Tuesday 23 October 2007

Don’t Bother Me Mom – I’m Learning by Marc Prensky

Another book to my collection.

"The POSITIVE Guide for Parents Concerned About Their Kids' Video and Computer Game Playing "Marc knows it all depends on how we use our games. He knows that if parents place good video games into a learning system in their homes they can reap major benefits for their children and themselves. They can accelerate their children's language and cognitive growth." -James Paul Gee, Tashia Mogridge Professor of Reading, University of Wisconsin-Madison

Marc Prensky presents the case-profoundly counter-cultural but true nevertheless-that video and computer game playing, within limits, is actually very beneficial to today's "Digital Native" kids, who are using them to prepare themselves for life in the 21st century. The reason kids are so attracted to these games, Prensky says, is that they are learning about important "future" things, from collaboration, to prudent risk taking, to strategy formulation and execution, to complex moral and ethical decisions. Prensky's arguments are backed up by university PhD's studying not just violence, but games in their totality., as well as studies of gamers who have become successful corporate workers, entrepreneurs, leaders, doctors, lawyers, scientists and other professionals. Because most adults (including the critics) can't play the modern complex games themselves (and discount the opinions of the kids who do play them) they rely on secondhand sources of information, most of whom are sadly misinformed about both the putative harm and the true benefits of game-playing. This book is the antidote to those misinformed, bombastic sources, in the press and elsewhere. Full of common sense and practical information, it provides parents with a large number of techniques approaches they can use-both over time and right away-to improve both their understanding of games and their relationships with their kids. "

To see other people's opinion
http://www.amazon.com/Dont-Bother-Me-Mom-Im-Learning/dp/1557788588