Future of Publishing: Do We Have It All Backwards?

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This is brilliant, and even moving, not for what it says about the future of publishing but for valuing young people in a way that so much of the "digital native" conversation does not.  You have to watch it all to the end.  Finally some respect for the much-maligned "digital natives" (a term I do not like as it oversimplifies a generation as complex as any other).  Check this out, with thanks to Scholarly Kitchen.

 

The Future of Publishing: Do We Have It All Backwards?

 

 

Yet, as my friend Bob Stein of Institute for the Future of the Book notes, the downside of this is that it may be some whistling in the dark on the part of commercial publishers who want to believe that nothing has changed . . . and that's not right either.  So for a different, if equally utopic, view of youth today, check out game designer Jane McGonical's TED talk, "Make a Better World" where she argues that kids play on average of 10,000 hours on line playing games by age 21, which is how much time they spend in school from fifth grade to high school graduation if they never miss a day of school.  She argues that school and games are parallel worlds of leaning and that the games offer a better motivation to thrive, by emphasizing: urgent optimism (you can win, incrementally and you win more by playing more), social fabric (you bond even with those you beat because of respect for their talents), blissful productivity (the harder you work, the happier you are), and epic meaning (awe inspiring missions).  She says these things can be translated into real world applications and that the gamer disposition CAN change the world.   So watch both, and think about these two together:

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dE1DuBesGYM