead he had a birth defect within his brain that made him unable to do a lot of normal things. The doctors misdiagnosed him and one wanted to do a lobotomy. What we would have lost if his father had listened to them.

But he didn’t and that defect gave Kim the gift of memorization. The ability to read facing pages of a book at the same time, one page with each eye. It wasn’t until that chance meeting with that screewriter that Mr. Peek started his journey in the public light that included discussion sessions with people of all ages, from k12 to college students. Kim was able to give you facts instantaneously after you asked a question. He even started to be more open, learning the piano even though he shouldn’t have been able to.

I watched a documentary about Mr. Peek a few years ago, and was awe struck with what he was able to do. His father took care of him every day of Kim’s life because he could not do the basic things for himself. While he could not think up new ideas or do the things that a Hawkings or Einstein could, he showed us another side of the human genius. He showed us that the brain can hold a great deal of facts. We have not tapped our brains to any degree that we could. If we combined what Einstein had with what Mr. Peek had just imagine what we could be.

The point of this is twofold. One is to pay respect to Mr. Peek, while the second is to show everyone that we are all different, don’t give up on a student because you think they can’t do the work. Maybe they see it in a different way than the norm for the topic. We need to ask questions and adapt to our students needs to give them every opportunity to grow.

Rainman, Einstein, Personal Development, Peek