Last spring, I read and enjoyed Clive Thompson's Smarter Than You Think: How Technology Is Changing Our Minds For the Better (2013) with a group of students. Thompson makes a strong case for the ways that technologies actually enhance our cognitive capabilities. His lively and thorough writing style made his book a rewarding reading experience for us.
I'll re-read the book with students this semester. Last semester, we covered Smarter Than You Think in just one class, and this semester, we'll read it in three different courses. I'm looking forward to considering how different groups of students engage the book, and what they are inclined to focus on while reading.
In addition to reading the book for the insights about technology, in at least one of the courses, we'll think through the idea of nonfiction writers as literary artists, studying Thompson as a case in point. In another course, we'll speculate about Thompson's research methods and see if we can apply some of those methods to our own investigations of technology.
Related:
• Poetry conversations and tummeling
• Poetry blogging is more productive and smarter than you think
• The many characters in Smarter Than You Think
• Reading Smarter Than You Think
1 comment:
This title is actually one of the many options we have to read for our Context/Book Review Essay in my Information Communities class... I was planning on reading Contagious (why things catch on) by Jonah Berger... but I may have to make a switch (ah, the art of choosing!)
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