A New Culture of Learning

A New Culture of Learning is a book written by Douglas Thomas and John Seely Brown that explores the new and forever-evolving world that we live in today. The book's main goal was to challenge our typical concept of what a culture really is, and, from my perspective, it succeeded. Rather than regarding culture as an entity that changes over a long period of time, this book suggests that today's "culture" is constantly adapting to it's surroundings. This new concept of culture is supported by various personal stories throughout the chapters. The book also takes a closer look at how this new culture affects our education system and our ability to learn by establishing play, innovation, and the cultivation of the imagination as the "cornerstones of learning."


Overall, I would say that I do agree with Thomas & Brown's theory of a constantly evolving culture. And I definitely agree with the idea that learning is no longer just taking place in classrooms, but that it is taking place everywhere, (often times through digital networking). I also really liked the fact that the evolution of our learning style was stressed continuously throughout the book. I think that one of the largest problems in our education system today is that some teachers still refuse to acknowledge that today's generation really does learn things differently than previous generations. The majority of us require a more integrated approach between technology and the basics than many teachers are willing to give. I love that people are starting to realize that and that some of them are doing something about it. 


For the most part, I genuinely liked the content of this book. However, I think that it could have been organized into a less repetitive prose and could've possibly been shortened a bit. Overall, the book went along very well with everything we've been learning about in class. Content-wise, it was a very good choice for Media Literacy. 

Photo Story: What Happens When College Residents Get Bored...

Once upon a time there were three girls who lived in a college dorm together that wanted to play a prank on one of their suite mates. They decided to sneak in her room while she was sleeping, (since she had conveniently left her door open), to see if she would wake up. (She was well-known for being a heavy sleeper.) They thought it would be funny to "creep" on her...

As soon as they made sure she was really asleep...

they quietly proceeded to sneak into the room.

They even crawled so that, if she did wake up, she wouldn't see them. 

Once inside, they saw that the girl was sleeping like a rock, as usual. They all gathered closely around her to see if she could feel their presence; one of them even got on the bed with her. But she still didn't wake up. 

One girl even poked her.

This time she did wake up. 

She was not a happy camper. 

So the angry suite mate became violent. 

But she eventually got over it and laughed the whole incident off with her friends. Gordy Hall became a happy place again. 

The End.