Earlier this week, Barry Joseph of Global Kids shared an observation during a plenary session at the Games for Change Conference that I simply can't get out of my head. He said and I am wildly paraphrasing ...
"We've been working on a job description for a new staff person and have been talking about what software skills we should identify in the job description. I think this is less important than having the skill to learn new software. My father is very comfortable using a particular email client and that if he had learn a new one, he probably couldn't. Playing games as a kid gave me an important skill set: the ability to figure out software. And that today's digital natives have those skills."
Although I'm far from a digital native, I keep avoiding trying to get too comfortable to set in my software habits ... that switching around is good thing because it forces this type of learning. I'm experiencing this now with my switch from Outlook to gmail.
Someone else in the conference mentioned the Berkman's Digital Native wiki that is looking at the difference between people who grew up with the Internet and those who didn't - and what that all means. Some very heady stuff that I don't have time to ponder right now. But I wanted to flag and watch this wiki.
Thanks Beth. yup, that's pretty much what I said. It was in response to the question posed by the panelist: what have you learned from games. I wanted to give that anecdote as an example of both what I had learned personally, and the conceptual divide that exists between those like me raised with those skills and my peers who did not.
Posted by: barry | June 23, 2007 at 08:34 PM
Barry,
Thanks for setting the context!
Posted by: Beth Kanter | June 24, 2007 at 12:55 PM