Don't Bother Me MomI'm Learning!: How Computer and Video Games are Preparing Your Kids for 21st Century Success - and How You Can Help! [Paperback]

This is a book I feel all parents should read. Though I'm what Prensky would call a "digital immigrant," my accent isn't too thick. I may be nearing 40, but I got involved with computers as they came around and have never been afraid of technology. Gaming, Internet, etc.--I love it all. And, despite the fact my gaming time has reduced as I've gotten older, I've never really understood the hysteria over computer games.

For parents, this book is a great primer about video & computer games. It makes a case for why these games benefit children but, more importantly, it explains a lot of the gaming & computer jargon and gives examples of a lot of the popular software. If a parent really wants to make an effort to understand what interests their child about computers, this book is a great place to start. It also gives parents encouraging advice on how to connect with their children through these games.

I used to be quite a gamer myself (I leaned towards the strategy games like Civilization and Railroad Tycoon). After reading this book, I went out and bought Civilization IV (and The Sims for my wife) and rediscovered what I loved so much about them. Hopefully, when my children get to the age when they want to play computer games, I'll be able to participate with them on some level.

On the other hand, as a veteran teacher, I'm not convinced by some of his conclusions about the educational value of these games. I agree that these games are certainly not detrimental, any more than other "traditional" child pasttimes. (Any activity--reading, sports, etc.-- can be detrimental if done exclusively and to excess. As parents, it is our job to monitor all our child's activities and press them for moderation when we see them slipping into excess.) I agree that they can develop skills that are useful for children. I agree that technology & modern culture are rewiring our children's brains to be different and we must accept and deal with that (particularly teachers).

Still, I have yet to see a game that truly imparts curriculum in an effective manner. Civilization is a great game & offers great talking points to a history teacher but it cannot teach history effectively. Perhaps there will be truly dynamic games in the future that will teach curriculum well but, for all my support of technology, I see it as a tool, not as a guide. Like all tools, it can be used well or poorly but, as always, it goes back to the human hand that controls it.

But, despite these quibbles, I must give credit where credit is due: Prensky has written a very good book here. He opens our eyes to the importance of understanding these games. They are not going away and, with a little effort, both parents and educators can get a little more insight into young people today. Some of that effort should be put into reading this book.

I was introduced to the author's work on Digital Natives by a very smart and unusually open-minded colleague at the National Geospatial Agency, and I am hooked as well as relieved.

The greatest complement I can give this book is that my 15-year old, a master of Warlock, saw this book come in the door and immediately took it away from me and read it overnight. He gives it high marks.

This is also the book that inspired me to take Serious Games and Games for Change *very* seriously. Most gamers do not understand the need to work toward an EarthGame that includes actual budgets and actual science, but Medard Gabel of BigPictureSmallWorld gets it, and that's enough for me.

The list of games provided at the end by the author, to create a serious game home learning environment, is priceless. Some may be overtaken by events but the bottom line is that digital learning is vastly superior to rote learning in schools.

I am a participant in three Hacker communities--Hackers on Planet Earth (HOPE) based in New York, Hac-Tic based in Amsterdam, and Hackers/THINK based in California. I have met thousands of hackers over the years, and I am certain that the best and the brightest are not those with straight A's in the current school system, but those that tune out the high school regime by their junior year, and start learning what they want to learn on their own. My oldest son just won first prize in the Fairfax County digital music content, representing his school, but he will not graduate because he refuses to spend time on Algebra 2. He has very high SAT scores, will pass the GED with an almost perfect score, and will take digital music and digital art courses at three colleges in the DC area as a non-degree candidate. I go on at length here because this is both very personal for me, and also a national disaster--our entire curriculum is so out of date, and taught by so many drones, the few master teachers not withstanding, that I completely understand why our national ranking in math and science is out the window, why we have fallen to 7th on the national innovation scale, behind three Nordic countries and three Asian countries.

I admire this author. In a most positive manner, he is telling us the Secretary of Education is quite naked, and what we can do about it. This is a foundation book for any parent of "digital natives."

"Don't Bother Me Mom - I'm Learning!" is a vital book to read if you're the least bit worried about the computer and video games your children are playing (or would like to play).

There are, however, many aspects to this book that make it much more than an enlightening and positive response to all the objections, criticisms, negative opinions and fears that surround the world of digital gaming - it's an equally important read if you want to know what's happening in the rapidly changing world of teaching and learning.

Of particular interest to me as the father of a home educated boy was the mention in the book of developments in the application of games technology to the school curriculum - including a little something called "disintermediation", or 'cutting out the middleman', a subject I've written about myself.

To be honest, I was practically bouncing up and down with excitement as I read of the possibilities for learning and self-development that are emanating from the most recent advances in video gaming technology. The potential now unfolding is absolutely thrilling.

But, even if you're not as ready as I am to share Marc Prensky's enthusiasm for computer and video games as a means of educating and preparing our children for success in the modern world, you'll discover at the very least from reading "Don't Bother Me Mom - I'm Learning!" that what you may have been reading or hearing in the media about the games melting our children's brains and turning them into violent zombies has been both highly selective and greatly exaggerated.

Something that quickly became apparent to me as I read this book was that negative opinions about computer and video games tend to come from people who don't play them! Indeed, it seems to be that many parents who are worried about the games their children are playing don't actually know what it is they're worried about.

Both of my children play computer and video games. Without restrictions of any kind.

My daughter started playing video games at the age of six. Her mother - yes, folks, her mother - bought her a Sega Master System II and all three of us ended up happily playing Alex Kidd in Miracle World for hours on end every day until we'd completed the game. Then we bought some more games and haven't looked back.

My son Pat has been playing video games since he was three. He started with Mario the fat plumber on the Nintendo 64. We still have the N64. Pat now also has a Game Cube and a Playstation 2 and plays Empire Earth and RuneScape on the PC and various mini-games he finds on the internet.

Computer and video games are the biggest passion in my son's life right now, and I think it would be most odd if I didn't know at least a little bit about every game he plays. Because I play them, too!

My own interest in video games goes back to playing Pong, Space Invaders and Asteroids in various pubs I frequented in Sydney when I lived there in the mid-1970s to mid-1980s (in my pre-parenthood days).

As Marc Prensky explains clearly and comprehensively in "Don't Bother Me Mom - I'm Learning!", "games are NOT the enemy". Games are a medium. TV is a medium. Books are a medium. Did you know that even the piano was once considered by many to be dangerous new-fangled technology?

Though it certainly does seem to me at times that there's a very questionable motive behind the making of certain individual games, of course, that really is no different to the questionable motives behind the making of certain movies or TV programs, or the writing of certain books, and so on.

So, as with movies, TV and books, it's crucially important to separate the medium from the message. To optimise the positive qualities of the medium and exercise informed choice as far as the message is concerned. Which, no surprise, requires parental involvement - something that Marc Prensky advocates throughout his book, despite what its title might suggest.

In fact, this is one of the book's great strengths. It's a book of solutions for parents. It does acknowledge the problems and it does offer thoughtful, experience-based advice on how we can develop a more positive and helpful perception of our children's love affair with computer and video games and find ways to move forward and upward together with them into a new world of opportunity and accomplishment.

Marc Prensky's knowledge and understanding of the Brave New Digital World is truly awesome and I, for one, as a fifty-something with a 10-year old "Digital Native" son, am deeply grateful to him for his positive contribution to my life.

If you have a child who plays computer and video games, I hope you'll read this book. For reassurance, if that's all you need - or for mind expanding inspiration if you're ready for it. You'll discover plenty of that in its pages.

Bob Collier
Publisher of the Parental Intelligence Newsletter
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