This first volume is meant to be a quick and easy introduction to meaningful gamification.It is a relatively short book, ~200 pages, and it includes a veritable treasure trove of strategies you can implement in any class. These strategies have been tested in multiple classes both big and small under a variety of conditions. And just in case you worry that these strategies are yet another bandwagon to jump on that won't actually work in your own classroom, you will see that they are...

String theory is one of the most exciting and challenging areas of modern theoretical physics. This book guides the reader from the basics of string theory to recent developments. It introduces the basics of perturbative string theory, world-sheet supersymmetry, space-time supersymmetry, conformal field theory and the heterotic string, before describing modern developments, including D-branes, string dualities and M-theory. It then covers string geometry and flux compactifications, applica...

This book presents an in-depth overview of the uses of digital games in education, from K-12 up through post-secondary. Beginning with a look at the history of games in education and the context for digital games, this book guides readers through various methods of serious game implementation, including the Magic Bullet Model, which focuses on the player's point of view of the game experience. The book also includes methods of measuring the effects of games in education and guidance on cre...

Finalist for the 2011 Pulitzer Prize in General Nonfiction: “Nicholas Carr has written a Silent Spring for the literary mind.”—Michael Agger, Slate“Is Google making us stupid?” When Nicholas Carr posed that question, in a celebrated Atlantic Monthly cover story, he tapped into a well of anxiety about how the Internet is changing us. He also crystallized one of the most important debates of our time: As we enjoy the Net’s bounties, are we sacrificing our a...

"Karl has written the definitive guide to gamification, which itself is accessible and engaging. He brings trends to life and illustrates the principles of gamification through numerous examples from real-world games.... There is no doubt that 'gamification' is an important and powerful weapon in the arsenal for learning, marketing, and behavior change of any kind. This book is a valuable guide for all who are trying to understand or adopt these important design principles."

This guide helps teachers integrate online with face-to-face instruction to personalize learning, increase engagement, and prepare students for high-stakes exams without sacrificing class time.

How to optimize educational spaces and teaching practices for more effective learningAuthor David Thornburg, an award-winning futurist and educational consultant, maintains that in order to engage all students, learning institutions should offer a balance of Campfire spaces (home of the lecture), Watering Holes (home to conversations between peers), Caves (places for quiet reflection), and Life (places where students can apply what they've learned). In order to eff...

The blind person who tries to make an online purchase. The young girl who cannot speak due to a cognitive disability. The man confined to his home due to permanent injury. The single mother with a long-term illness who struggles to feed her family.With one in seven people worldwide currently living with a disability, the term "outcast" covers numerous scenarios. Digital outcasts rely on technology for everyday services that many people take for granted. However, poorly designed pro...

Learn the psychological constrictions of attention, perception, memory, disposition, motivation, and social influence that determine whether customers will be receptive to your digital innovations.Bottlenecks: Aligning UX Design with User Psychology fills a need for entrepreneurs, designers, and marketing professionals in the application of foundational psychology to user-experience design. The first generation of books on the topic focused on web pages and cognitive psych...

From Robocop to the Terminator to Eve 8, no image better captures our deepest fears about technology than the cyborg, the person who is both flesh and metal, brain and electronics. But philosopher and cognitive scientist Andy Clark sees it differently. Cyborgs, he writes, are not something to be feared--we already are cyborgs. In Natural-Born Cyborgs, Clark argues that what makes humans so different from other species is our capacity to fully incorporate tools and supporting cultu...

“Everybody loves an innovation, an idea that sells.“ But how do we arrive at such ideas that sell? And is it possible to learn how to become an innovator? Over the years Design Thinking – a program originally developed in the engineering department of Stanford University and offered by the two D-schools at the Hasso Plattner Institutes in Stanford and in Potsdam – has proved to be really successful in educating innovators. It blends an end-user focus with multidisciplinary collaboration an...

Three-dimensional (3D) immersive virtual worlds have been touted as being capable of facilitating highly interactive, engaging, multimodal learning experiences. Much of the evidence gathered to support these claims has been anecdotal but the potential that these environments hold to solve traditional problems in online and technology-mediated education—primarily learner isolation and student disengagement—has resulted in considerable investments in virtual world platforms like Second Life,...