Hard times = exciting times
September 2, 2008
The classroom is changing pretty quickly, but most accounts of why the classroom is changing tend to start with an alarmist perspective. “U.S. students aren’t globally competitive!” “Gaps are widening!” Have you heard statements like these at the beginning of a professional development session? Have you attended professional development sessions that offer you a series of harrowing facts, but no real solutions? Yuck!
It’s nice sometimes to step back and look at how society is changing and consider what that means for the classroom without the klaxons ringing. Matt Mason and Nicholas Felton have put together Hard Times, a very short presentation with some interesting statistics and insights about modern life, but few “the sky is falling” statements. This handsomely-designed pamphlet, also available in PDF format, steps you through some of the basics of digital life in chapters like “Part IX-A. Our Parents Killed Bad Ideas With Music. Part IX-B. We Kill Bad Ideas With New Business Models.”
Hard Times is part of Penguin UK’s We Tell Stories, an innovative, six-week series of digital fiction inspired by classic novels, which also serves as a fine model for digital storytelling and re-interpretation of literature. Hard Times refers back to the Charles Dickens novel of the same name, but perhaps Mason and Felton’s work is mis-titled. I’d call this “Exciting Times.” Still, who knew that re-interpreting Dickens would yield something so… concise? -ROSS WHITE
