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The larger conversation about the future of gaming in education
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Bruce Caron
About Me
- bruce caron
- Santa Barbara, California, United States
- I’m the founder and current executive director of the New Media Studio and the New Media Research Institute in Santa Barbara. I am a social anthropologist and an urban cultural geographer. I completed the first multimedia dissertation at UC Santa Barbara. Through the New Media Studio, I am realizing the goal of bringing new tools and skills to the public to help democratize the technological advantages of the digital revolution. I studied with Frank Herbert in Seattle in the 1970s. I have been active for several years in issues of digital libraries, the use of multimedia in education, issues of democracy in digital organizations, and the theory of digital media. I’m leading a public awareness action in Santa Barbara, lightblueline.org, which proposes to paint the seven-meter elevation contour on that city's streets, to mark the vulnerability the community faces due to human induced climate change. We have plans to make this national and global now that Obama has been elected. I’m also working on developing social networking tools for scientists, and I’ve just finished another science fiction novel.
Junana: where Cindy will teach you everything
4 comments:
"Junana was a fabulous book. It was part Snow Crash, part Neuromancer part modern society and the implications of our social networking. It captures what
might happen if we had an accelerated learning system, who would be challenged by the notion, who would build on the notion. The is a great story and many deep issues that leave you reflecting about social networking, gaming, learning and the world that we live in or what it might be.........."
Dave Toole, CEO Outhink Media, Inc.
Another reader, Amber Case, just sent me this:
"In a society quickly shifting into an age of hyper-connectivity, Junana is a timely read. The narrative is as fast-paced and complex as our supermodern technosocial lives. Caron creates a world so vivid and omniscient that one wonders if Caron is simply reporting on something that is already happening. Caron effortlessly handles multiple perspectives, social classes and age groups. Junana should appeal to educators, marketers, programmers and anyone who is a critical thinker looking for something unique and rich for their cranium to bite into. Junana is an important work that provides a lens with which to greater understand the rapid change we're currently experiencing."
You can find Amber at:
Caseorganic
I'm not generally a sci-fi reader, just a geek scientist trying to add to the knowledge base and to share that knowledge. Junana presents, in a fun way, a whole new paradigm of learning for the social media / video game set. It's a not unreasonable view of a possible future.... and I'm really looking forward to the sequel!
There are many science fiction stories describing the effects of information technology on society; what makes this one special is that the grand premise here is not so grand--in fact just the conjunction of many existing technologies and capabilities. What makes it exciting is the manner in which these are woven together, and the picture the author paints of what could be achieved by a radical shift in computational intelligence coupled with a savvy approach to helping us benefit from it. It is also wonderfully refreshing to have a storyline that explores the potential for good in new technology, and that throws down some worthy challenges to our own entrenched values around education, computer games, and what it means to be in a wholesome society.
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