Marc Prensky
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...author, software games creator and expert on the impact of the Internet and digital revolution on education and training-based activities |
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Marc Prensky is an internationally acclaimed speaker, writer, consultant, futurist,
visionary and inventor in the critical areas of education and learning. Marc is the founder
of Games2train, an e-learning company whose clients include IBM, Bank of America,
Nokia, the US Department of Defense and the Los Angeles and Florida Virtual Schools.
He is the author of three groundbreaking books (see below), the latest of which is TEACHING DIGITAL NATIVES: Partnering For Real Learning (Corwin, 2010).
Marc’s professional focus has been on reinventing the learning process, combining the
motivation of video games and other highly engaging activities with the driest content of
education and business. He is considered one of the world’s leading experts on the
connection between games and learning. His innovative combination of educational tools
and game technology--including the world's first fast-action videogame-based corporate
training tool--is being accepted throughout schools, government and corporate America.
Strategy+Business magazine called Marc “That rare visionary who implements.” Marc
has designed and built over 100 software games in his career, including world-wide,
multi-user games and simulations that run on all platforms from the internet to handhelds
to cell phones. Marc has created the most advanced and engaging technology for
education, business training and e-Learning.
Marc’s presentations inspire audiences by opening up their minds to new ideas and
approaches to technology and education. Marc’s products and ideas are innovative,
provocative, challenging, and clearly show the way of the future.
The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Newsweek, Time, Fortune and The
Economist all have recognized Marc’s work. He has appeared on MSNBC, CNN/fn,
FOX News, PBS, and the BBC. In 2000, Marc was named as one of training’s top "New
Breed of Visionaries” by Training. Marc also writes a column for Educational
Technology magazine and for Greentree Gazette, a publication for leaders in academia.
Marc’s background includes Masters degrees from Yale, Middlebury and The Harvard
Business School (with distinction). He is a concert musician and has acted on Broadway.
Marc has taught at all levels from elementary to college. He worked in Human Resources and in Technology at Bankers Trust Company, and spent six years as a corporate strategist and product development director with the Boston Consulting Group.
Marc Prensky is a native of New York City, where he lives with his wife Rie Takemura, a Japanese writer, and their 3½ year-old son Sky.
BOOKS BY MARC PRENSKY
TEACHING DIGITAL NATIVES: Partnering For Real Learning (Corwin, 2010)
DON’ T BOTHER ME MOM-I’M LEARNING (Paragon House, 2006)
DIGITAL GAME-BASED LEARNING (McGraw-Hill, 2001)
DEBATE PROGRAM
Marc Prensky is available for debates on the impact of the Digital Revolution with Mark Bauerlein, author of THE DUMBEST GENERATION: How The Digital Age Stupefies Young Americans And Jeopardizes Our Future.
For information on Mark Bauerlein click here.
SPEECH TOPICS
Marc has delivered his unique message about the future impact of today’s digital youth on education, business and the military to CEOs and other senior executives, education professionals, and thousands of teachers and parents, always with eye-opening results.
For Corporate Audiences:
Use Me Or Lose Me: Deriving Maximum Value From Today’s Younger Workers
After years of debating the limitations of hierarchically-run organizations and the merits of democratization, the end of command-and-control management may finally be here, thanks to the people 25 and younger in our midst. Unprecedented changes in electronics and communications over the past 30 years have led to fresh patterns of thinking by these young Digital Natives: a new generation who are collectively harnessing both technology and behavioral skills often to cause dramatic change within the organizations that employ them.
Unfortunately, many Digital Immigrant leaders--including many of those who claim to be
“plugged in”--don’t get the fact that Digital Natives bring unique capabilities to large
organizations. In this speech, Marc Prensky highlights these changes and discusses their implications for today’s and tomorrow’s organizational leaders. If consulted, these young employees can be an enormous force for positive change and success in their companies. If ignored, they will spend their brain cycles on the job plotting (in ways managers can’t control) how to make their own work lives, not their companies, better.
For Educators (and General) Audiences:
Teaching Digital Natives: Partnering For Real Learning
Based on the TEACHING DIGITAL NATIVES book, this speech unites three strands of current educational discussion which have rarely been considered together. First, that our students are changing--largely as a result of their outside-of-school experiences with technology. Second, that the pedagogy we have been using in our schools, basically “tell and test”, has become less and less effective with today’s students; a better pedagogy is both needed and available. Third, that the digital technology, now coming into our classrooms, if used properly, can make a difference.
Ironically, a generation raised on the expectation of interactivity is ripe for the skill-based, and doing-based. Teaching methods that past experts have always suggested as the best for learning, but that were rejected by the education establishment as hard to implement. The thread tying these together is that the same digital technology which caused the changes in our students provides the means to finally ignite the most effective ways of learning.
Digital Wisdom: Beyond Natives And Immigrants
What comes after Digital Immigrants and Digital Natives, when everyone will have been born in the digital age? Marc Prensky suggests that it is Digital Wisdom. Digital Wisdom is the ability to combine the things that the human brain does best (such as reasoning and balancing), with machines and other enhancements for the things the brain is less good at (such as remembering, or calculating). Such combination is necessary, he argues, in order to achieve the highest state of wisdom in the digital age. With numerous examples, and illustrations of both the digitally wise and the digitally dumb, this is an original and frame-breaking talk.
Why You Tube Matters: Teaching In The Student’s World
Communication of ideas, experiences and skills, which has been largely text-based for the past several hundred years, is going through a change as powerful as that enabled by the invention of the printing press. From humble beginnings, You Tube (and its sister short video sites) have, in a matter of years, grown to millions of examples. With the entry of many high-end thinkers, speakers and writers into the medium, video is, for many purposes, a better source of information than text. Will short video ever replace text? Marc considers this and other scenarios to show why You Tube is a phenomenon that all educators must pay close attention to.
Engage Me Or Enrage Me: Educating Today's "Digital Native" Learners
All educators are struggling to find ways to engage and connect students with learning. Marc Prensky is the leading expert on how today’s students a.k.a. Digital Natives learn even when it isn’t apparent to Digital Immigrants. Marc explains and demonstrates not only how today’s students have changed, but how educators can deal with the changes and learn from them. The key is not curriculum, certification, or testing, but rather engagement. Today’s students are in need of more engaging approaches, more understanding and 21st century skills. The learning that motivates them the most is where students are already involved the most--in their games.
Using Games For Instruction: Where, When And How-Give Them 21st Century Tools
Based on the 2006 book by Marc, this speech presents the case--profoundly counter-cultural but true nevertheless--that video and computer game playing, within limits, is actually very beneficial to today's Digital Native youths, who are using the games to prepare themselves for life in the 21st century. The reason young persons are so attracted to these games, Marc Prensky says, is that they are learning about important future things, such as collaboration, prudent risk taking, strategy formulation and execution, plus complex moral and ethical decisions. His arguments are backed up by university educators studying not just game violence, but games in their totality, and those players who have become successful corporate workers, entrepreneurs, leaders, doctors, lawyers, scientists and other professionals.
Because most adults (including most critics) can’t play the modern complex games themselves--and discount the opinions of the kids who do play--they rely on secondhand sources of information, many whom are sadly misinformed about both the putative harm and the true benefits of game-playing. This speech is the antidote to those misinformed, bombastic sources. Full of common sense and practical information, it provides parents with a large number of techniques they can use now and in the future to improve both their understanding of games and their relationships with their children.
Education And Learning In The Twenty-first Century : How, Why, And What We Need To Do Differently
The reason we are having problems with education in the twenty-first century is that everything is changing rapidly, particularly the students. They are no longer “little adults” as they were in the past, and for them to learn, we can’t do education the same old way. Despite our training and preferences as teachers and educators, we have to adapt. Marc describes several key areas in which a change in attitudes and behaviors is necessary, including understanding our students, dealing with exponential change, achieving mutual respect and sharing our successes.
Partial List of Sponsors
2010
Guelph, CANADA (Keynote)
VAIS, Richmond VA (Featured Speaker)
Bournemouth, UK (Visiting Scholar)
Toronto, CANADA (Keynote)
Rio de Janero, BRAZIL (Keynote)
Denver CO (Keynote)
NCERT, St. Petersburg, FL (Keynote)
Montana Tech College of Technology, Butte Montana (Keynote)
London, UK (Opening Talk)
New York City Department of Education, NY, NY (Workshops)
Archdiocese of New Orleans (Keynote)
Albany, NY (Strategic Planning Workshop)
Riverside Community College-Norco, CA (Workshops)
Macon State College, Macon GA (Keynote)
Southeast Pennsylvania School District, PA (Keynote)
Texas City, TX (Keynote)
2009
National Defense University, Washington DC (Keynote)
Expoenlaces Conference, Santiago, CHILE (Keynote)
Palomar5 Conference, Berlin, GERMANY (Keynote)
University of San Diego, Spotlight on Education, San Diego CA (Season Opening Keynote)
The Collaboration Fall Conference, Bridging the Generational Divide, Minneapolis MN (Keynote)
blendedschools.net Conference, State College, PA (Keynote)
Bridgewater State College, Bridgewater, MA, Literacy 2.0 Conference (Keynote)
TASA/TASB Confere3nce, Houston TX (Distinguished Lecture)
CashAmerica Mentor Conference, Austin TX (Keynote)
Arizona CIO/CTO Forum, Phoenix, AZ (Keynote)
Montessori School, Milwaukee, WI (Keynote)
WBNet's Leading a Digital School Conference, Gold Coast, AUSTRALIA (Keynote)
Chaffey College, Rancho Cucamonga, CA (Keynote)
Building Learning Communities 2009, Boston, MA (3 sessions)
West Virginia Institute for 21st Century Leadership, Clarksburg, WV (Keynote)
Jostens Renaissance Conference, Orlando, FL (Keynote)
TF1, TFOU, Paris, FRANCE (Keynote)
Wisconsin School Leadership Academy Madison, WI (Keynote)
CUNY Gen Ed Conference, Lehman College, New York, NY (Keynote)
Mt. San Antonio College, Walnut, CA (Keynote)
IATEFL, Cardiff, Wales, UK (Keynote)
Commission for Jewish Education, West Palm Beach, FL (Keynote + Workshop)
ASCD, Orlando Florida (Sponsored Keynote)
Wartburg College, Waverly, IA (2 days + Keynote)
Pearson Learning, Durham, NC (Keynote)
Pearson Conference, Tempe, AZ (Keynote)
Casper School District, Casper, WY (2 days + Keynote)
ALSTOM, Power Systems Executive Meeting, SWITZERLAND (Keynote + Workshop)
McAllen TX School District, McAllen, TX (Keynote)
NCLB Conference, Chicago, IL (Sponsored Keynote)
New Jersey Techspo09, NJASA, Atlantic City, NJ (Keynote)
North Central Texas ASCD Greenville, TX (Keynote)
2008
Military Libraries Conference, Monterey, CA (Keynote)
NCTE, San Antonio, TX (Keynote)
Failte, Dublin, IRELAND (Keynote)
Webcom, Montreal, Canada (Keynote)
Trinity School Faculty Day, New York, NY (Keynote)
American Library Assn Gaming, Learning, & Libraries Symposium, Chicago, IL (Keynote)
Columbus Regional Health Care System, Columbus, GA (Keynote)
Black River Technical College, Pocahontas, AR (Keynote and Workshops)
M-Learn, Telford, ENGLAND (Keynote)
Freie Universitat, Berlin, GERMANY (Keynote)
Droitwich, ENGLAND (Keynote)
New York City Dept of Education, Technology Conference, Brooklyn, NY (Keynote)
International Primary Curriculum Conference, Geneva, SWITZERLAND (Keynote)
Vienna, AUSTRIA (Keynote)
Aarhus, DENMARK (Keynote)
Copenhagen DENMARK (Keynote)
MTV France - Paris, FRANCE (Keynote)
Middlesbrough ICT Conference, Middlesbrough, ENGLAND (Keynote)
New Jersey Educational Computing Conference, Montclair, NJ (Keynote)
Idaho Digital Learning Academy, Annual Faculty Conference, Boise, ID (Keynote)
Rock Hill District Three 2008 Student Engagement Conference, Rock Hill, SC (Keynote)
Media Institute Conference, Paris, FRANCE (Keynote)
PBS KIDS Advisory Board, Washington, DC (Keynote)
ACT for Youth Conference, Albany, NY (Keynote)
Georgia Southern University, Grad. Appreciation Week, Statesboro, GA (Keynote)
International Conference on College Teaching, Jacksonville, FL (Keynote)
State Technology Conference, Dover, DE (Keynote)
Northeast Conference on the Teaching of Foreign Languages, New York, NY (Keynote)
Army War College, Carlisle, PA (Workshop)
Abu Dhabi, UNITED ARAB EMIRATES (Keynote)
Northwest Council for Computer Education (NCCE) Conference, Seattle, WA (Keynote)
Assn of American Publishers School Division (AAP)
Annual Meeting, Sacramento, CA (Keynote)
Promethean World Conference, Sarasota, FL (Keynote)
Defense Intelligence Agency, Washington, DC (Keynote)
2007
2007Governor's Conference, Pennsylvania Department of Education, State College, PA (Keynote)
Discovery Conference, Amersfoort, THE NETHERLANDS (Keynote)
Q5 Conference, Ermelo, THE NETHERLANDS, (Keynote)
California League of Middle Schools, Monterey, CA (Keynote)
NE Connect, New York, NY (Keynote)
Dust or Magic Conference, Lambertville, NJ (Featured Speaker)
Deloitte, Washington DC (Keynote)
School Board Association, Bismark, ND (Keynote)
Assn for Educational Communication and Technology (AECT), Anaheim, CA (Keynote)
US Army Recruiting Command, Denver, CO (Keynote)
WSWHE BOCES, Saratoga Springs, NY (Keynote)
Mobile Computing, London, ENGLAND (Keynote)
Houston CIEP, Houston, TX (Keynote)
Minnesota Educational Media Association, Brainard, MN (Keynote)
Temasek Polytechnic, SINGAPORE (Keynote and Workshops)
AMEE 2007 Medical Education Conference, Trondheim, NORWAY (Keynote)
Killeen TX ISD (Keynote)
NW Texas ISD (Keynote)
South Texas ISD (Keynote)
Allen Hancock College, Santa Maria, CA (Keynote)
Poway Unified School District, San Diego, CA (Keynote)
Northside ISD, TX (Keynote)
Technical and Adult Education Conference, Charleston, WV (Keynote & Workshops)
Pennsylvania Department of Education, State College, PA (Keynote)
NC Network, Williamsburg, NC (Keynote)
Building Learning Communities, Boston MA (Featured Speaker)
Lovejoy Independent School District, Allen, TX (Keynote)
'Whatever It Takes' Conference, Hoover, AL (Keynote)
California School Boards Assn National Trainers Conference, San Francisco, CA (Keynote)
edACCESS, Middletown, DE (Virtual Keynote)
Oakland University School of Education, Rochester, MI (Keynote)
National 4H Curriculum Summit, Chevy Chase, MD (Keynote)
Independent Schools Association, Perth, AUSTRALIA (Keynote + Workshop)
Department of Education and Training, Perth, AUSTRALIA (Keynote + 6 Workshops)
Urban Libraries Council, Cleveland, OH (Keynote)
CYFAR 2007 (Dept of Agriculture) Chicago, IL (Keynote)
US Army Infantry School, Fort Benning, GA (Keynote)
Microsoft Canada Expo, Banff, Alberta, Canada (Keynote)
Moanalua High School, Honolulu, HI (Keynote)
Purdue University, IN (Keynote)
ICI Insurance Compliance Training, Coral Gables, FL (Keynote)
Blackhawk Technical College, Tech Expo, Madison, WI (Keynote)
International Conference of Principals (ICP) 2007, Auckland, NEW ZEALAND (Keynote)
US Army War College, Carlisle, PA (Keynote)
CoSN Annual Meeting, San Francisco, CA (Featured Speaker)
CoSN International Symposium, San Francisco, CA (Keynote)
Professional Development Day, Lawndale, CA (Keynote)
Univeristy of Western Ontario, London, ON, CANADA (Keynote)
VSTE conference, Virginia Beach, VA (Keynote)
Texas Community College Teachers Association, Austin TX (Keynote)
Connecting Education and Employment, Wichita, KS (Keynote)
eTech Ohio, Columbus, OH (Keynote)
Texas Association of School Administrators (TASA), Austin, TX (Keynote)
New Jersey Techspo, Atlantic City, NJ (Keynote + Workshop)
Rio Salado Community College, Phoenix, AZ (Keynote + Workshop)
New York City Chief Technology Officers' Club, NY, NY (Keynote)
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