Ben
Third Grade
"Painting With Pixels"
Online Digital Arts Student
2011
As of late, things have been very complicated. Saying goodbye to an inspirational leader. Greeting a new one who is an unknown commodity. Starting a new course from scratch. Trying to do a research study with a partially operative lab. Teaching and going to grad school at night. Trying to pay bills that just tend to pile up. Just trying to manage life had become extremely difficult. Facing wall after wall! That’s just the way it was. Too much! Something had to give, be let go. I decided to take a break from work and grad school. I slowed down. Lowered my expectations. Tried to start again.
That was this past December and January. Started back to work and back to school at Full Sail. By the end of February, I still had to give up something. Work or school. That the ways things were!
I chose to give up work. Full Sail gives me a new starting point and a future of new promise and hope. As I write this, I had to lower the expectations for myself, like the Zander’s wrote. This book could not have come at a better time in my life!
Things are not as intense now. I have given priority to my health and to grad school. Although this is a lowering of expectations of sorts, since I’m not currently working; it is in fact a new beginning. I am reinventing myself. My research project which hit roadblock after roadblock, brought to me the possibility of doing it online (a hitherto inconceivable venture)!
Since I’ve done the project online, it has so far opened a few doors, which were unknown to me six months ago. Kids at my school (before I left) were always running up to me and asking for the “Bryce site” (my ARP used the software Bryce 3D, which is a 3D modeling program) Students which I did not even currently have in my class were excited to get to use Bryce online. The fact that Bryce is free was the main factor in their excitement, then to learn it online! Well…you can imagine!
Now that grad school is winding down, I do find myself at that starting point! When I talk to people about the AR project, that I taught elementary kids an adult-level program, online, people (adult-people) have been very excited and encouraging! That light at the end of the tunnel might just be the glow of a few computer screens!
I'm not one for pandering truisms, but I'm hopeful that as this part of your journey reaches it's conclusion that you will find a way to use what you've learned with full support by those who sign the checks and expand your positive influence beyond the classroom full of learners to many, many more educators and influencers who are thirsty for a better way to reach students and engage them in real world skills. Onward and upward, my friend.
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