FOREWORD
By Sivasailam “Thiagi” Thiagarajan,
President, Workshops by Thiagi

Early in my life, my mentor explained to me the three paths that lead to the creation of knowledge: The analytical path, where philosophers reflect, meditate, and make sense of objects and events; the empirical path, where scientists manipulate variables and conduct controlled experiments to validate reliable principles; and the pragmatic path where practitioners struggle with real-world challenges and come up with strategies for effective and efficient performance.

In this book, Marc Prensky has followed all three paths to create and share knowledge related to education and training. He has systematically analyzed the contexts and events of training and has synthesized a logical framework for digital game based learning. He has reviewed and summarized major empirical principles from psychological and sociological points of view. Most importantly, he has practiced (and continues to practice) what he preaches: Marc has designed, implemented, and evaluated digital game based learning. He has successfully presented the business case to management and managed game design projects.

During the past six years, I have watched Marc in action while he made keynote presentations at professional conferences. With the unerring intuition of a street performer, he attracts and holds the attention of the audience and explains complex concepts in plain language. With the charm and wit of a storyteller, he communicates clearly through the use of appropriate examples and meaningful metaphors. This powerful communication skill is apparent in Marc’s writing style also. However, don’t be mislead by the readability of the book. It contains deep scholarship and profound messages. The style of the book invites you to take hyper-reading approach. Before you know it, you flip to random pages, surf the text, and become totally immersed in the content.

The book has several important messages and I won’t attempt to summarize all of them. However, here are some specific topics that I find to be fascinating:

As a corporate trainer, I see the significant implications of the chapter on how learners have changed. Although I was born before the Second World War (remember those antique days?), I have tried to pass myself off as a member of the twitch-speed generation ever since I decided to beat my son in playing a precursor of Pong on a Radio Shack Model I computer. Unfortunately, in spite of my second childhood behavior, I still have an immigrant accent when compared to my son and his age cohorts. However, knowing the 10 ways (plus “attitude”) in which the games generation is different from my generation has made it easy for me to design my training materials and methods to appeal to the parallel processing, random-accessing, fantasy-focused, connected group.

As an instructional designer, I am impressed by Marc’s explanation of how and why digital game based learning works. From the second part of the book, I have learned several strategies for making my training give the learners enjoyment, involvement, structure, motivation, action, flow, ego gratification, adrenaline, creativity and passion.

As a business consultant, I am happy with the wealth of examples and case studies presented by Marc, especially in the third part of the book. I am no longer tongue-tied when a client says, “All of this sounds great. But can you give me examples of where this stuff is being used? And what results does it produce?” I can select the most appropriate example that makes sense to the client. I am also grateful to Marc for the guidelines and details that he has provided for convincing management and getting the bucks.

I don’t believe (and neither does Marc) that the digital game-based learning framework presented in this book is the only or the best approach to education and training. I have been in the training business for a long period of time and in the interactive game design business for an equal period of time. The frightening and exciting thing about technology is that it is changing rapidly and we have yet to see the major changes. We cannot slow down or turn back the changes in the field of education and training. They are automatic consequences of the fact that the newer generations are growing up digital.

Let’s accept the inevitability of things to come—and play with them!