From the author of Live from Medicine Park, a powerful coming-of-age novel.Set against the closing years of the Cold War, Constance Squires's debut novel introduces the family of Army Major Collins, as told through the eyes of Lucinda Collins-the vibrant, headstrong eldest daughter. Living on a military base, Lucinda feels displaced and isolated. Over time she finds her own tribe through rock and roll, and meets fellow Army brats, GIs, a ghost, and Syd, wh...

Hit Your Brights captures people in tough spots, often of their own making. Fusing humor and tragedy, these thirteen gritty stories keep readers in suspense. Danger lurks, the needle skips, the bomb goes off, and the empties pile up. Outcomes are unpredictable, but the car always starts, and, sometimes, love wins.Constance Squires casts the diminished circumstances of her characters with authentic detail familiar to any reader who has spent time in flyover country—a swath ...

This volume is the first reader on video games and learning of its kind. Covering game design, game culture and games as twenty-first-century pedagogy, it demonstrates the depth and breadth of scholarship on games and learning to date. The chapters represent some of the most influential thinkers, designers and writers in the emerging field of games and learning - including James Paul Gee, Soren Johnson, Eric Klopfer, Colleen Macklin, Thomas Malaby, Bonnie Nardi, David Sirlin and others. To...

Documentary filmmaker Ray Wheeler is down on his luck. Embroiled in a lawsuit, he is reeling from the consequences of a near-fatal shooting on his last film, and has just lost his teaching gig. Broke and beleaguered, he can’t afford to be particular about his next project. So when a former student invites him to film the comeback of Lena Wells, an iconic rock-and-roll singer who hit it big in the seventies, more than two decades earlier, he reluctantly agrees—even though he doesn’t like he...

On the morning of April 19, 1995, Delaney Travis steps into the Social Security office in Oklahoma City to obtain an ID for her new job. Moments later, an explosion shatters the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building into rubble. Her boyfriend Keith and half-sister Edie are left to assume the worst—that Delaney perished in the bombing, despite lack of definitive proof. Twenty years later, now married and bonded by the tragedy, Edie and Keith’s lives are upended when they begin to receive myster...

Real-Time Research is a new kind of on-the-spot scholarship. At a series of conferences the authors of this book asked academics educators and designers to collaborate on short-term improvisational research projects - usually completed within 48 hours. What they found out - by way of sock puppets video interviews and lots of critical game play - might just surprise you.

What knowledge and skills do designers of learning technologies need? What is the best way to train them to create high-quality educational technologies? Distilling the wisdom of expert instructors and designers, this cutting-edge guide offers a clear, accessible balance of theory and practical examples.This cutting-edge guide:synthesizes learning, instructional design, and educational technology perspectives on learning-centered technology — highlighting how...

As the title indicates, this book highlights the shifting and emergent features that represent life online, specifically in and around the territory of e-learning.Cybercultures in themselves are complex conglomerations of ideas, philosophies, concepts, and theories, some of which are fiercely contradictory. As a construct, 'cyberculture' is a result of sustained attempts by diverse groups of people to make sense of multifarious activities, linguistic codes, and practices in complic...

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...

#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLING AUTHOR • Stephen King’s landmark post-apocalyptic novel gave us a vision of a world blasted by plague and torn between good and evil—and helped make him “an undisputed master of suspense and terror” (The Washington Post).One of The Atlantic’s Great American Novels of the Past 100 Years. This edition includes all of the new and restored material first published in The Stand: The Complete and Uncut ...

When Jacob and Megan Brandeis plan to expose a secretive and evil corporation, the fallout threatens to destroy them in this thriller by the world's #1 bestselling author.Jacob and Megan Brandeis have gotten jobs with the mega-successful, ultra-secretive Store. Seems perfect. Seems safe. But their lives are about to become anything but perfect, anything but safe. Especially since Jacob and Megan have a dark secret of their own. They're writing a bo...

Reinventing Project-Based Learning offers educators an accessible guide for maximizing the benefits of project-based learning in todays technology-rich learning environment. This reader-friendly book speaks directly to educators, administrators, and professional development specialists who want to transform learning into a more active, student-driven experience, using technology tools for inquiry, collaboration, and connection to the world beyond the classroom. Examples from educators in m...