FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Contact: Yen Cheong
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yen.cheong@us.penguingroup.com / 212-336-2275
The book that has been starting conversations about how we can change our schools and workplaces to seize the future
Adopted at UVA, Northwestern, the University of California, and more
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Keynotes in 2011-2012 at Cambridge, Harvard, USC, Dartmouth, Learning and the Brain, MaD Hong Kong, East Asia Regional Conference of Schools (Thailand), DeLange Conference on Higher Education, Aspen Institute on Future of Higher Education, Modern Language Association, American Studies Association, National Archives, NEH Conference on Digital Humanities and many others
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Featured in Harvard Business Review, Chronicle of Higher Education, Fast Company, Wall Street Journal, NPR’s “Tech Nation,” “Marketplace,” and “The Story” with Dick Gordon, Washington Post, Business Week, Inside Higher Ed, and more
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Invited speaker at Google and Mozilla
Available July 31, 2012
NOW YOU SEE IT
How Technology and Brain Science Will Transform Schools and Business for the 21st Century
Cathy N. Davidson
“In her galvanic new book, Ms. Davidson, one of the nation’s great digital minds, has written an immensely enjoyable omni-manifesto. Rooted in … rigorous history, philosophy and science, this book … doubles as an optimistic, even thrilling, summer read.”
—The New York Times
NOW YOU SEE IT is “filled with instructive anecdotes and genuine insights.”
—The Wall Street Journal
“A remarkable new book, Now You See It … offers a fresh and reassuring perspective on how to manage anxieties about the bewildering pace of technological change … [Davidson’s] work is the most powerful yet to insist that we can and should manage the impact of these changes
in our lives.”
—Fast Company
“The book’s purpose and strength are in detailing the important lessons we can glean from the online world. If Davidson is right, 21st-century society will move away from categorizing people based on standardized tests, which are crude measures of intelligence at best. Instead we will define new metrics, ones that are better aligned with the skills needed to succeed in the shifting global marketplace. And those who cannot embrace this multidisciplinary world will simply be left behind.”
—Scientific American
About the Book
Cathy Davidson’s acclaimed book NOW YOU SEE IT: How Technology and Brain Science Will Transform Schools and Business for the 21st Century (Penguin Books; ISBN: 9780143121268; On-sale Date: July 31, 2012; Pages: 352; Price: $16.00) has helped spark a spirited conversation about how the principles of the Internet will shape our schools and workplaces going forward. Davidson, who teaches a popular class at Duke called “This is Your Brain on the Internet,” stands opposite Web naysayers like Nicholas Carr and Sherry Turkle; her work as vice-provost at Duke and head of the HASTAC nonprofit (not to mention her recent appointment by President Obama to the National Council for the Humanities) has focused on how we can build institutions to take better advantage of the web-powered world, tossing out the staid hierarchies of the 20th century in favor of models that are more flexible and customizable. NOW YOU SEE IT captures the essence of this work, offering key insights for parents, teachers, employees, executives, and more.
In 2003, Davidson helped spearhead Duke’s effort to provide free iPods to every member of the incoming freshman class. Critics thought it was a waste, but it turned out to be a watershed moment—by the end of the year, Duke students had found academic uses for the device in virtually every discipline, including medical students who used them to identify heart arrhythmias during patients’ exams.
This radical experiment is at the heart of NOW YOU SEE IT, as it proved to be a classic example of the power of disruption—a way of adopting changing technology, refocusing attention and exploring new possibilities—and offers a solution to one of our society’s greatest challenges: while we’ve all acknowledged the great changes of the digital age, most of us still toil in schools and workplaces designed for the last century.
To show the remarkable power of this approach, Davidson takes us on a tour of the future of work and education, introducing us to visionaries who have found ways to thrive in changing, uncertain times and whose groundbreaking ideas will soon affect us all. From schools with curriculums built around video games, to companies that use virtual environments to train workers, Davidson opens a window onto the possibilities of a world that has done away with rigid hierarchy and replaced it with the collaborative spirit of the Internet and the World Wide Web. Named a “Top Ten Science Book” of the year by Publisher’s Weekly, NOW YOU SEE IT is a refreshingly optimistic argument for a bold embrace of our connected, collaborative future.
About the Author
Cathy N. Davidson served from 1998 until 2006 as the first Vice Provost for Interdisciplinary Studies at Duke University, where she worked with faculty to help create many programs, including the Center for Cognitive Neuroscience and the program in Information Science + Information Studies (ISIS). She is the co-founder of Humanities, Arts, Science, and Technology Advanced Collaboratory, HASTAC (“haystack”), a network of some 10,000 innovators dedicated to new forms of learning for the digital age. She is also co-director of the $2 million annual HASTAC/John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation Digital Media and Learning Competition. Davidson is the John Hope Franklin Humanities Institute Professor of Interdisciplinary Studies and co-director of the Ph.D. Lab in Digital Knowledge at Duke University. She has published more than 20 books, and blogs regularly on new media, learning, 21st century management skills, and innovation on the www.hastac.org website as well as for Wall Street Journal, Harvard Business Review, Fast Company, Chronicle of Higher Education, and other publications. She was confirmed by the U.S. Senate and appointed by President Obama to the National Council of the Humanities in 2011. In July 2012 she was named the first educator on the six-person Board of Directors of the Mozilla Foundation.
NOW YOU SEE IT: How Technology and Brain Science Will Transform Schools and Business for the 21st Century
Cathy N. Davidson
Penguin | ISBN: 9780143121268 | On-sale Date: July 31, 2012| Pages: 352 | Price: $16.00 | Available as an ebook
For more information about NOW YOU SEE IT, please visit http://us.penguingroup.com or http://www.cathydavidson.com.
For all other inquiries, please contact:
Anna Rose Beck
anna.rose.beck@duke.edu
919-684-8471
Penguin Group (USA) Inc. is the U.S. member of the internationally renowned Penguin Group. Penguin Group (USA) is one of the leading U.S. adult and children’s trade book publishers, owning a wide range of imprints and trademarks, including Berkley Books, Dutton, Frederick Warne, G.P. Putnam’s Sons, Grosset & Dunlap, New American Library, Penguin, Philomel, Riverhead Books and Viking, among others. The Penguin Group is part of Pearson plc, the international media company.