An audience with Marc
Vincent opened the "Engage or Enrage Me" presentation by Marc Prensky in the ACMI screen pit, Federation Square, Melbourne City.
Over the next two hours, Marc took the audience on a fantastic journey with a rapid jump between slides, images and ideas about computer games in education. Unlike other presenters that I have seen, he didn't just tell us how different our students are or bemoan the current practices of my colleagues. As a practising games educator, Marc gave the audience of teachers some solid practical ideas about to implement this in the classroom. His vision is an honest appraisal of where we are heading and perhaps what we would like our students to become.
I jotted down oodles of notes and ideas on my laptop (until battery ran out) then PDA (until battery ran out) and finally notepaper. By contrast, a chap nearby was carefully making notes on a corner of his ticket stub in a form of micro-print! Tony kept glancing at both of us and couldn't stop grinning. I hope to have some summary notes up soon. I must make a note to track down his next book and browse his blog
Afterwards we went to Bokchoy Tang, a nearby Chinese restaurant for dinner and more discussions. I'll never get the hang of eating crustaceans, even with the small toolkit provided .. I'm happier to leave the crabs running about the bottom of Port Philip bay.
I hope that Marc does as well with Bill and the gang in South Australia. .