We are delighted to bring you an exciting Special Event: A Morning With Marc Prensky: Designing Learning Digital Natives Will Love on Tuesday, October 26. This will be a ½-day morning workshop. To jump directly to registration details, click here.

How do we go about redesigning our learning for Digital Natives? As learners become more and more immersed in their digital technology — carrying around their communications, computing and entertainment devices in their pockets — the gap is widening between the skills they have, the languages they speak (e.g. game, blog, IM), and what instructors and trainers expect. We will explore the important implications of this gap, and suggest ways organizations and instructors can help close it, via gaming and other methods.

Specifically, we will look "under the Iceberg" at the 9/10ths of your learners' computer and video games (and e-life) you probably don't know about, and learn why understanding it is critical to you, to your students and trainees, and to education and training more generally. We will see how much learning actually takes place from playing video and computer games and how to bring this learning into the classroom. Working with real digital natives (i.e. high school and tertiary students) we will explore what it is about games that causes so much learning to happen, and what they look for in games. We will look at types of games and gaming, the depth of games' "below-the-surface" learning, and try some online games together. We will also play the non-computer game of "Give me a topic you think couldn't possibly be taught with a game and I'll show you how it can be."

It would be good to review a few articles from Marc's site: www.marcprensky.com/writing/default.asp

• Digital Natives Digital Immigrants
• What kids learn that's POSITIVE from playing computer games
• How kids learn to cooperate in video games
• Escape from Planet Jar-Gon

Also, check out the Website, www.socialimpactgames.com

Marc is the founder and CEO of Games2train, an e-learning company whose clients include IBM, Bank of America, Nortel and Nokia. games2train.com is a new training concept that marries computer games and serious business content into a new "Nintendo Generation" approach to training with business training solutions that range from arcade-style games and board games, to TV quiz games and fast-moving 3D videogames.

Marc is the author of the critically acclaimed Digital Game-Based Learning (McGraw-Hill, 2001).

The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Newsweek, Time and Fortune all have recognized Marc’s work. He has appeared on MSNBC, CNN/fn , and PBS’s Computer Currents. In 2000 Marc was named as one of training’s top "New Breed of Visionaries” by Training. Marc also writes a column for On the Horizon, a publication for leaders in academia.

Marc’s background includes masters degrees from Yale, Middlebury, and The Harvard Business School (with distinction). He is a concert musician and has acted on Broadway. He has taught at all levels from elementary to college. He worked in Human Resources and in Technology at Bankers Trust Company, and spent six years as a corporate strategist and product development director with the Boston Consulting Group. Marc is a native of New York City, where he lives with his wife Rie Takemura, a Japanese writer.

To learn even more about Marc, visit www.marcprensky.com.

Reserve Your Seat Now!!
STEP 1: e-mail registration@ispi-van.org (Subject: ISPI October 26 - please indicate if you are registering as a member, non-member or student), and
STEP 2: bring your completed registration form and cheque (or cash) to the workshop and pay at the door. Please register by October 21St.