The twelfth article: Marc Prensky. Open Collaboration.

 Marc Prensky. Open Collaboration.

Marc Prensky elaborates on Game Based Learning in this article. He suggests that games are good for Digital Natives because they put them in the middle of the story and give them intellectual fun. He also insists on putting this kind of learning materials online without any fee so that everybody could contribute to the game or other learning materials in order to make for example a tiny game into something much bigger. Prensky gives examples of different cases which have managed to evolve to various bigger concepts.
He also explains why it is necessary to leave the game or other source's source code open - it is because education needs innovation (because current e-sources are according to him "pathetic" (p. 5)), and collaboration with different teachers, because innovation needs to be encouraged.
He brings about the idea of open content where people like to give their input. He notes that Tim Berners Lee has already said that important is not what you take out from the Internet, but what you put in it. This system is self-organising, thus no need to worry about the appropriateness.
He also raises the question of money. Prensky thinks that making something payable prevents innovation growth, and that it is not allowed by educators. He says that such money does not make anyone particularly rich (p. 6).
He says that there is no point in keeping to one's page, people must make content that is engaging and possible through open collaboration.

This article raised a few thoughts of how to develop such games if you are not a programmer. There are computer specialists at school, but everybody nowadays demands money for extra work. In Estonia we are still learning to teach the Web 2.0 devices, when the web itself is moving on. I think that only enthusiasts agree with Prensky, but majority who do not want to hear anything about extra work, are not contributors. Then there is the money issue, which could still become a problem in this consuming society.
Certainly teachers like Kim Casper can easily develop content (but still with money issues in mind), because they have a few lessons per week compared to lots of teachers from Estonia who have neither time nor the stamina to create such online content. But there are still more teachers than Estonian teachers who would be able to add to such initiative. It is a great concept, but needs enthusiasts to contribute to it.