Professional Development Books

 

Great books for pondering the future of technology, work, and education. Click on the title for more information.  The call number is given for those books included in the Upper School Library collection.

 

Everything is Miscellaneous: The power of the new digital disorder by David Weinberger

 

The Flickering Mind: The False Promise of Technology in the Classroom and How Learning Can Be Saved:  http://www.amazon.com/Flickering-Mind-Technology-Classroom-Learning/dp/1400060443

 

Our Underachieving Colleges: A Candid Look at How Much Students Learn and Why They Should Be Learning More by Derek Bok

 

Drawing on a large body of empirical evidence, former Harvard President Derek Bok examines how much progress college students actually make toward widely accepted goals of undergraduate education. His conclusions are sobering. Although most students make gains in many important respects, they improve much less than they should in such important areas as writing, critical thinking, quantitative skills, and moral reasoning. Large majorities of college seniors do not feel that they have made substantial progress in speaking a foreign language, acquiring cultural and aesthetic interests, or learning what they need to know to become active and informed citizens. Overall, despite their vastly increased resources, more powerful technology, and hundreds of new courses, colleges cannot be confident that students are learning more than they did fifty years ago. (Publisher's comments)

 

The Long Tail : The Revolution Changing Small Markets into Big Business by Chris Anderson--658.8 And in US Library

 

The "Long Tail" is a powerful new force in our economy: the rise of the niche. As the cost of reaching consumers drops dramatically, our markets are shifting from a one-size-fits-all model of mass appeal to one of unlimited variety for unique tastes.

The Long Tail is really about the economics of abundance. New efficiencies in distribution, manufacturing, and marketing are essentially resetting the definition of what?s commercially viable across the board. If the 20th century was about hits, the 21st will be equally about niches. From the publisher.

 

Blogs, Wikis, Podcasts, and Other Powerful Web Tools for Classrooms by Will Richardson

 

A longtime evangelist for internet technologies in schools, Richardson (supervisor of instructional technology and communications, Hunterdon Central Regional High School, New Jersey) challenges teachers to think differently about technology in their classrooms and gives them the knowledge to implement the "cool tools" of the web. He includes advice about using weblogs, wikis, RSS, and podcasts in schools and discusses the implications of these changes for educators.

Annotation ©2007 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)

 

Don’t Bother Me Mom--I’m Learning! by Marc Prensky 

 

The positive guide for parents concerned about their kid's video and computer game-playing.

 

Digital Game-Based Learning by Marc Prensky

 

Prensky (CEO of a private firm) presents a strategic and tactical guide to a recent trend in learning combining content with video games and computer games to engage young people entering the work force. With approximately 50 case studies and examples, he illustrates potential application of game-based learning to a variety of industries. Chapters provide background on the topic, explain how games teach, and show what some organizations are already doing.

Annotation c. Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)

 

 

Good to Great: Why Some Companies Make the Leap...and Others Don't by Jim Collins

 

Jim Collins begins this book with a startling and counterintuitive claim: "Good is the enemy of great." We've become so conditioned to think of performance as something that develops along evolutionary lines -- from poor to good to outstanding -- that it takes a minute to grasp the notion that competence can actually inhibit achievement. As Collins says, "The vast majority of companies never become great, precisely because the vast majority become quite good -- and that is their main problem."

Barnes & Noble Review

 

The Rise of the Creative Class: And How It's Transforming Work, Leisure, Community and Everyday Life by Richard Florida--305.5 Flo in US Library

 

In the widely acclaimed, best-selling book, Richard Florida argues that sweeping changes in culture, lifestyle, and values are the result of the rise of a new economic class, the Creative Class, and he shows how the choices this class makes will not only alter work and leisure but will even determine which cities thrive in the coming decades. Powell's synopsis

 

 

The Flight of the Creative Class: The New Global Competition for Talent by Richard Florida--331.12 Flo in US Library

 

In his The Rise of the Creative Class, Florida (Brookings Institute) sparked an international debate over the causes and effects of long-term prosperity, economic development, and innovation. Here he takes his arguments to the next level, explaining how the same conditions that affect regional economic development and talent exchange play out on the world stage. He argues that the US must address problems such as rising inequality and disconnected political leadership to continue to attract foreign students, scientists, creatives, and entrepreneurs.

Annotation ©2004 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)

 

A Whole New Mind : Why Right-Brainers Will Rule the Future by Daniel H. Pink  -- 158.22 P in US Library

 

Lawyers. Accountants. Radiologists. Software engineers. That's what our parents encouraged us to become when we grew up. But Mom and Dad were wrong. The future belongs to a very different kind of person with a very different kind of mind. The era of "left brain" dominance, and the Information Age that it engendered, are giving way to a new world in which "right brain" qualities-inventiveness, empathy, meaning-predominate. That's the argument at the center of this provocative and original book, which uses the two sides of our brains as a metaphor for understanding the contours of our times.

Barnes & Noble synopsis

 

The World Is Flat : A Brief History of the Twenty-first Century by Thomas L. Friedman-- 303.48 Fri in US Library

 

This new edition of The World Is Flat is Thomas L. Friedman’s account of the great changes taking place in our time, as lightning-swift advances in technology and communications put people all over the globe in touch as never before-creating an explosion of wealth in India and China, and challenging the rest of us to run even faster just to stay in place.

From the publisher

 

Empowering Students with Technology by Alan November

 

Technology consultant November explores and explains the opportunities technology provides to empower students to learn how to learn. He discusses the new basic skill of information literacy and covers how teachers can be successful "digital immigrants"—not born to the world of technology, like the current generation, but able to help their students thrive in it nonetheless. He provides examples of skills needed to solve real problems (e.g., communication, data interpretation, collaboration), and how teachers can facilitate their students' learning in these areas with specific technology tools.

Annotation © Book News, Inc., Portland, OR

 

 

The Cluetrain Manifesto: The End of Business as Usual by Christopher Locke, Rick Levine, Doc Searls, David Weinberger

 

Written by four of the liveliest voices on the Web, The Cluetrain Manifesto illustrates how, through the Internet, people are discovering and inventing new ways to share knowledge with blinding speed. As a direct result, markets are getting smarter-and getting smarter faster than most companies. Today's markets are conversations. Their members communicate in language that is natural, open, honest, direct, funny, and often shocking. Companies that aren't listening to these exchanges are missing a dire warning. Companies that aren't engaging in them are missing an unprecedented opportunity.

Barnes & Noble synopsis

 

 

High Noon: 20 Global Problems and 20 Years to Solve Them by  J. F. Rischard

 

The most impressive idea to emerge from the recent World Economic Summit in Davos, Switzerland: a new approach to identifying and managing the world's twenty most pressing problems.

In this age of instant communication and biotechnology, on this ever-smaller planet, what kinds of problems have we created for ourselves? How do we tackle them in a world where the accustomed methods used by nation-states may be reaching their natural limits? In High Noon, J. F. Rischard challenges us to take a new approach to the twenty most important and urgent global problems of the twenty-first century. Rischard finds their common thread: we don't have an effective way of dealing with the problems that our increasingly crowded, interconnected world creates. Our difficulties belong to the future, but our means of solving them belong to the past.  Barnes & Noble synopsis

 

 

The Victorian Internet: The remarkable story of the telegraph and the nineteenth century's on-line pioneers  by  Tom Standage

 

At last an antidote to the Internet hype. Tom Standage thinks the net isn't all that big a deal -- after all, the telegraph revolutionized 19th-century life in more ways than the cyber upstart has changed modern communications. So phooey.

Barnes & Noble synopsis

 

Windows on the Future: Education in the Age of Technology by Ian Jukes and Ted McCain

 

Windows on the Future was designed to help the educator cope with changes created by technology and embrace a new mindset necessary to access the burgeoning technological advances. McCain and Jukes offer new paradigms and frameworks to keep schools and students relevant in the 21^st Century. Critical issues explored include:

• Key trends for the new millennium
• The power of paradigm
• Education in the future
• New skills for students
• New roles for educators
• The need for vision

Barnes & Noble synopsis

 

Wikinomics: How Mass Collaboration Changes Everything" Don Tapscott 

 

Generation MySpace: Helping Your Teen Survive Online Adolescence" Candice M. Kelsey

 

Everything Is Miscellaneous: The Power of the New Digital Disorder" David Weinberger