ejarmush – ENG 151 OM 14

Neurosurgery Application

Ethan Jarmush

Presentation:

https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1Q2Xsz4Zjc28t094FJVD6M1K01tzJHam6dzee0RUr-Ks/edit#slide=id.g464d85a162_0_23

Intro

The product we are proposing is a simulation based VR app made for the HTC Vive that will assist in educating up and coming neurosurgeons specific procedures. It would be as if they were really performing these surgeries but it’s in the virtual world without risk or other constraints. The main people we would sell this to would be both hospitals and universities such as Johns Hopkins. This product allows students entering the field to get a very realistic hands on experience to neurosurgery and teach them much more than they could just by studying what’s written in a book. Not only can new students use this but veteran surgeons could use it to hone their skills or prepare for an upcoming surgery while patients could observe the problem they they have and see how exactly they’re going to fix it, which could put them as ease.

There has been research done on the topic of the uses of VR in neurosurgery. The academic journal by Panayiotis Pelargos titled “Utilizing virtual and augmented reality for educational and clinical enhancements in neurosurgery” talks about how VR could improve the neurosurgery field greatly. It is stated that implemented VR into this area will “lead to greater efficiency, improved patient care, and minimization of technical errors that are inherent to the surgical learning curve” (Pelargos et al.). Another source that talks about this is the stanford.edu website where they state “The surgeons practice the procedure using images of the actual patient, rather than generic anatomy, allowing them to map out the exact path they will take during the surgery, ahead of time.” (“Stanford Neurosurgical Simulation and Virtual Reality Center”)

Learning Outcomes

Evaluate and Practice Procedures*

Incorporate Effective Decision Making in a Semi-Immersive Environment*

Analyze Real-Time Feedback on Procedures*

Develop Reduced Apprehension of Performing Procedures*

Develop Muscle Memory*

Apply Accuracy and Effectiveness on Real Procedures*

Using virtual reality to evolve science, health, and education has and will continue to have an everlasting effect on the quality of life. Ensuring that one has the most maximized quality of life is important and essential for the human race to thrive.In addition, the people associated in conducting the procedure become more of an asset to society. There are several educational learning outcomes from using virtual reality that can improve the effectiveness and accuracy of procedures performed. As one outcome neuro-scientists and neurosurgeons, are able to practice on something that is real, but simulated. “Despite its infancy, attempts to apply AR in surgery have been successful and promising”.( Shuhaiber 1) They can evaluate the choices they made using the app and make changes to how they handle certain situations. Another outcome would be incorporating effective decision making in the semi-immersive app environment. “Marking structures of interest on radiographic images that can be superimposed on live video camera images allows a surgeon to simultaneously visualize the surgical site and the overlaid graphic images, creating a so-called semi-immersive environment.”(Shuhaiber 1) This would enable you to test yourself without the fear of harming a patient. Accurate decision making in a time of crisis in the operating room can be the difference between someone living and dying. Analyzing real-time feedback on procedures is crucial in learning from your mistakes and adapting. “Haptic devices, including styli and gloves, continue to evolve in the consumer arena in an effort to improve tactile feedback; although these may not be practical in a sterile intraoperative setting, they show significant promise for preoperative planning and for surgical education.”(Domingo 4). Understanding what or why you didn’t do something can help increase your accuracy on specific procedures and it gives you understanding and guidance. Developing Reduced Apprehension when performing procedures is another key educational outcome gained from using the application. Becoming more and more confident in doing something with repetition can insure you don’t make mistakes and you complete a successful procedure. Developing muscle memory in any application can produce better results. Finally, the interaction between surgeons, augmented displays, and robotically actuated instruments shows tremendous promise for faster and safer surgery in multiple disciplines.(Domingo 4) When something comes natural and fluid it puts the patient at ease and makes the operation go smoothly. Using the app will increase the accuracy and effectiveness in which you perform specific procedures. With greater accuracy you will come out feeling more confident and have a better understanding on what needs to be done and when. This app will also create a significant difference in the effectiveness in which you perform procedures, you will be able to take cut the operation time in half but still maintain quality of service.

User Experience/Interface

There are other applications that do surgery in virtual reality but don’t focus on neurosurgery specifically. Osso VR for example portrays a realistic simulation of a knee surgery where you physically perform the surgery but in the virtual world just like we plan to do. Hospitals are now using virtual reality in the neurosurgery field but only visually to plan surgeries ahead of time and to show patients what inside their brains and tell them how they are going to fix it. So we are combining both the physical aspect of the Osso VR and the realistic observable aspect with what hospitals are doing now to create an application that helps everyone involved. It would be using to the HTC Vive and the hand controllers to make sure it’s as immersive as possible since that’s the best on the market right now.

Implementation Strategy

Everyone has ideas. Ideas of things to believe, things to become, or in many other cases, things to invent. When you add the planning in, now you have to look at the financial nitty-gritty, in terms of advertising, making the most of business funds, etc. etc. In the group put together, we sought out an idea to revolutionize Neurosurgery for the next 10 years. We like to call it NeuroVR.
NeuroVR is a simulation based app for the HTC Vive that enhances your ability to perform surgeries. A marketing target for this app would be mostly college medical students, or maybe new employees out of college. To get that real feeling of performing Neurosurgery. This plans to be implemented by having student go step by step into the entire process of surgery, everything from prepping all your materials, to wrapping the surgery up. Some limitations we thought we might come across would be the level of interaction that the students get with the app. We want them to watch and see how it’s done, but we also want them to try it out on their own.

In terms of getting the actual VR application out there, we plan to contact several major newspapers around the U.S. This includes The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Wall Street Journal, and a few others. We are also working on setting up a beta-testing booth at several conventions or conferences throughout the world within the next year, one of them being the IEEE VR 2019 Conference in Osaka, Japan. Another big yearly conference that could give us good feedback is The Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in January 2019, located in Las Vegas. These are just a few to name, but these are large scale media platforms that just put us on the map.

Long Term Vision

Initially, we are keeping this product focused by only focusing on a few neurosurgical procedures such as a Cranioplasty which is a surgical repair of a defect or deformity of a skull and Craniotomy which is the surgical removal of part of the bone from the skull to expose the brain (“Medical Services”). We will also be continuously improving the technology in order to make it as immersive as possible in order to allow the learning outcomes to be as great as possible. We’re focusing small in the beginning so we don’t get too overwhelmed with trying to research and perfect every type of neurosurgical procedure in the book. The next phase of development would be to add new procedures, fix bugs, and improve the technology. Since neurosurgery doesn’t focus solely on the brain and involves any part of the nervous system, we could add other procedures such as a spinal fusion which is a surgical procedure used to correct problems with the small bones in the spine (“Medical Services”) and a peripheral nerve surgery which specializes in the diagnosis and treatment of a variety of peripheral nerve disorders (“Peripheral Nerve Surgery”). So once people have mastered the first few procedures, then they can start learning the new operations and continue to learn and gain muscle memory. The 5 year plan would be to get the product out to as many hospitals and universities as possible which will allow us to get more feedback and keep the game up and running for a longer time. The more we add and the more successful the app becomes, the current owners of this product could end up buying more in order to educate more surgeons at once.

Bibliography

Domingo, Guha, Daipayan, et al. “Augmented Reality in Neurosurgery: A Review of Current Concepts and Emerging Applications.” Canadian Journal of Neurological Sciences / Journal Canadien Des Sciences Neurologiques, vol. 44, no. 03, 2017, pp. 235–245., doi:10.1017/cjn.2016.443. https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/canadian-journal-of-neurological-sciences/article/augmented-reality-in-neurosurgery-a-review-of-current-concepts-and-emerging-applications/F3965DEB46B21277CE7AFF0C7AAE2858/core-reader#

“Medical Services.” Barnes-Jewish Hospital, www.barnesjewish.org/Medical-Services/Neurology-Neurosurgery/Neurosurgery-Procedures.

Monberg, Jason, and Dale Knauss. “Virtual Reality and Your Product Development Process.” Mind the Product, 9 Nov. 2016, www.mindtheproduct.com/2016/11/virtual-reality-and-your-product-development-process/ .

Neurosurgery. “Virtual Reality Lab.” EHR National Symposium, Stanford Medicine, med.stanford.edu/neurosurgery/divisions/vr-lab.html.

Panayiotis E. Pelargos et al. Utilizing virtual and augmented reality for educational and clinical enhancements in neurosurgery, Journal of Clinical Neuroscience, Volume 35, 2017, Pages 1-4, https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0967586816303162

“Peripheral Nerve Surgery.” Beta-Blockers for Mitral Valve Prolapse | Michigan Medicine, www.uofmhealth.org/conditions-treatments/surgery/peripheral-nerve-surgery.

Shuhaiber, Jeffrey H. “Augmented Reality in Surgery.” Archives of Surgery, vol. 139, no. 2, Jan. 2004, p. 170., doi:10.1001/archsurg.139.2.170. https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamasurgery/fullarticle/396410

Neurosurgery VR Application

As I was researching for the essay about VR and education, I stumbled across an academic journal about the uses for VR in the field of neurosurgery. Right now, VR is being used for neurosurgery but only visually to look inside the patient’s mind so the surgeon can mentally plan ahead. But my idea would not only allow you to see visually inside the mind but also perform the surgery itself like you would in real life. This would allow veteran surgeons to practice for an upcoming surgery or to hone their skills while a student can use this to learn the basics and to know to know what to expect. The article titled “Utilizing virtual and augmented reality for educational and clinical enhancements in neurosurgery” by Panayiotis Pelargos

States that integrating VR into the neurosurgery field will “lead to greater efficiency, improved patient care, and minimization of technical errors that are inherent to the surgical learning curve” (Pelargos et al.). You could assess the user’s performance based on the amount of time it takes to perform an operation which most of the time in the operating room, time is of the essence and could be a life or death scenario. Also, you would clearly check for mistakes in the operating procedure since making mistakes in the operating room is one of the main things they worry about, practicing in VR will help alleviate those problems. Lastly, you can assess how well the user knows the steps of the procedure and because neurosurgery includes parts all over the body, you can incorporate many different types of procedure like discectomy, foraminotomy, laminectomy, and spinal instrumentation and fusion. Each procedure involved different parts of the body and different tools, so you can test how well they know each area and what to use. The people that would want to use this application would be hospitals or establishments where they specialize in neurosurgery due to all the benefits that it would bring to the patients and surgeons. Universities such as Johns Hopkins would also buy and use this technology to teach students going into the neurosurgery the basics and get a hands on experience that otherwise they would not be able to get.

Virtual Reality for Education

Ethan Jarmush

Dr. Licastro

Eng 151 OM14

Virtual Reality Uses for Education

Virtual Reality (VR) might seem like something out of a sci-fi film from the future, but it has actually been around as early as the 1960’s, and has been used by NASA and the military for training, preparation, and rehabilitation.. If asked whether or not VR will have an impact on education, the answer is a definite yes, and not only that, but it will be a positive one. The uses can go as early as elementary school all the way up to medical school. Once the technology improves, not only will we have more uses for virtual reality, but the places it is being used in right now will improve drastically.

Right now, virtual reality is being used, and has the capacity to be used, in many different areas of education. The scientific article titled “Utilizing virtual and augmented reality for educational and clinical enhancements in neurosurgery” by Panayiotis Pelargos talks about how the military uses it “for training and rehabilitation of soldiers”. Training soldiers in virtual reality can help immensely as it gives them a sense of real combat but without putting them in danger before hand. Pelargos continues to talk about how the Air Force uses virtual reality for flight simulators and NASA uses it for developing HMDs (Head mounted display) for astronauts (Pelargos et al.). It’s not only large organizations that use virtual reality for education and training though, my college English class has used virtual reality and the topic of virtual reality for educational purposes. We’ve used the Google Cardboards to watch videos on the NYT VR app which transports us to many places around the world to learn about different cultures and situations that people live in. Furthermore, medical research laboratories are using virtual reality rudimentarily and trying to develop it further in order for the them to assist with surgery or other applications. Once the technology increases, not only will we see it used to train surgeons but all the other applications used so far will improve as well.

In the future, we could end up seeing virtual reality everywhere we go. As stated before with neurosurgeons, Pelargos and his team decided to conduct research on the applications for virtual reality in the medical field, and what needs to be met for it to be implemented. Pelargos believes that “VR may become an extremely valuable tool for education due to the intricate and complex nature of neurosurgical procedures” (Pelargos et al.). Not only can VR be used to train up and coming neurosurgeons, but veterans of the field can use it to hone their skills or prepare for a big surgery coming up so when it get to the real thing, they are already acclimated with what they need to do. All of this will allow for “greater efficiency, improved patient care, and minimization of technical errors that are inherent to the surgical learning curve” (Pelargos et al.). Besides neurosurgery, depending on how the technology develops, it can also be used in the public school system like its shown in the book Ready Player One by Ernest Cline. In the book, everyone uses virtual reality and it can be used to go anywhere, do anything, and be anyone. Cline goes into detail about how virtual reality is used in the classroom by saying “In astronomy class we visited each of Jupiter’s moons” (Cline 48). They also traveled back in time to the discovery of King Tut’s tomb (Cline 48). Something like this could easily be implemented today and it would grow and strengthen children’s understanding of these topics to an extent not available today like being able to interact with the environment they’re in or talk to people from different time periods.. Lastly, Chris Milk wants to use VR in film because “It connects humans to other humans in a profound way that I’ve never seen before in any other form of media” (Milk “Empathy Machine”). Like what our class did with the Google Cardboards, he wants to do on a larger scale to connect with others around the world in a way we haven’t yet been able to do. For example, like with what Ready Player One can do, we could interact physically or speak with whatever you’re observing. These are the kinds of things that the future of VR holds, but getting there will not be without its struggles.

There are a few barriers to entry which is the reason VR is not as widespread as you may think since the technology has been around for 60 years. Since it has not reached commercial success among the populous, it hinders the development of the technology since it is harder to fund it. In order for VR to be worthwhile to use in education, the physical gear needs to be safe, reliable, and the results need to be valid. Getting all this accurate can be difficult to do and needs to be done correctly. The equipment also needs to be mobile, immersive, flexible, and affordable. It is no wonder that due to companies like Sony and Samsung having a difficult time funding these projects and making sure all the specifics are done right, that it has taken so long for VR to be considered seriously as an education tool.

So despite these barriers to entry, in the future when the technology progresses, not only will the places VR could be utilized in expand like in the medical field or public school, but areas it is being used currently will improve greatly like with military rehabilitation and training at NASA. Once VR reaches commercial success, we could end up seeing VR in many aspects of our lives we never dreamed of.

Tony Montana

My character gives off a Tom Cruise vibe from Top Gun. I tried to make the jacket he’s wearing look like the one from Miami Vice which is a classic 80’s show. His name is picked off the main character from Scarface, another great 80’s flick. He would probably say some cheesy one liner before he defeats any opponents as they did in cheesy action movies.

Technology and the Education System

Ethan Jarmush

It may seem like recently we started to vilify technology in areas in our lives like at work, at school, and at home. But this has been going on since nearly every new invention because people seem to have a hard time adapting to new things or think that just because it’s different it must be bad. Nicholas Carr, Paul La Farge, Farris Jabr, Cathy Davidson, and Olivia Goldhill each seem to have their own take on whether or not technology has a positive or negative effect on us. Although there may be some consequences to technology, whether or not some of the authors want to admit it, technology is now essential in our lives, especially in education when we are training children for the real world.

When reading articles online about the topic of online reading, you get two different arguments. One being that online reading is bad and that reading on paper is better, while the other side states many of the good things that online reading can offer. In La Farge’s article, “The Deep Space of Digital Reading”, he acknowledges the drawbacks of digital reading that others like Nicholas Carr have stated about how reading online decreases comprehension and memory compared to paper. But he refutes this by saying “If those same students expected on-screen reading to be as slow (and as effortful) as paper reading, would their comprehension of digital text improve?” (La Farge “The Deep Space of Digital Reading”). In school, kids appear to be taught that reading online is bad and reading on paper is where they’ll really learn. If they are taught this and choose to believe that online reading is worse than paper, then obviously they will perform better when reading on paper. Since people skim a lot no matter what they read online because that is the habit they’ve put on themselves, there’s the chance they could miss information due to them quickly scanning the article. But that is their fault that they are skimming the information and this same problem could be said for a number of different activities which is easily solvable. La Farge goes on to cite a few studies actually showing the opposite of what many others who disagree with him are saying, specifically that things like hypertexts actually improve comprehension compared to regular reading. If you go on Wikipedia and want to learn about a subject but there’s many words that relate to the subject that you don’t understand, you can click on all of them to learn the proper vocabulary and get back to the main subject at hand. Schools need to be teaching kids all the amazing things that websites like Wikipedia offers instead of acting like all the information is wrong and shouldn’t be used. This way, not only are kids getting relevant information very quickly, but they also get the impression that online reading can be beneficial which could change their perception of it so they comprehend more.

Jabr brings up a lot of the same evidence that Carr does his article “The Reading Brain in the Digital Age: The Science of Paper versus Screens”. He makes claims that reading online leads to inferior comprehension as well as memory. Even with this evidence, he still brings up a good point at the end when he talks about how the two medians (paper and screens) are very different forms of reading. We should use both paper and screen but evolve screen reading to better fit things that it is used for like quick information and news (Jabr “The Reading Brain in the Digital Age: The Science of Paper versus Screens”). The points in the article about how navigating online articles being second-rate when compared to paper is true but that is for reading full length books. If we try to improve reading for informative articles, like the ones that millions of students are already using for school, then if you do it right, productivity and learning could increase by a large margin.

Just like we have to change technology to better suit our needs, our brains are changing to adapt to the times as well. We see this when we read into Cathy Davidson’s book “Now You See It”. Davidson references how our brain is like an iPhone and how it can download different apps to complete apps. She goes on to say “Those things that most capture our attention-our learning and our work, our passions and our activities-change our actual brain biology. In this way the iPhone brain also corresponds nicely with recent advances in what we know about neural plasticity, the theory that the brain adapts physically to the sensory stimuli it receives, or what psychiatrist Norman Doidge calls “the brain that changes itself.””(Davidson 15). We can conclude that if we intend to skim through articles for the most important parts, our brains will physically change in order to become more efficient.Another issue of this argument is multitasking and whether or not we should embrace it or try reduce it as much as possible. Olivia Goldhill’s article “Neuroscientists say multitasking literally drains the energy reserves of your brain” also shows evidence on this topic by stating many of the negatives of multitasking. Both of these pieces provide pros and consequences to the subject so we will be able to find a good middle ground that will benefit everyone. In Goldhill’s article, she explains that by multitasking you tire yourself out quickly which “uses up oxygenated glucose in the brain, running down the same fuel that’s needed to focus on a task.” (Goldhill “Neuroscientists say multitasking literally drains the energy reserves of your brain”). Taking breaks while working is very important and will lead to more productivity. Goldhill’s solution to these problems is to set aside a certain amount of time in order to do your work without distractions. She also said you can implement software that “forces users to take breaks every couple of hours.” (Goldhill “Neuroscientists say multitasking literally drains the energy reserves of your brain”). We can combine these techniques with what Davidson has said by working with people in order to not miss important details. What the education system doesn’t seem to be doing right now is foster cooperation between people and allowing them to work together to complete tasks. The simple experiment that Davidson talks about throughout is the video of the people passing the basketballs and halfway through, a gorilla walks through the middle. A lot of the people missed the gorilla walking through the middle, but the few that did were able to contribute information to the group that was important. So if we combine working without distractions, taking breaks, and cooperating with others to contribute information, then students are going to be much more efficient and presumably less stressed. This is sadly, not something that is being taught in the school system which is a very important skill that everyone should learn so they can succeed in this world.

If schools want to educate children in order for them to be prepared for the future, they can’t be afraid to use and teach students proper online reading. This includes using Wikipedia and showing how to properly use their time online so they don’t drain their energy reserves. In order to adapt to the digital age, it would be a detriment to not embrace with open arms digital reading and everything it offers. That’s not to say we shouldn’t change reading online from what it is right now. But if we change it to be better for what it is intended for, then not only will students benefit, but everyone that uses computers or phones around the world will as well.

Analysis of The Reading Brain in the Digital Age

“The Reading Brain in the Digital Age: The Science of Paper versus Screens” is an article written by Ferris Jabr and shows the relationship between reading on paper versus a computer screen and how they affect things like your memory and comprehension. The article shows that reading on paper is much better in many scenarios because people seem to remember the information more and can understand it better (The Reading Brain in the Digital Age: The Science of Paper versus Screens).

The author of this article is Ferris Jabr who is a writer for The New York Times Magazine and Scientific American. He received a master’s degree in journalism from New York University and a bachelor’s degree in science from Tufts University. Jabr has written a wide variety of articles that span from things like the sciences, nutrition, nature, and technology. For example, some of the articles he has written are called, “How the Brain Ignores Distractions” and “Why Exercise May Be the Best Fix for Depression”. We can tell the credibility of the main article through his credentials, past articles, and the sources.

The audience of this article captures a wide variety of people. This article doesn’t pertain to a certain gender because since this article is about the differences between reading on a screen versus on paper, that means any gender can relate to these topics. The main differences come with age and wealth. If you’re consistently reading both on a screen as well as on paper and is interested in the effects of these actions, then you’re probably in the range of a 16-year-old up to 65-year-old. Kids younger than 16 are not interested in the details of how reading on an iPad affects them. They also are probably only playing mobile games and not actually reading articles or books related to these things. Any older than 65 years old, and you most likely won’t see them reading a lot on electronic devices to where they will be interested in this sort of thing. The audience is also either middle to upper class for them to be able to afford electronic devices like iPads, iPhones, or computers. If you are not reading on these devices, then there is not a reason to be interested in articles about them.

The purpose of this article was to the show the pros and cons of reading on a screen versus reading on paper. The article mostly supports the idea that reading on paper is better because it helps with things like memory and comprehension. A big part of what helps you do this is how you navigate through the text. Since in a book or a paper is a physical thing, this means you have four corners which you can relate the words to and you can write within the margins any notes that could help you. Luckily, most people prefer paper books over electronic ones anyway. Jabr references research for Microsoft and it is stated that “Participants in her studies say that when they really like an electronic book, they go out and get the paper version.” (qtd. in Sellen). This shows that even when they own the electronic version of the book they still believe they don’t own it until it is in paper form. Even though people read a lot on screens and could be affected by the cons of it, when they can read it on paper form they will reap the benefits of doing so.

The context of this article is that it was written on April 11, 2013 and was publish by Scientific American. Scientific American is known to be very credible with many famous people contributing to it including Albert Einstein. Their articles are known to not include bias and cite many other scientific sources as evidence. This allows us to trust in the information in this article and take what they say about reading online as truth. The problem arises when we look at the date that it was published. Since it was published more than 5 years ago, it’s getting to the point where it becomes less credible. This is because much more research could have been conducted on this subject from then up until today. Although it is not too long ago that we should dismiss this article entirely, but there may be more recent articles on this topic that could show updated information that we should look at instead.

The genre of this article, or what form of writing this is in, is that it is a scientific online article. It can be found on any electronic device including computer, iPhones, or iPads. This is interesting because this article focuses on the difference between reading online versus on paper. Since this article is online, we suffer from the same affects such as worse comprehension and memory while reading it like the article points out. The publisher and author should want us to remember and comprehend all the information they put out so when they talk about how when you read online it’s worse for you, things seem to be a little backwards.

True Rhetrorical analysis final

My Journey Learning to Read and Write

I am Ethan Jarmush and I grew up in Eldersburg, Maryland. I’ve always been quite laid back and don’t take anything too seriously. I enjoy reading books but not ones that are a requirement because I enjoy a very specific selection and I am a very slow reader. It’s surprising that reading faster was not something they practiced in school when they know that kids are going to have to read books in their later school careers and in a short time period. Now that I am 18 years old I am far beyond learning to read and write and am now expanding those abilities and making them better. But when i was just starting to learn at the age of 5, I didn’t know anything and I did whatever my parents or teacher told me to do without any complaints. Along with the specific tools I used, this allowed me to garner the right skills needed to learn to read and write.

Back when I was in Freedom Elementary school in kindergarten I had a teacher named Mrs. Hildenbrand. In the beginning of the school year she gave each of us a regular marbleized notebook that was called the “at home story response journal”. Each week she would require us to go the library and choose a book on a certain topic. We would have to read the book then either draw a picture or answer a question that was related to the book. I forgot this existed until I went home and sifted through my old school work from elementary school that my mom kept in storage. I found this notebook a little beat up because of how old it was and how little I cared about it since I was very young. I went through each page and read about all the books I read and all the questions I answered, most of which were very dumb but I didn’t expect myself at 5 to be giving a college level analysis of Junie B. Jones and the Yucky Blucky Fruitcake. There was all different kinds of books I used to read and a surprising amount of these books were about animals like a Zoo book or a national geographic book. This helped me to learn all the different types of animals, what they looked like, what they sounded like, and where they lived, which also incidentally helped me learn all the different places around the world. There was also notes on how I was doing in class like if I needed to read more fluently, which was usually my problem. This allowed my parents to help me work on those subjects before bed by having me read some books to them which allowed them to give me pointers on what I can do to improve my reading. Half of the writing in the questions I answered was spelled wrong which is surprising to me because I would have thought my parents would have helped me answer the questions. But I guess it was for the best that I learned on my own what I should and shouldn’t do in those types of situations.

At about the same time that I was completing these journals, there was a computer game called Pajama Sam. It was about a young kid named Sam who dressed up as his favorite superhero, Pajama Man, and defeated his nemesis, Darkness. This may sound stupid but when I was about 5 years old this game was glorious. It was a very simple point and click game from the late 90’s where you solved puzzles and explored the world. Most of the world you could interact with and it would make a wacky noise when you clicked on something of interest all while a nice little soundtrack would play in the background of each zone. I must have beaten that game 100 times before I realized there was not only many sequels to the game, but there were many books as well. SInce I was really into reading back then, I had to get myself a copy of the book. This book was entitled Pajama Sam: Mission to the Moon and was about Pajama Sam having to turn up the moon light then try to find a way back to Earth. Just like the game, I finished that book many times before I went to bed because it not only helped me become a better reader by becoming more fluent and pronouncing difficult words, but also because I just really enjoyed it.

Along with Pajama Sam, there was another educational type of system that helped me learn. I know a lot of kids back then had one of these and it was the LeapPad learning system. It came in a big bulky green and blue case that opened up to reveal the book you would earn to read with. It even came with it’s own stylist and you would insert a cartridge into the side of the case that would help you along with the book. All the different types of books you could get are interactive and they will make sounds, play music, and allow you to play games on it. Due to my young age this really intrigued me and ended up using it a lot in my free time. It not only entertained me quite a lot but it really helped me learn to read because if I didn’t know a certain word, I could tap it and have it spelled out, read aloud, or even sounded out which got me my basic understand of many words at a young age.

Also in the boxes full of my old schoolwork, I found a ton of that old tannish colored lined paper that had the two solid lined with a lot of room between them and a light dotted line in the middle of them. I remember using this paper a lot in second grade in Mrs. Johnston’s class. I wrote a lot of different stories and school work on this type of paper and it allowed me to practice my handwriting and write the letters and words correctly. I brought back one of these papers to my dorm and this story was about Pokémon and how my dad bought me a Pokémon game and some new cards. This must have obviously been very exciting to me if I chose to practice my writing in school. I had a blank piece of paper stapled to the back of this paper of a bunch of Pokémon that I drew and named. There was a comic series called spy vs spy about two spies trying to kill each other in each comic which sounds pretty brutal for a 6 year old to be reading but it was light hearted and humorous so it was okay. But I remember writing a ton of different spy vs spy stories on these papers of my own fights between the two spies. This helped me not only become better at writing letters but allowed me to become a better writer in general and better at getting stories and ideas onto paper. These stories that I wrote influenced me today because I may end up becoming a screenwriter/director and practicing writing stories since a young age really helped me focus on what is good story writing and what I should keep out of my stories.

This process of learning to read and write will influence my future because no matter what profession I go into, reading and writing, especially at the college level, is a major skill that all jobs require. If I choose to be a business owner then I can relate these skills to that but I choose to be a screenwriter then reading and writing will be almost all of what I will be doing. Getting all my ideas down coherently and using excellent vocabulary are things that I’ve been improving since I first started how to read and write.