• Neuropsychology - (To check my mood during my treatment. I think I did okay with this as it was but it’s part of the program for just about everyone)
• Occupational Therapy (To be sure my day-to-day activities and responsiblities could be maximized and potential compensations for any supposed or indentified deficiencies be brought forth)
• Physical Therapy (To be sure my energy level and my body was performing as normally as possible)
• Speech and Language Therapy (To help in areas related to visual scanning, language processing, and deductive reasoning) In actuality my OT and SLT sessions sometimes overlapped and my therapists threw several curve balls my way to be sure I could reach my fullest potential. As self-revealing as that was, it was very effective

There were other experiences that led up to this point in time, but suffice it to say, I’ve been performing well. My supervisor and co-workers have been very supportive. My clientele routinely tell me they can’t tell me any difference in my personality. That’s an inside-the-box, vs. outside-the-box perspective issue. The charts and graphs of my cognitive rehabilitation exercises show that considerable progress was made. In order to justify considerable, the tasks that patients in this program all go through include doing paper-pencil exercises and other tasks that stretch and bend your mind so that new neural pathways can be made and if not, what compensations could be made.

As part of all this, one of my new side-projects I’m taking on is to take some of the assessment tools and exercises I was given as paper-pencil tests and try to digitize them into programs that anyone can do online at home. My platform of choice is likely going to be Adobe Flex/AIR as that is what I’m most familiar with. I’ll keep everyone updated as I progress.

A looong while ago, I made reference to something I coined "steroids for thinkers." In my view and opinions, the human mind is a special muscle for our bodies. It isn’t responsible for tactile or gross movement of limbs. It may tell other organs that they should do what they do, but ultimately it is the specific muscle that does the movement. Likewise the autonomous functions (respiratory, digestive, etc.) depend on the central nervous system to do what they do.

What I’m referring to here is a ‘muscle’ that’s by design the gateway into all our experiences, and dedicated to absorbing anything it possibly can.

If you’ve been reading, my brain’s a little broken right now. There have been improvements over the last 2-3 months, but I’m most interested in getting myself back to where I felt I was in December 2008…and quite possibly before that.

Brain tumors depending on where they are located affect the individuals they’ve become part of in different ways. My particular tumor was invasive-meaning that bad tumor cells (although benign) were occupying the space needed by normal cells. They were integrated so to speak in a way that the treatment was total gross resection of the tumor material and some of the good tissue around it. What was left is a tumor bed which is literally a large hole in the vastness of space in my skull.

During the time in my recovery, I’ve noticed that my personality (including behavior) isn’t 100% how I’d like it to be. I can still operate a computer, type, exercise, interact with people, find humorous situations, and spend time with those I care about. However, I’d like to be able to address the issues of learning on a personal level since I’ve declared myself a life-long learner and I’ve got lots more to do.

At least one reader made a comment a while ago about some personal views of one of my favorite educationists and took time to correct me in my abilities to convey his original thinking. I must reiterate that my intentions at the time were based on the information I had available to me at the time and the amount of time I had to put it together. My assertions were also based on my previous recovery 5 years ago of my ability to perform work and academic tasks at hand based on my certain academic discipline and subject area. Therefore I have no scientific proof for my views, other than it be my personal experience only. Wouldn’t it be nice if a formal study of such work could be done and made available? Well, maybe for a later time.

Tomorrow I get to visit my doctor who is serving as my neuro-rehab specialist for an initial consultation. I’m very interested in the types amd methods going to be used to help me get back to my former self. The prevous neuro-psyche evaluation a couple of months ago was enlightening to say the least. I scored high on some batteries of tests, but not as high as the staff would have liked based on someone my age who has not had brain damage. The specific area I didn’t do as well as they thought I could have was putting things in contextual order. (Truly that test was interesting and very challenging at the time) One of the areas they suggested as a form of therapy was speech or language. The justification or reasoning was because it can help with that contextual order deficit or whatever they wish to call it. In hindsight/retrospect, if I had the time and methods to go back to that conversation I would have been to retort to the doctors, "Backwards but talk don’t I!"

Alas, the seriousness of the situation probably wouldn’t have allowed for it. Ever since my first resection 5 years ago and subsequent recovery, my speech has never felt better so I’m interested to see what will come of it. I’ll post on the progress as the therapies are laid out.

Anyway this is the last link in letting me return to my normal self, I suppose. So I’ll let everyone know how it all turns out.

Well, my intent of edumacating (yes that’s a made-up word) readers on how a grown man deals with life post major brain surgery hasn’t been all that exciting enough to warrant a new post (just yet), so I’m filling a gap with some stuff that went on my other blogs that other friends and family have been keeping tabs on (http://www.spiritualslideshows.ws). Feel free to bury your nose in that blogpile if you really want the history of what’s going on medically with me. If you want the short version, here it is:

• The surgery was successful and now I’m missing a chunk of my right frontal lobe about the size of my fist (about the size of an orange–my fists are under the average size)
• Not only was the surgery successful, but there was too much fluid of the cerebrospinal variety being generated to compensate for the lost tissue and was causing massive killer headaches. A week later I went back to have a shunt installed and that was successful as well, so headaches no more. Injuries caused at the surgical locations where the shunt-work (ha-ha sort of rhymes with stunt-work) was performed now remain as my #1 enemies at this point in time. They aren’t bad but I’m learning to live with them. Soon they will be gone
• Doctor follow-up visits have been positive and further treatments will include radiation but NOT chemo-therapy–thank goodness.
• I’m excited about an upcoming visit to a neuro-psychologist this week. They will help determine what I’m capable of and will hopefully affix a time for me to be able to return to work and resume my normal duties. However, in MY humble, unprofessional opinion, my brain has already been re-wiring itself since it’s been receiving sensory input. Obviously I can still operate a computer because I’m updating my websites, I can hold a conversation and hopefully still sound intelligent (I think so), and I haven’t forgotten how to write code or manipulate media which is important for my profession. What I suppose might be worrisome is my ability to stay on task given longer periods of time sitting down at a desk job, design and architecht software the way I’m used to, and meeting my personal goals of accomplishing helping people learn some of the things I’ve learned over the years so they can be self-sufficient in their approach to computing.

  Now the really exciting thing here is (and I’m not blushing too much hopefully when I say this) is that if I’m able to do all this with part of my brain missing, then that points to lots and LOTS of potential for individuals who have all of their brain tissue intact. As soon as I have my hands on the scans of my brain I’ll post them so that the world can see what I’m missing and what I’m now going to be dealing with for the rest of my life. My neurosurgeon might even let me observe a future brain surgery if I meet the right sort of criteria. That would be WAY cool. I’ll keep my fingers crossed.

Many of my friends know about this already, but this is in effect a way for me to approach this issue in hopefully a dignified and interesting way rather than depressing. If ever there was a cat to be let out of a bag let this be it:

I’m missing part of my brain about the size of a lemon.

Here’s the proof. I had a resection of a brain tumor about 5 years ago and this was the scan immediately following:

http://oldblog.spiritualslideshows.ws/archives/000363.html

During this time of my life I was still in my undergraduate program in software engineering at Arizona State University. I was paying my own way entirely through school and was fairly stressed out trying to fit school into work and work into school full time. It was very strenuous but I also miss it in some sort of strange way. Anyhow, as a result I had to finish my program with part of my brain missing that helped to control and govern attention. As most students trying to fight their way through school with half their face covered just trying to survive, it was an eye-opening experience dealing with attention problems for the first time and then finding cliche methods to try and get my brain to wire up to be able to finish my degree. Which happened in due time and finally after 8 years of being in school.

Then after I was done and finally graduated, I felt like there was still something missing so I went back to pursue a masters degree now having realized I had a life-long love of learning and a new appreciation for it.

After the initial diagnosis and prescription of treatment which includes medication and observation, I was going to see my oncologist about every 4 months or so with squeaky-clean results. Nothing showed up on the scans. Until…last month I went back for my routine inspection and I just had a feeling something wasn’t right. The scan showed tumor tissue invading normal brain tissue once again.

At any rate, this blog is going to change slightly to reflect what a grown person with part of their brain missing appreciates about life and the secular side of neuroscience and learning…something I wish to continue to learn about in the years ahead if given the opportunity.

If you wish to see more of my personal views and values concerning this subject, I’ve had an incognito blog running at http://www.spiritualslideshows.ws that hasn’t been updated in years. It was never meant as a means of getting attention…just a way of writing down my thoughts and experiences of someone who appreciates learning on all fronts: secular and spiritual.

I go in to surgery tomorrow but will post some information about what had gone on in the meantime. You will likely see some crossover in posts between the two blog because in my opinion the line between learning on a secular level bleeds over into a spiritual one from time to time. Not knowing what my audience is on this, I’m just going to write what I will and see what comes of it.

I’ve revised the look and feel of this website once again for a very important reason which I’ll get to later. If there’s anyone interested in learning and brain theories you will likely appreciate the ideology behind what I’m about to do. Stay tuned…

This week I’ve been attending the Adobe MAX conference. This is the second one I’ve been to and I’ve really enjoyed myself. I’ve always lamented with my classmates, colleagues, and professors that when it comes to teaching and learning, the tools will change and evolve, but the theories behind learning with the assistance of technology will be relatively stable. Having said that, I really like how Adobe has handled and carried themselves as they’ve had the responsibility of ensuring the opportunity for usesrs of the web to have good experiences. Good technology companies find ways to define and proliferate their mission and even though Adobe has a notorious reputation for creating really bloated software, for the most part they’ve handled their recent success since the acquiring of Macromedia who in my opinion had the previous responsibility for success in evolving user experience on the web.Someday, it may be someone else. But in the meantime, Adobe really has a handle on getting creative people to help engage people into using the Internet web browser as a medium for communicating lots of things. My subject of course is helping people who use the web how to learn most effectively.

Recently they’ve introduced a project workflow as a result of a subsequent product initiative previously code-named Thermo into what is now known as Flash Catalyst. What this does is incorporate designers at more levels to have a hand in how users of the web interact with screen design. I’ll elucidate:

Print design for the most part has a number of tools used to get educational materials in the hands of potential educators and learners. Adobe’s Illustrator and InDesign products in no doubt are the birthing area of lots of textbooks and promotional materials that typically are for PRINT.

Print design has several caveats that don’t necessarily translate into screen design. A lot of it has to do with layout and selection of fonts.

Adobe’s Flash Catalyst product allows for someone to take a design from someone skiled in print work and then hand it off to a web developer for production and deployment on the web using Flash as the medium. I’m looking forward to the types of designs that will result from this. Having said that, I wish to bring to mind that just taking an existing print design and pushing it onto the web has its issues, but with innovation comes revolutionary re-education initiatives. Print designers now can be trained in methods proven to work for SCREENS that typically you wouldn’t have had before.

It will be interesting to see how this affects the work/projects I do for my institution and for other potential clients.

I’ve alluded in a previous post about the fact that the typical request-view-reload experience for web pages is capable of becoming a thing of the past with the advent of properly programed and usable web experiences via what has been coined as Rich Internet Applications. What this means is that your typical desktop user experience for a program reports an immediate response in updating the UI (user interface) so that the interactions signal to the user that they are getting something done in the browser. Read on for more of what I mean…

In the past, when you tell your browser to request a new web document by either:

1. Typing in the web address in the browser address bar
2. Clicking on a hyperlink (which in effect does the same thing as item 1–it’s just your browser doing the typing for you)

This invokes what is known as an HTTP request which sends a bunch of text across the network to the web server you are talking to. Contained within this request is the items or document that contains other items such as pictures and media, etc. Typically this caused your web browser’s page to go white or blank for a few moments while the web server is working on your task and the network is doing its darndest to push all that information back to you. If either of those two things are slow for whatever reason the user may think they’ve done something wrong.

Typical user feedback that the browser is working (and I see people ignoring these ALL the time) are what are known as spinners. These are usually the logos in the browser that show animations. 

For example here’s the one from the now historical precursor to Mozilla Firefox: Netscape Navigator 4.8:

If users don’t see their requested web page come right up, often times they think they did something wrong when in fact the browser is just chugging away waiting for the network and/or web server to respond to their request. (In some cases their own computer may be just multitasking). So they will hit the reload button or click the link again, or my favorite: double-click the link. What I’m saying here is that it’s just not intuitive to the user what they are supposed to do if they don’t see something right away, when in fact they are really being asked to do is be patient. Imagine that.

With Ajax (a coined term for Asynchronous JavaScript and XML) is that the browser is making little tine HTTP requests for updating little parts of the page without browser supported built-in feedback in the way of spinning logos. Sometimes these are present but not always. A lot of the time it’s not even worth it because we have faster networks and faster computers, and the data being requested is teeny-tiny compared to a whole entire page of text and images. An example of this is google suggest.

All of this stuff updates the typical web user’s experience to a point somewhere in between a desktop application where all the computing power and data to complete the task is local to the machine and not on the network or "in the cloud" as it is now becoming popular to say.

With that all said, here is a presentation I saw earlier this week on a talk given by some Ajax user experience experts that I think really hit on this. If you have a spare hour I suggest taking a look at it. A lot of programming terminology is in there but I think it’s important if you are a technologist and expect "cloud computing" or "RIA" or "AJAX" to become part of your instruction

This is not news since I just stumbled on this, and it turns out that this has been going on this whole year: the Flickr Commons. It’s a way to obtain references or use of images that have no copyright restrictions or at least been put into the public domain. This is an example of one from the WWII era (a period I’m really starting to enjoy learning about).

With that said, I’m gearing up for a new project that will involve my commitment to the Adobe Education Champions group (E-Champions) to utilize their ‘gift’ of a Connect Pro account so I can begin sharing with the ed tech developer community some of the techy things that apply to what they might be learning theory-wise.

I’m calling this my edutechie corner and someday soon I will have a series of screencasts that showcase some of the Adobe Creative Tecnology software suites.

Details will be forthcoming…

In the meantime, here’s an idea using some of the methods that Adobe itself is pushing in the next generation of designer and developer workflows using one of my more favorite tools: Fireworks: