In his recent bestseller The World is Flat, Thomas Friedman (2005) argues that industralized countries can no longer compete in the global economy on the basis of making and selling commodities. Their competitive edge increasingly comes from how well they produce products, services, and technologies that are new… special… non-standardand thus not easily produced across the globe by competitors. But how and when should children learn the the kind of innovative thinking they will need for success in the new, interconnected, high-tech, work-anywhere, just-on-time, on-demand, world of global competition? The answer is that the problem is also part of the solution. The computer technologies that make global competitors a mouse-click away also make it possible for young people to experience--and thus learn to think about--problems and situations that will prepare them for life in the digital age. Computer and video games--though games of a very particular sort, called "epistemic games"--can help young people learn the ways of innovation they need to thrive in the digital age. Om David Shaffer David Williamson Shaffer is a former teacher, curriculum developer, teacher-trainer and game designer. He has taught grades 4-12 in the United States and abroad, including two years working with the Asian Development Bank and US Peace Corps in Nepal. Dr. Shaffer’s M.S. and Ph.D. are from the Media Laboratory at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where his work focused on the development of epistemic games in which players learn about traditional academic subjects through simulations of authentic professional practices. Dr. Shaffer taught in the Technology and Education Program at the Harvard Graduate School of Education, and is now Assistant Professor of Learning Science in the University of Wisconsin-Madison Department of Educational Psychology and a Game Scientist at the Academic Advanced Distributed Learning CoLaboratory. Dr. Shaffer studies how new technologies change the way people think and learn. http://coweb.wcer.wisc.edu/cgi-bin/cv.cgi?REQUEST=cv
In his recent bestseller The World is Flat, Thomas Friedman (2005) argues that industralized countries can no longer compete in the global economy on the basis of making and selling commodities. Their competitive edge increasingly comes from how well they produce products, services, and technologies that are new… special… non-standardand thus not easily produced across the globe by competitors. But how and when should children learn the the kind of innovative thinking they will need for success in the new, interconnected, high-tech, work-anywhere, just-on-time, on-demand, world of global competition? The answer is that the problem is also part of the solution. The computer technologies that make global competitors a mouse-click away also make it possible for young people to experience--and thus learn to think about--problems and situations that will prepare them for life in the digital age. Computer and video games--though games of a very particular sort, called"epistemic games"--can help young people learn the ways of innovation they need to thrive in the digital age. Om David Shaffer David Williamson Shaffer is a former teacher, curriculum developer, teacher-trainer and game designer. He has taught grades 4-12 in the United States and abroad, including two years working with the Asian Development Bank and US Peace Corps in Nepal. Dr. Shaffer’s M.S. and Ph.D. are from the Media Laboratory at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where his work focused on the development of epistemic games in which players learn about traditional academic subjects through simulations of authentic professional practices. Dr. Shaffer taught in the Technology and Education Program at the Harvard Graduate School of Education, and is now Assistant Professor of Learning Science in the University of Wisconsin-Madison Department of Educational Psychology and a Game Scientist at the Academic Advanced Distributed Learning CoLaboratory. Dr. Shaffer studies how new technologies change the way people think and learn. http://coweb.wcer.wisc.edu/cgi-bin/cv.cgi?REQUEST=cv