Tuesday, October 21, 2008

Edublogs bookclub: First questions... at last

I announced the Edublogs book club about two months ago and then had a worry about which book to read about a month later. No definitive book was picked but it is well past time to try and start a discussion. In the end, I've gone for Homo Zappiens - mainly because I've been too busy to start We Think: The Power of Mass Creativity. :-) I hope someone else has at least started this book, otherwise it's going to be a bit lonely here in the Edublogs book club.


193/366 Some light reading
Originally uploaded by
So, a couple of general observations first and then a some questions to (hopefully) get us started.

I have to say I was a bit disappointed with this book as it wasn't as good as I hoped. Some good quotes and some interesting ideas but at times it wasn't convincing... or at least, I wasn't convinced.

With that out the way, lets try a few questions to get us started. Feel free to tackle one, all or none of these questions. If you want to answer your own questions either here on on your own blog, feel free to do that too.
  1. Is there something deeply ironic in producing a book about homo zapiens? Google have a large(ish) preview of the book available in Google Books - would an electronic format make more sense than paper?
  2. There is supposed to be a website associated with the book but at time of writing it is off line. The message on the site says: "This site has been taken offline due to the busy time-schedule of the authors and their consequent inability to properly maintain this site". How disappointed were you about the missing site? Should the book be able to standalone without a website?
  3. How convinced were you by the statements in the author's acknowledgements that: "Silently, this generation has adopted technology and has developed new strategies for living and for learning. And those strategies differ so much from former generations that a complete new actor is marching into the arena of educational change." (p. 5)?
There you are, three questions to kick us off. More questions could follow if there is enough (any!) interest.

It's over to you.

No comments: