Don't Bother Me Mom--I'm Learning! - Softcover

Marc Prensky

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1557788588 ISBN 13: 9781557788580

Publisher: Paragon House, 2006

Synopsis

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.

The aim of this book is to give you a peek into the hidden world into which your kids disappear when they are playing games, and to help you as an adult―especially if you are a concerned parent or teacher―understand and appreciate just how much your kids are learning that is positive from their video and computer games.

In the few short hours it takes to read this book, you will learn:

What it feels like to be in the world of computer and video games

How to appreciate the breadth and depth of modern computer and video games and the ways they make your kids learn

How to understand the various useful skills your game-playing your kids are acquiring

How to understand your own kids better and build better relationships using games as a base

And, most importantly, How to augment and improve what your kids are learning by having conversations they want to have about their games.

About this title

About the Author

Marc Prensky is an internationally acclaimed speaker, writer, consultant, visionary and innovator in the field of education. He coined the terms “Digital Native” and "Digital Immigrant" in 2001. Marc is currently the founder and Executive Director of the Global Future Education Foundation and Institute―a not-for-profit organization dedicated to a new vision of Empowering Kids to Better Their World.

Marc has spoken in 40 countries. He has authored seven books, published over 100 essays, and his writings have been translated into 11 languages. Marc’s background includes master’s degrees from Harvard and Yale, six years at the Boston Consulting Group, software game development, and teaching at all levels. Marc’s writings and speaking schedule can be found at www.marcprensky.com.

Contact Marc at marcprensky@gmail.com. See global-future-education.org, globalempoweredkids.org and bettertheirworld.org for more information.

Reviews

As kids spend ever more time in the virtual world, the debate over whether video games foster harmful or helpful real-world habits rages. Marc Prensky, an educational software developer, is pro-game. In "Don’t Bother Me Mom—I’m Learning!", Prensky maintains that kids "are almost certainly learning more positive, useful things for their future from their video and computer games than they learn in school!"

Prensky wants to ease parents’ fears by describing how kids see gaming and what they learn. "[P]retty much all the information that parents and teachers have to work with is a lot of speculation, conjecture, and overblown rhetoric about the putative negative aspects of these games," he writes. Unfortunately, his counterstrategy is to throw together a similarly speculative mix in defense.

Prensky presents an opinionated argument filled with anecdotes, a few studies, and quotes pulled from published news stories. There is no evidence too specious: he cites a recent study that found younger, newer radiologists were more accurate in reading mammograms than older, more experienced doctors and asks, "Could the higher visual acuity gained from playing video games be at work here?" How can the reader know, when Prensky didn’t talk to the researchers to find out if the study was trying to answer this question?

He also takes the easy road in response to studies that find a link between aggressive behavior and violent video games: "Absolutely no one can say, when all the complex factors in a single child’s life are taken into account, whether any individual child will be negatively influenced overall." Of course not. The question, however, is whether video games are a risk factor for aggression and, if so, to what extent.

Nor will Prensky concede that there could be anything wrong with new technology. Writing about cell phones, he says that "the first ‘educational’ use students implemented for their cell phones was retrieving information on demand during exams. Educators, of course, refer to this as ‘cheating.’ They might better serve their students by redefining open-book testing as openphone testing." It is not hard to believe that children are learning problem-solving skills and hand-eye coordination from video games, as Prensky and others have written. Nor are all video games about killing things. But parents who have concerns about potential negative effects will be hard-pressed to fi nd thoughtful, well-researched answers here. —

Aimee Cunningham

Prensky debunks the accepted wisdom that video games are harmful to children. Instead, he contends that games can teach a multitude of skills, including problem solving, language and cognitive skills, strategic thinking, multitasking, and parallel processing. He cites research showing the benefits of games in teaching skills children will need in a twenty-first-century economy, pointing to the military use of games to teach strategy, laproscopic surgeons who play games as a "warm-up" before surgery, and entrepreneurs who played games growing up. Better yet, Prensky details positive attributes of popular games, including the controversial Grand Theft Auto, and addresses parent concerns about children becoming addicted, socially isolated, or developing aggression because of games. He offers recommendations for particularly beneficial games as well as Web sites to advance parent learning, and provides sound advice on bridging the gap between what he calls the young digital natives and the older digital immigrants. Parents and teachers will appreciate--and enjoy--this enlightening look at video and computer games. Vanessa Bush
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

Edition details

• Publisher: Paragon House
• Publication date: 2006
• ISBN 10: 1557788588
• ISBN 13: 9781557788580
• Binding: Paperback
• Language: English
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 350