I have been reading this book on my iPad and am in frequent Twitter conversation with the author, Clive Thompson. Remember, he even joined in our G+ convo once when we were reading his Wired Magazine article “Thinking Aloud”?

I am so impressed with this book as a resource for Theory of Knowledge that I’ve asked the powers that be if it would be ok to switch up my usual summer assignments and replace with offering this as assigned exploratory reading.

After notifying Clive Thompson, I was thrilled to hear that he is very enthused about the fact you’ll be reading it and asking questions and is happy to dialogue with us in text and perhaps over Skype or G+ Hangout.

Step 1 : BUY THE BOOK

Clive says the cheapest is Kindle, as the paperback is not out yet.

HERE IS THE LINK TO AMAZON (as aforementioned, I bought mine on iTunes for my iPad, which is great because I like the digital highlighting/ annotation tools)

 Step 2: CHECK OUT THE ACCOMPANYING WEB SITE

Clive has a lovely website just for this book, on which he posts related material such as this video

Website: http://smarterthanyouthink.net/

Video:

Step 3: READ AND ANNOTATE THE BOOK

As you read, you should make your own annotations and highlights, alluding to your own personal thoughts and questions. You may even choose to do marginalia if you have a physical copy. What’s marginalia? It’s basically a hypertextual, meta activity the medieval monks did, but…my friend @Braddo (the guy who teaches TOK in Vancouver) has brought it into the new millenium with his hybrid of analog/ digital (yes, you can take photos and blog or tweet).

See Brad Ovenell-Carter’s modern marginalia of Austin Kleon’s Show Your Work HERE

Just a note: Brad’s TOK class might actually be joining us on this project

Another teacher, Sean Ziebarth, @MrZiebarth, got his students to annotate over Brad’s marginalia

SEE MORE HERE

Step 4: Collaborate and Share

The next step is to periodically share out your thoughts via your blog, Twitter, AND THE OFFICIAL G+ COMMUNITY:

CLICK HERE TO JOIN AND ACCESS THE STYT G+ COMMUNITY

The Twitter and G+ Community tags will be #tokbac #styt (for Smarter Than You Think)…the #tokbac is what we use in collaboration with #tokkrew11 in Vancouver…if you want to tag #tokkailua as well you can.

**I encourage you to CROSS-POST (post in multiple places) as the audiences are different

***Clive Thompson will have access to our G+ community and G doc, as well as Twitter of course.

Step 5: CONTINUE THE CONVERSATION

As we come back to school in August, we will have some time to reflect about our findings/ questions in the form of presentations and socratic circles. Also, I’ll arrange a time(s) for Clive Thompson to actually Skype or Hangout with us.

***EXPECTATIONS are that you will have read the entire book and will have completed annotations by the 2nd week of your Senior year (so ideally please finish over the summer).

To wet your appetite, HERE IS AN INTERVIEW with Clive

HAPPY READING PARTY!!! HAVE A GREAT SUMMER!!!