The Dot


Book Description

Vashti believes that she cannot draw, but her art teacher's encouragement leads her to change her mind and she goes on to encourage another student who feels the same as she had.




WALC 6


Book Description

Provides a comprehensive series of tasks and functional carryover activities allowing for integration of language and cognitive skills for neurologically-impaired adolescents and adults with diverse levels of functioning. Exercises cover a broad scope of skills including orientation, auditory comprehension, verbal expression, and reading comprehension.




Actionable Gamification


Book Description

Learn all about implementing a good gamification design into your products, workplace, and lifestyle Key FeaturesExplore what makes a game fun and engagingGain insight into the Octalysis Framework and its applicationsDiscover the potential of the Core Drives of gamification through real-world scenariosBook Description Effective gamification is a combination of game design, game dynamics, user experience, and ROI-driving business implementations. This book explores the interplay between these disciplines and captures the core principles that contribute to a good gamification design. The book starts with an overview of the Octalysis Framework and the 8 Core Drives that can be used to build strategies around the various systems that make games engaging. As the book progresses, each chapter delves deep into a Core Drive, explaining its design and how it should be used. Finally, to apply all the concepts and techniques that you learn throughout, the book contains a brief showcase of using the Octalysis Framework to design a project experience from scratch. After reading this book, you'll have the knowledge and skills to enable the widespread adoption of good gamification and human-focused design in all types of industries. What you will learnDiscover ways to use gamification techniques in real-world situationsDesign fun, engaging, and rewarding experiences with OctalysisUnderstand what gamification means and how to categorize itLeverage the power of different Core Drives in your applicationsExplore how Left Brain and Right Brain Core Drives differ in motivation and design methodologiesExamine the fascinating intricacies of White Hat and Black Hat Core DrivesWho this book is for Anyone who wants to implement gamification principles and techniques into their products, workplace, and lifestyle will find this book useful.




Reality Is Broken


Book Description

“McGonigal is a clear, methodical writer, and her ideas are well argued. Assertions are backed by countless psychological studies.” —The Boston Globe “Powerful and provocative . . . McGonigal makes a persuasive case that games have a lot to teach us about how to make our lives, and the world, better.” —San Jose Mercury News “Jane McGonigal's insights have the elegant, compact, deadly simplicity of plutonium, and the same explosive force.” —Cory Doctorow, author of Little Brother A visionary game designer reveals how we can harness the power of games to boost global happiness. With 174 million gamers in the United States alone, we now live in a world where every generation will be a gamer generation. But why, Jane McGonigal asks, should games be used for escapist entertainment alone? In this groundbreaking book, she shows how we can leverage the power of games to fix what is wrong with the real world-from social problems like depression and obesity to global issues like poverty and climate change-and introduces us to cutting-edge games that are already changing the business, education, and nonprofit worlds. Written for gamers and non-gamers alike, Reality Is Broken shows that the future will belong to those who can understand, design, and play games. Jane McGonigal is also the author of SuperBetter: A Revolutionary Approach to Getting Stronger, Happier, Braver and More Resilient.




How to Conquer the New York Times Crossword Puzzle


Book Description

The New York Times is the gold standard of crossword puzzles. Drawing from the top puzzle constructors in the nation, the Times puzzles are considered the cleverest, most engaging and at times, trickiest puzzles of all. This guide will help puzzlers of all skill levels improve and enjoy the New York Times crossword. Along with helpful discussions and hints, every puzzle in How to Conquer the New York Times Crossword Puzzle is annotated with solving tips and insight from veteran constructors and solver to help you master the nation's #1 puzzle! This volume includes: *60 Times puzzles from easy Monday to devilish Saturday and giant Sunday, each with helpful tips and clues *Lists of most common crossword words, clues, and ways constructors try to trick you*Step-by-step solving instructions provide readers with instruction on how to tackle puzzles of every difficulty level*How to construct a puzzle: A chapter offers a behind-the-scenes look at what goes into making a great crossword *Introduction from puzzle great Will Shortz, crossword editor for The New York Times




Big-Time Sports in American Universities


Book Description

This book expands on the argument that spectator sports, despite their problems, have become a central function of American universities.




Sweating Bullets


Book Description

PowerPoint was the first presentation software designed for Macintosh and Windows, received the first venture capital investment ever made by Apple, then became the first significant acquisition ever made by Microsoft, who set up a new Graphics Business Unit in Silicon Valley to develop it further. Now, twenty-five years later, PowerPoint is installed on more than one billion computers, worldwide. In this book, Robert Gaskins (who invented the idea, managed its design and development, and then headed the new Microsoft group) tells the story of its first years, recounting the perils and disasters narrowly evaded as a startup, dissecting the complexities of being the first distant development group in Microsoft, and explaining decisions and insights that enabled PowerPoint to become a lasting success well beyond its original business uses.




Hanging Out, Messing Around, and Geeking Out


Book Description

An examination of young people's everyday new media practices—including video-game playing, text-messaging, digital media production, and social media use. Conventional wisdom about young people's use of digital technology often equates generational identity with technology identity: today's teens seem constantly plugged in to video games, social networking sites, and text messaging. Yet there is little actual research that investigates the intricate dynamics of youths' social and recreational use of digital media. Hanging Out, Messing Around, and Geeking Out fills this gap, reporting on an ambitious three-year ethnographic investigation into how young people are living and learning with new media in varied settings—at home, in after-school programs, and in online spaces. Integrating twenty-three case studies—which include Harry Potter podcasting, video-game playing, music sharing, and online romantic breakups—in a unique collaborative authorship style, Hanging Out, Messing Around, and Geeking Out is distinctive for its combination of in-depth description of specific group dynamics with conceptual analysis.




Idea Man


Book Description

What's it like to start a revolution? How do you build the biggest tech company in the world? And why do you walk away from it all? Paul Allen co-founded Microsoft. Together he and Bill Gates turned an idea - writing software - into a company and then an entire industry. This is the story of how it came about: two young mavericks who turned technology on its head, the bitter battles as each tried to stamp his vision on the future and the ruthless brilliance and fierce commitment.




Watching the English


Book Description

Updated, with new research and over 100 revisions Ten years later, they're still talking about the weather! Kate Fox, the social anthropologist who put the quirks and hidden conditions of the English under a microscope, is back with more biting insights about the nature of Englishness. This updated and revised edition of Watching the English - which over the last decade has become the unofficial guidebook to the English national character - features new and fresh insights on the unwritten rules and foibles of "squaddies," bikers, horse-riders, and more. Fox revisits a strange and fascinating culture, governed by complex sets of unspoken rules and bizarre codes of behavior. She demystifies the peculiar cultural rules that baffle us: the rules of weather-speak. The ironic-gnome rule. The reflex apology rule. The paranoid pantomime rule. Class anxiety tests. The roots of English self-mockery and many more. An international bestseller, Watching the English is a biting, affectionate, insightful and often hilarious look at the English and their society.