Friday Video: Authors@Google: Cathy Davidson

When Cathy Davidson and Duke University advocated giving free iPods to the freshman class in 2003, critics said the university was wasting their money. Yet when students in practically every discipline invented academic uses for the music players, suddenly the idea could be seen in a new light—as an innovative way to turn learning on its head. This radical experiment is at the heart of Davidson’s inspiring new book. Using cutting-edge research on the brain, she shows how “attention blindness” has produced 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. Davidson introduces us to visionaries whose groundbreaking ideas—from schools with curriculums built around video games to companies that train workers using virtual environments—will open the doors to new ways of working and learning. A lively hybrid of Thomas Friedman and Normal Doidge, Now You See It is a refreshingly optimistic argument for a bold embrace of our connected, collaborative future. “Starts where Malcolm Gladwell leaves off, showing how digital information will change our brains. We need this book.”—Daniel Levitin, author of the New York Times bestseller This Is Your Brain On Music. Bio: 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 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.