1. Game-Based Learning
Source: Marc Prensky (2006) . “Don’t bother me mom – I’m learning!”

2. Whenever I go to school, I have to “power down.”
A Student

3. The cookies on my daughter’s computer know more about her interests than her teachers do.”
Henry Kelly, President, Federation of American Scientists

4. “In all our interviews with parents, we never found a parent who knew what their kid was doing.”
A researcher

5. Today’s students are no longer the people our educational system was designed to teach.
Marc Prensky (2006. p. 30)

6. Brain Research Findings
Scans of brains of people who tapped their fingers in complicated sequence that they had practiced for weeks showed a larger area of motor cortex becoming activated then when they performed sequences that hadn’t practiced. (p. 33)

7. Reading
Intensive reading instruction experiments with students aged 10 and up appear to create lasting chemical changes in key areas of the subjects’ brain. (p. 34)

8. Music
An MRI comparison of musicians’ and non-players’ brains showed a five percent greater volume in the musicians’ cerebellums, ascribed to adaptations in the brain’s structure resulting from intensive musical training and practice.

9. Practice Required
Thinking Skills that research shows enhanced by computer games

10. “Representational competence,” that is, reading visual images as representations of three-dimensional space.

11. “Multidimensional visual-spatial skills,” i. e
“Multidimensional visual-spatial skills,” i.e. the ability to create “mental maps” and do “mental paper folding” (e.g. origami-like folds) (p. 35)

12. “Inductive discovery” – acting like a scientist by making observations, formulating hypotheses, and figuring out the rules governing the behavior of a dynamic representation.

13. “Attentional deployment” – i. e
“Attentional deployment” – i.e. the ability to focus on several things at the same time, and being able to respond faster to unexpected stimuli.

14. Areas of Change Digital natives communicate differently
Instant messaging chat
Digital natives share differently
Blogs, webcams, camera phones
Digital natives buy and sell differently
eBay, Craig’s list

15. Digital natives exchange differently
Music, movies, P2P
Digital natives create differently
Sites, avatars, mods
Digital natives meet differently
3D chat rooms, dating

16. Digital natives coordinate differently
Projects, workgroups, MMORPGs
Digital natives evaluate differently
Reputation systems, e.g. Epinions, Amazon
Digital natives game differently
1 on 1, small & large groups

17. Digital natives learn differently
About stuff that interest them
Digital natives socialize differently
MySpace, Facebook
Digital natives search differently
Info, connections, people

18. References
Prensky, Marc. (2006). “Don’t Bother Me Mom – I’m Learning!”