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Since the release of Dungeons & Dragons in 1974, role-playing games (RPGs) have spawned a vibrant industry and subculture whose characteristics and player experiences have been well explored. Yet little attention has been devoted to the ways RPGs have shaped society at large over the last four decades. Role-playing games influenced video game design, have been widely represented in film, television and other media, and have made their mark on education, social media, corporate training and the military. This collection of new essays illustrates the broad appeal and impact of RPGs. Topics range from a critical reexamination of the Satanic Panic of the 1980s, to the growing significance of RPGs in education, to the potential for "serious" RPGs to provoke awareness and social change. The contributors discuss the myriad subtle (and not-so-subtle) ways in which the values, concepts and mechanics of RPGs have infiltrated popular culture.
Are games the knowledge-producers of the future? Imagine if new knowledge and insights came not just from research centers, think tanks, and universities but also from games, of all things. Video games have been viewed as causing social problems, but what if they actually helped solve them? This question drives Karen Schrier’s Knowledge Games, which seeks to uncover the potentials and pitfalls of using games to make discoveries, solve real-world problems, and better understand our world. For example, so-called knowledge games—such as Foldit, a protein-folding puzzle game, SchoolLife, which crowdsources bullying interventions, and Reverse the Odds, in which mobile game players analyze bre...
Using Games to Enhance Learning and Teaching provides educators with easy and practical ways of using games to support student engagement and learning. Despite growing interest in digital game-based learning and teaching, until now most teachers have lacked the resources or technical knowledge to create games that meet their needs. The only realistic option for many has been to use existing games which too often are out of step with curriculum goals, difficult to integrate, and require high-end technology. Using Games to Enhance Learning and Teaching offers a comprehensive solution, presenting five principles for games that can be embedded into traditional or online learning environments to enhance student engagement and interactivity. Extensive case studies explore specific academic perspectives, and featured insights from professional game designers show how educational games can be designed using readily accessible, low-end technologies, providing an explicit link between theory and practice. Practical in nature, the book has a sound theoretical base that draws from a range of international literature and research.
Learning, Problem Solving, and Mindtools is inspired by the substantial body of learning research by David H. Jonassen in the areas of mind tools and problem solving. The focus of the volume is on educational technology, especially with regard to how new technologies have facilitated and supported problem solving and critical thinking. Each chapter focuses on a particular aspect of learning with technology and elaborates the implications for the design and implementation of learning environments and activities aimed at improving the conceptualization of problems, reasoning and higher-order thinking, and solving challenging problems. This collection of scholarly essays provides a highly engaging treatment of using tools and technologies to improve problem solving; multiple perspectives on integrating educational technology to support learning in complex and challenging problem solving domains; guidance for the design of instruction to support problem solving; a systemic account of the relationships between mental models, instructional models, and assessment models; and a look into the future of educational technology research and practice.
Publisher Description
The key question this book addresses is how to identify and create optimal conditions for the kind of learning and development that is especially important for effectively functioning in the 21st century. Taking a new approach to this long-debated issue, it looks at how a design research-based science of learning (with its practical models and related design research) can provide insights and integrated models of how human beings actually function and grow in the social dynamics of educational settings with all their affordances and constraints. More specifically: How can specific domains or subject matters be taught for broad intellectual development? How can technology be integrated in enhancing human functioning? How can the social organization of classroom learning be optimized to create social norms for promoting deep intellectual engagement and personal growth? Part I is concerned with broad conceptual and technical issues regarding cultivating intellectual potential, with a focus on how design research might fill in an important a niche in addressing these issues. Part II presents specific design work in terms of design principles, models, and prototypes.
Written for secondary school teachers, this resource expands educators' understanding of the relationship between their students and digital media and shows how to design learning opportunities that make the most of that relationship. Based on the findings of a three-year study on youth and their use of digital media for informal learning, this book gives teachers a deeper awareness of the characteristics of "iGeneration culture" and the dynamic potential for student learning through digital media, such as fostering collaboration, creativity, feedback, and critiques. Presented in a teacher-friendly format, each of the chapters include: - A description of each digital medium - A vignette abou...
"This book set unites fundamental research on the history, current directions, and implications of gaming at individual and organizational levels, exploring all facets of game design and application and describing how this emerging discipline informs and is informed by society and culture"--Provided by publisher.
This open access collection of essays examines the literary advice industry since its emergence in Anglo-American literary culture in the mid-nineteenth century within the context of the professionalization of the literary field and the continued debate on creative writing as art and craft. Often dismissed as commercial and stereotypical by authors and specialists alike, literary advice has nonetheless remained a flourishing business, embodying the unquestioned values of a literary system, but also functioning as a sign of a literary system in transition. Exploring the rise of new online amateur writing cultures in the twenty-first century, this collection of essays considers how literary advice proliferates globally, leading to new forms and genres.
This handbook provides a comprehensive overview of the pragmatics of social media, i.e. of digitally mediated and Internet-based platforms which are interactively used to share and edit self- and other-generated textual and audio-visual messages. Its five parts offer state-of-the-art reviews and critical evaluations in the light of on-going developments: Part I The Nature of Social Media sets up the conceptual groundwork as it explores key concept such as social media, participation, privacy/publicness. Part II Social Media Platforms focuses on the pragmatics of single platforms such as YouTube, Facebook. Part III Social Media and Discourse covers the micro-and macro-level organization of social media discourse, while Part IV Social Media and Identity reveals the multifarious ways in which users collectively (re-)construct aspects of their identities. Part V Social Media and Functions/Speech Acts surveys pragmatic studies on speech act functions such as disagreeing, complimenting, requesting. Each contribution provides a state-of-the-art review together with a critical evaluation of the existing research.