Choosing a book to read is sometimes an easy thing, as in the case of the next Harry Potter book or anything that Malcolm Gladwell puts to press. Choosing a book from a list that somebody else put together though, especially if none of the titles or authors are familiar, can be a bit more daunting.
New and Emerging Technologies for Schools (NET4S) Book List
Participants should choose one of these books to read during the New and Emerging Technologies course and should gain access to the text by week three. During the course, participants will engage in literature circles based on their text select ion.
The Dumbest Generation by Mark Bauerlein
Out of Our Minds by Ken Robinson
Disrupting Class by Clayton M. Christensen, Curtis W. Johnson, and Michael B. Horn
A Whole New Mind by Daniel H. Pink
The Global Achievement Gap by Tony Wagner
21st Century Skills by Bernie Trilling, Charles Fadel
Why Don't Students Like School? by Daniel T. Willingham
That's why we created the booklist for this course. We wanted to give you some choice rather than just assigning a single text, but we wanted to avoid the decision paralysis that can accompany too much choice. So how did we create this list?
First, at least one of us has read each of the books on the list, and found them to be
interesting and relevant to 21st century teaching and learning. We may not agree with all of the points made by each of the authors, but we did agree that these perspectives are thought-provoking and worthy of conversation.
Next, we took into account the accessibility (easy to find or perhaps borrow or maybe
even pull off your own bookshelf), the possible cost (all are between $10-$20), and the length of the book (right around 250-275 pages). A number of other very relevant and interesting books were cut from the list due to being expensive or a bit wordy (for the purpose of this course, anyway).
And so, here it is. The list is in random order, so there is no preference or ranking indicated. We hope you enjoy the literature circle experience!
