Ewan has published a podcast of the Mark Prensky in Shropshire: Keynote.

About an hour long so I’ve not actually finished listening to it (2 walks to the shops down one to go). It is interesting listening.

I’ve managed to avoid Mr Prensky, missed his seminar at SETT and I think the games tag put me off. I’ve spent about 5 minutes playing tetris. Of course once I listened for a moment it is much more interesting (to me) than games. What he seems (to me) to be talking about is not games but playing.

I an all for that some folks play with World of Warcraft others SuperCard, html or PHP.

I am quite interested in the digital native vs digital immigrant idea although I am not sure if the natives are really all that far ahead. Prensky gave the illustration; that to find out about Shropshire; he would grab an atlas. Not sure I’d believe that one, my mum would google it

The other idea that is often missing is The future has already arrived. It’s just not evenly distributed yet, only half of my class had internet access at home. Lots of them have PS2s etc but I am not sure of how many of the exciting things they do with them. I ask them about network play and the tell me the PS2 does it but they have not tried it. They don’t look as curious as Prensky seem to think.

He also talk about how children demand engagement, which seems right, but I am not sure about the idea that children are spending they time in a more engaged way than in the past. From Glasgow to Glencoe there seems to be plenty of unengaged kids hanging round outside shops.

The other thing listen to this podcast made me think about was listening to podcasts. I think there were some visual jokes in the presentation, but that didn’t bother me too much, I think the slides will appear sometime. I do find ordering my thoughts hard. It is harder to stop and think for a bit. It is hard to remember quotes etc. I am sure I had a couple of brilliant ideas while listening, but I forgot them.

It would be nice to have some sort of comment enhanced podcast: listen, pause record comment, listen. Maybe the next ipod will link voice recording in a clever way. I am not sure of the license for the podcast, but given time and some creative commons, folk could remix and repost ideas filled podcast. Then I’d really need to go to the shops more often.