Quotations
“Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things that you didn't do than by the ones you did do. So throw off the bowlines. Sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover.” — Mark Twain
“Play is the highest form of research.” — Albert Einstein
“Whoever wants to understand much must play much.” — Gottfried Benn, German physician (1886-1956)
“A child loves his play, not because it’s easy, but because it’s hard.” — Benjamin Spock
“We don't stop playing because we grow old, we grow old because we stop playing.” — Oliver Wendell Holmes
“People tend to forget that play is serious.” — David Hockney, Contemporary British painter
“Do not keep children to their studies by compulsion but by play.” — Plato
“Children at play are not playing about. Their games should be seen as their most serious minded activity.” — Michel de Montaigne, French essayist (1533-1592)
“The creation of something new is not accomplished by the intellect but by the play instinct.” — Carl Jung, Swiss psychoanalyst (1875-1961)
“Play is training for the unexpected.” — Marc Bekoff, Contemporary American biologist
“The playing adult steps sideward into another reality; the playing child advances forward to new stages of mastery.” — Erik H. Erikson, American psychoanalyst (1902-1994)
“One of the most difficult tasks men can perform, however much others may despise it, is the invention of good games. And it cannot be done by men out of touch with their instinctive selves.” — Carl Jung, Swiss psychoanalyst (1875-1961)
“I have missed more than 9,000 shots in my life. I have lost almost 300 games. 26 times I have been trusted to take the game-winning shot and missed. I have failed over and over and over again. That is why I succeed . . .” — Michael Jordan
“All truth passes through three stages. First, it is ridiculed. Second, it is violently opposed. Third, it is accepted as being self-evident.” — Arthur Schopenhauer, German philosopher (1788-1869)
“The virtue of a computer in the classroom is that it requires a user, not a watcher.” — Diane Ravitch
“Powerpoint has a pharmaceutical effect and should be FDA regulated.” — Elliott Masie, Masie Center
“With new technologies we've tended to do the same things more efficiently, when what we need is to do different things more effectively.” — Christopher Dede, Professor, Harvard School of Education
“How do we use the power of technology without adapting to it so completely that we ourselves behave like machines lost in the levers and cogs, lonesome for the love of life, hungry for the thrill of directly experiencing the vivid intensity of the ever-changing moment?” — Al Gore, Earth in the Balance
“Some people see things as they are and say why. I see things that never were and say why not. ” — George Bernard Shaw
“It is not the strongest of the species that survive, nor the most intelligent, but the one most responsive to change. ” — Charles Darwin
“It is ironic how rigidly trained we have been to . . . argue ideas as though we believed a decision had to be made. Is Hamlet mad or not? The world will little note which decision we reach. But we will long remember whether we have explored the question in a way calculated to enrich our understanding of the play and our relationship with each other. ” — Kahn, M., "The Seminar: An Experiment in Humanistic Education." Journal of Humanistic Psychology 21 no. 2 (Spring 1981): 119-27.
“To learn, I must dance with my subject . . . fly it, ride it, spin it upside down, write a poem about it, sing about it . . . shake my fist at it, think about it, draw it, animate it, eat it, see it through a microscope and a telescope, make love with it . . . experiment with it, fly over it and under it, see it in different lights, textures, fabrics . . . taste it in different flavors, understand it in different contexts . . . cry about it, despair of it, take joy in it, try it in another country . . . pour it on my pancakes. ” — Michael Medwid, 1991
“My work is a game, a very serious game.” — M. C. Escher (1898-1972)
“Sometimes when you innovate, you make mistakes. It is best to admit them quickly, and get on with improving your other innovations.” — Steve Jobs
“Creativity represents a miraculous coming together of the uninhibited energy of the child with its apparent opposite and enemy, the sense of order imposed on the disciplined adult intelligence.” — Norman Podhoretz
“Creativity is the power to connect the seemingly unconnected.” — William Plomer
“The day before something is a breakthrough, it was a crazy idea. ” — Heard during NPR interview, April 2007
“With virtual reality, it is likely that we will soon communicate with one another through simulated environments, through ‘telepresence,’ perhaps guiding our own software representations, our digital agents or avatars, to interact in a virtual world.” — James J. Duderstadt and Farris W. Womack, The Future of the Public University in America: Beyond the Crossroads
“The traditional classroom paradigm is also being challenged by digital technology, driven not so much by the faculty, but by students.” — James J. Duderstadt and Farris W. Womack, The Future of the Public University in America: Beyond the Crossroads
“Ours is now a world that demands that people know how to learn new things–especially technical things–quickly and well; that they know how to collaborate, especially with people not just like themselves; and that they know how to think strategically and laterally as well as linearly and logically. These are all skills that good video games demand and teach.” — Marc Prensky, Don’t Bother Me Mom—I’m Learning
“Imagine a textbook that contained all the facts and rules about basketball read by students who never played or watched the game. How well do you think they would understand this textbook? . . . But we do this sort of thing all the time in school with areas like science and math.” — James Paul Gee, What Video Games Have to Teach Us About Learning and Literacy
“The game encourages him to think of himself as an active problem solver, one who persists in trying to solve problems even after making mistakes; one who, in fact, does not see mistakes as errors but as opportunities for reflection and learning.” — James Paul Gee, What Video Games Have to Teach Us About Learning and Literacy
“I believe learning comes from passion, not discipline.” — Nicholas Negroponte, The Media Lab
“[Students] approach learning as a ‘plug-and-play’ experience; they are unaccustomed and unwilling to learn sequentially–to read the manual–and, instead, are inclined to plunge in and learn through participation and experimentation. Although this type of learning is quite different [?], it may be more effective for this generation, particularly when provided through a media-rich environment.” — James J. Duderstadt and Farris W. Womack, The Future of the Public University in America: Beyond the Crossroads
“Ideas and products and messages and behaviors spread just like viruses do.” — Malcolm Gladwell, The Tipping Point
“Just as the university is challenged in adapting to new forms of teaching and research stimulated by rapidly evolving information technology, so too its organization, governance, management, and relationships to students, faculty, and staff will require serious reevaluation and almost certain change.” — James J. Duderstadt and Farris W. Womack, The Future of the Public University in America: Beyond the Crossroads
“Today, like no time in the past, major funding opportunities lie at the intersection of disciplines.” — Annual (Draft) Report of the UNC-Chapel Hill Faculty Committee on Research, April 27, 2006
“There is clearly a need to explore new forms of learning and learning institutions which are capable of sensing and understanding the change and of engaging in the strategic processes necessary to adapt or control it.” — James J. Duderstadt and Farris W. Womack, The Future of the Public University in America: Beyond the Crossroads
