Naomi Harm is a Tech Innovation Specialist, ISTE Instructional Coach, and Google Certified Innovator in Fairfield, California. She is an educational thought leader and influencer and Strategic Outreach Manager in Education for Wonder Workshop.

When it comes to human-centered design, design thinking and brain-based approaches to teaching and learning, I seek out Naomi. I’ve known her for years and am honored that she joins me in a conversation about her journey. Below are excerpts from the podcast along with great resources that include pictures, videos, and links. 
 
Learning My Work Ethic From My Father
I grew up in Northeastern Iowa on a dairy farm, and that’s where I got my work ethic. My father was my mentor and allowed me to be the maker of who I truly am today. I used to get up early to milk the cows and late at night to do my chores helped me learn to continue that work ethic in my college education, in teacher education, and when I earned my master’s degree in educational technology.

Image from http://blog.innovativeeducator.us/2008/10/my-father-my-mentor-my-best-friend.html
Being a teacher of 4th/5th-grade looping classroom also a year of kindergarten in Bangor Elementary in Bangor, Wisconsin gave me the utmost patience and competence. But what I learned from the kids was that I could inspire teachers. I saw the computer lab was not being utilized and sat there empty with 20 brand new iMacs. I decided to figure out how to use them and created the first WebQuests with kids. A regional agency saw what I was doing and then asked me to lead 26 school districts in Western Wisconsin. It was a very big job with a huge learning curve but it provided me the opportunity to create my network and relationships with educators across the nation.
 
Advocates for Jake
We have 3 children and our son, Jacob is our youngest. He was injured in a military accident over 3 ½ years ago. When we heard about his injury, we got to him in Texas within 12 hours. He broke over 50% of his bones in his body and endured a severe traumatic brain injury. He was in a total coma for over 3 weeks. My husband and I are grateful for the opportunity to be advocates for Jake and brought him to Minnesota to the Bethesda Traumatic Brain Injury Center. They worked with him to get to the next stage so he would be able to walk, talk, eat, and breathe without a respirator. We were told that he would be a vegetable and that we should put him in a nursing home. We would not do that. I reached out to find neurologists and surgeons that could help us. Everyone we talked to said don’t give up on him. They told us as parents we need to nurture him by stroking his hand and keep talking to him in small spurts so he knows we are there and that he has a support team. We are very thankful for the Augusta Health Unit in Minnesota. We got him home 175 days later and continued physical therapy at the local hospital at Gundersen Lutheran where my cousin Marguerite Costigan is the head of the physical therapy unit.

It’s amazing with a brain injury, your brain controls everything. With the amount of injury on his right side, he had paralysis on the left side of his body but he does walk now his way. He knows 3 ½ years later that he was in an accident, doesn’t remember the accident, and that he knows he has a brain injury. Because of that, we continue to work with neuroscientists across the US. They call him the miracle soldier in the US Army because he was not predicted to live. They are doing case studies on him because of the amount of support he has from us as educators and parents to help him live a productive life.
Jake’s Blog- where I dedicate most of my blog efforts instead of m...