Don+Dudley

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 * CHRISTENSEN**

In writing his 2008 masterpiece Distrupting Class, Clayton Christensen reveals the roadmap to bring new ideas to the forefront. While clearly this work is about education, Christensen has also written a business text that is a must read for anyone preparing to go into business or bring innovation to any field.

The book is woven around a story about Dr Stephanie Allston a high school principal in southern California. As she meets the challenges of her profession several learning opportunities are solved using some "disrupted" learning technology. One example of this is a student that wants to take a course in Arabic in Allston's high school. While the course is not offered at the high school due to low enrollment, Allston does find a solution, an online state-accreddited class.

Christensen goes on to explain just what disruption is. As he defines it, a distruptive innovation occurs as a shift in a product line or type of solution. This shift is not a threat to the current product and is usually less expensive and is aimed at a totally new market. He gives many examples which include the Apple II personal computer and cell phones. Neither making an aburpt change when they came to the market but over time having a tremendous impact.

Christensen illuminates different learning styles and intelligence types as developed by Howard Gardner (Harvard). By using some discruptive technology, the author shows how education may one day provide true student-centric learning customized to each learning style and intelligence type.

This is truely a great book and should be read by business leaders and educators alike. As his sub-title indicates, this type of change will dramtically effect the way the world learns.


 * BAUERLEIN**

In his 2008 book "The Dumbest Generation" Mark Bauerlein makes some good points and quotes endless statistics about how the youth of the 21st century are missing the mark on just about every educational front. On scores of tests and other assessment tools, the majority of youth of today are blasted as being less of a citizen than their fathers and mothers were. His sub-title even goes so far as to indicate that our future is in jeopardy.

Bauerlein says we are scoring lower on achievement tests, not reading as much, watching too much television and are not involved politically. What I believe he has missed is that the youth of today have figured out something that would place the author in total denial.

Today’s youth have seen how hard their parents work. They see the financial state their family is in and wonder if it is all worth it. They see the corruption at the top of business and government and realize they want no part of it. I believe more and more youth have elected to turn off the madness.

What Bauerlein should have called his sub-title was “…Jeopardizes Our Future as We Know It”. The author wants to continue measuring the success of our nation’s youth based on their ability to conduct themselves the same way we conducted ourselves.

I am sure Bauerlein and many others feel the future is in jeopardy because it will be different from the way things are right now. What Bauerlein does not seem to buy into is that our current state of affairs is not very good and not as good as it was in the past. I certainly hope the youth of today will make a better place for themselves than we did.


 * PRENSKY**

Formal education is changing, it had to. In his book “Don’t Bother Me Mom – I’m Learning” Marc Prensky offers some reasons for why education had to change and how it is changing. A warning in the introduction, invites us to be disturbed about the way we view video games. Indeed his message does “fly in the face of the prevailing wisdom about computer and video games.”

Digital Natives will find that this book reveals the obvious while Digital Immigrants and Digital Settlers will have their eyes opened. Prensky lays the groundwork in the first part of the book; much good can come out of game playing. He challenges us to first and foremost get involved with what our kids are doing. This seems somewhat obvious but many parents have no idea what goes on in their kid’s games.

Prensky reminds us that there must be a balance in game playing or reading, too much of one thing is not good for anyone. He also confirms that addictive behavior can manifest itself in game playing, but that doesn’t mean that the games are addictive.

The book defines five levels of learning in games, “How, What, Why, Where, and Whether. “ This is very helpful because it provides a way to evaluate what’s going on and to what extent is learning occurring. For example, in Why, he lists some of the lessons that may be learned while playing: “cause and effect, long term winning versus short term gain, order from seeming chaos, second-order consequences, complex system behaviors, counter intuitive results, using obstacles as motivation and the value of persistence.” These are all good lessons to learn and one can find them in many popular games of today. This is one positive sign in support of Prensky’s claim that games can be good for you.

Prensky grounds his work to Stephen Covey’s The Seven Habits of highly Effective People by going through each of Covey’s habits and validating it to game playing. He cites hospital studies that indicate game players make better surgeons. In the closing quote “Being successful at playing today’s computer games helps you succeed in life.” Prensky waves the flag again that natives already know and immigrants are just finding out.

In the last part of the book, Prensky talks about getting the immigrants involved. While this is very important to a child’s education, it is nothing new. He provides a short chapter on vocabulary and offers some great definitions. This is truly invaluable if immigrants intend to delve into this digital gaming world. He also offers some step by step advice on getting involved and some typical reactions.

He closes with how games and education can coexist and complement each other. He provides more advice and challenges us in a list of what ifs. For example, “What if we create free learning games that let kids teach themselves to read by kindergarten or first grade.” Also, what if we give kids credit for work they do at Apolyton U…” He also provides a wealth of additional information for parents to refer to and to grow themselves.

His message continues to the end to disturb immigrants. However, the work is valuable and has certainly changed my opinion of the games my family plays. Please do take the time to check out the website for the book. You will not be disappointed.