Multimedia Learning


Richard E. Mayer - 2001
    Although verbal learning offers a powerful tool for humans, this book explores ways of going beyond the purely verbal. An alternative to purely verbal presentations is to use multimedia presentations in which people learn from both words and pictures--a situation the author calls multimedia learning. Multimedia encyclopedias have become the latest addition to students' reference tools, and the world wide web is full of messages that combine words and pictures. This book summarizes ten years of research aimed at realizing the promise of multimedia learning.

The Dream Architects: Adventures in the Video Game Industry


David Polfeldt - 2020
    He shares what it's like to manage a creative process that has ballooned from a low-six-figure expense with a team of a half dozen people to a transatlantic production of five hundred employees on a single project with a production budget of over a hundred million dollars.A rare firsthand account of the golden age of game development told in vivid detail, The Dream Architects is a seminal work about the biggest entertainment medium of today.

Programming Collective Intelligence: Building Smart Web 2.0 Applications


Toby Segaran - 2002
    With the sophisticated algorithms in this book, you can write smart programs to access interesting datasets from other web sites, collect data from users of your own applications, and analyze and understand the data once you've found it.Programming Collective Intelligence takes you into the world of machine learning and statistics, and explains how to draw conclusions about user experience, marketing, personal tastes, and human behavior in general -- all from information that you and others collect every day. Each algorithm is described clearly and concisely with code that can immediately be used on your web site, blog, Wiki, or specialized application. This book explains:Collaborative filtering techniques that enable online retailers to recommend products or media Methods of clustering to detect groups of similar items in a large dataset Search engine features -- crawlers, indexers, query engines, and the PageRank algorithm Optimization algorithms that search millions of possible solutions to a problem and choose the best one Bayesian filtering, used in spam filters for classifying documents based on word types and other features Using decision trees not only to make predictions, but to model the way decisions are made Predicting numerical values rather than classifications to build price models Support vector machines to match people in online dating sites Non-negative matrix factorization to find the independent features in a dataset Evolving intelligence for problem solving -- how a computer develops its skill by improving its own code the more it plays a game Each chapter includes exercises for extending the algorithms to make them more powerful. Go beyond simple database-backed applications and put the wealth of Internet data to work for you. "Bravo! I cannot think of a better way for a developer to first learn these algorithms and methods, nor can I think of a better way for me (an old AI dog) to reinvigorate my knowledge of the details."-- Dan Russell, Google "Toby's book does a great job of breaking down the complex subject matter of machine-learning algorithms into practical, easy-to-understand examples that can be directly applied to analysis of social interaction across the Web today. If I had this book two years ago, it would have saved precious time going down some fruitless paths."-- Tim Wolters, CTO, Collective Intellect

The Hidden Dimension


Edward T. Hall - 1966
    Introducing the science of "proxemics," Hall demonstrates how man's use of space can affect personal business relations, cross-cultural exchanges, architecture, city planning, and urban renewal.

The Visual Story: Creating the Visual Structure of Film, TV and Digital Media


Bruce Block - 2007
    You'll learn how to structure your visuals as carefully as a writer structures a story or a composer structures music. Understanding visual structure allows you to communicate moods and emotions, and most importantly, reveals the critical relationship between story structure and visual structure.The Visual Story offers a clear view of the relationship between the story/script structure and the visual structure of a film, video, or multimedia work. An understanding of the visual components will serve as the guide to strengthening the overall story. The Visual Story divides what is seen on screen into tangible sections: contrast and affinity, space, line and shape, tone, color, movement, and rhythm. The vocabulary as well as the insight is provided to purposefully control the given components to create the ultimate visual story. For example: know that a saturated yellow will always attract a viewer's eye first; decide to avoid abrupt editing by mastering continuum of movement; and benefit from the suggested list of films to study rhythmic control. The Visual Story shatters the wall between theory and practice, bringing these two aspects of the craft together in an essential connection for all those creating visual stories. Bruce Block has the production credentials to write this definitive guide. His expertise is in demand, and he gives seminars at the American Film Institute, PIXAR Studios, Walt Disney Feature and Television Animation, Dreamworks Animation, Nickelodeon Animation Studios, Industrial Light & Magic and a variety of film schools in Europe.The concepts in this book will benefit writers, directors, photographers, production designers, art directors, and editors who are always confronted by the same visual problems that have faced every picture maker in the past, present, and future.• Now in full color!• Written by a renowned producer, visual consultant, and teacher• The material in this books applies to any kind of visual story, including films, animated pieces, video games, and television

My Guide to RPG Storytelling


Aron Christensen - 2012
    This guide includes suggestions on how to prepare a campaign, running each session, dealing with problem players, how to create memorable NPCs and more.Please note that this is not a basic how-to for role-playing and is not affiliated with any particular gaming system or company.Table of ContentsForeword, by Erica LindquistChapter 1: On StorytellingChapter 2: Before Your GameChapter 3: Building Your StoryChapter 4: Running Your GameChapter 5: Players Player CharactersChapter 6: ProblemsChapter 7: Rules MechanicsChapter 8: Setting NPCsChapter 9: The EndPlease note that this is not a basic how-to for role-playing and it is not affiliated with any particular gaming company.

Putting the Public Back in Public Relations: How Social Media Is Reinventing the Aging Business of PR


Brian Solis - 2009
    That's the bad news. Here's the great news: Social Media and Web 2.0 offer you an unprecedented opportunity to make PR work better than ever before. This book shows how to reinvent PR around two-way conversations, bring the "public" back into public relations and get results that traditional PR people can only dream about. Drawing on their unparalleled experience making Social Media work for business, PR 2.0.com's Brian Solis and industry leader Deirdre Breakenridge show how to transform the way you think, plan, prioritize, and deliver PR services. You'll learn powerful new ways to build the relationships that matter, and reach a new generation of influencers...leverage platforms ranging from Twitter to Facebook...truly embed yourself in the communities that are shaping the future. Best of all, you won't just learn how to add value in the Web 2.0 world: You'll learn how to prove how new, intelligent, and socially rooted PR will transform your organization into a proactive, participatory communication powerhouse that is in touch and informed with its community of stakeholders.

Change by Design: How Design Thinking Transforms Organizations and Inspires Innovation


Tim Brown - 2009
    The reality is that most innovations come from a process of rigorous examination through which great ideas are identified and developed before being realized as new offerings and capabilities.This book introduces the idea of design thinking‚ the collaborative process by which the designer′s sensibilities and methods are employed to match people′s needs not only with what is technically feasible and a viable business strategy. In short‚ design thinking converts need into demand. It′s a human−centered approach to problem solving that helps people and organizations become more innovative and more creative.Design thinking is not just applicable to so−called creative industries or people who work in the design field. It′s a methodology that has been used by organizations such as Kaiser Permanente to icnrease the quality of patient care by re−examining the ways that their nurses manage shift change‚ or Kraft to rethink supply chain management. This is not a book by designers for designers; this is a book for creative leaders seeking to infuse design thinking into every level of an organization‚ product‚ or service to drive new alternatives for business and society.

Eurogames: The Design, Culture and Play of Modern European Board Games


Stewart Woods - 2012
    Eurogames have simple rules and short playing times and emphasize strategy over luck and conflict. This book examines the form of eurogames, the hobbyist culture that surrounds them, and the way that hobbyists experience the play of such games. It chronicles the evolution of tabletop hobby gaming and explores why hobbyists play them, how players balance competitive play with the demands of an intimate social gathering, and to what extent the social context of the game encounter shapes the playing experience. Combining history, cultural studies, leisure studies, ludology, and play theory, this innovative work highlights a popular alternative trend in the gaming community.

User Story Mapping: Discover the Whole Story, Build the Right Product


Jeff Patton - 2012
    With this practical book, you'll explore the often-misunderstood practice of user story mapping, and learn how it can help keep your team stay focused on users and their experience throughout the development process.You and your team will learn that user stories aren't a way to write better specifications, but a way to organize and have better conversations. This book will help you understand what kinds of conversations you should be having, when to have them, and what to keep track of when you do. Learn the key concepts used to create a great story map. Understand how user stories really work, and how to make good use of them in agile and lean projects. Examine the nuts and bolts of managing stories through the development cycle. Use strategies that help you continue to learn before and after the product's release to customers and usersUser Story Mapping is ideal for agile and lean software development team members, product managers and UX practitioners in commercial product companies, and business analysts and project managers in IT organizations—whether you're new to this approach or want to understand more about it.

Cybernetics: or the Control and Communication in the Animal and the Machine


Norbert Wiener - 1948
    It is a ‘ must’ book for those in every branch of science . . . in addition, economists, politicians, statesmen, and businessmen cannot afford to overlook cybernetics and its tremendous, even terrifying implications. "It is a beautifully written book, lucid, direct, and despite its complexity, as readable by the layman as the trained scientist." -- John B. Thurston, "The Saturday Review of Literature" Acclaimed one of the "seminal books . . . comparable in ultimate importance to . . . Galileo or Malthus or Rousseau or Mill," "Cybernetics" was judged by twenty-seven historians, economists, educators, and philosophers to be one of those books published during the "past four decades", which may have a substantial impact on public thought and action in the years ahead." -- Saturday Review

The Age of the Image: Redefining Literacy in the a World of Screens


Stephen Apkon - 2013
    The recent technological revolutions in video recording, editing, and distribution are more akin to the development of movable type than any other such revolution in the last five hundred years. And yet we are not popularly cognizant of or conversant with visual storytelling's grammar, the coded messages of its style, and the practical components of its production. We are largely, in a word, illiterate. But this is not a gloomy diagnosis of the collapse of civilization; rather, it is a celebration of the progress we've made and an exhortation and a plan to seize the potential we're poised to enjoy. The rules that define effective visual storytelling—much like the rules that define written language—do in fact exist, and Stephen Apkon has long experience in deploying them, teaching them, and witnessing their power in the classroom and beyond. In The Age of the Image, drawing on the history of literacy—from scroll to codex, scribes to printing presses, SMS to social media—on the science of how various forms of storytelling work on the human brain, and on the practical value of literacy in real-world situations, Apkon convincingly argues that now is the time to transform the way we teach, create, and communicate so that we can all step forward together into a rich and stimulating future.

A New Kind of Science


Stephen Wolfram - 1997
    Wolfram lets the world see his work in A New Kind of Science, a gorgeous, 1,280-page tome more than a decade in the making. With patience, insight, and self-confidence to spare, Wolfram outlines a fundamental new way of modeling complex systems. On the frontier of complexity science since he was a boy, Wolfram is a champion of cellular automata--256 "programs" governed by simple nonmathematical rules. He points out that even the most complex equations fail to accurately model biological systems, but the simplest cellular automata can produce results straight out of nature--tree branches, stream eddies, and leopard spots, for instance. The graphics in A New Kind of Science show striking resemblance to the patterns we see in nature every day. Wolfram wrote the book in a distinct style meant to make it easy to read, even for nontechies; a basic familiarity with logic is helpful but not essential. Readers will find themselves swept away by the elegant simplicity of Wolfram's ideas and the accidental artistry of the cellular automaton models. Whether or not Wolfram's revolution ultimately gives us the keys to the universe, his new science is absolutely awe-inspiring. --Therese Littleton

3D Math Primer for Graphics and Game Development


Fletcher Dunn - 2002
    The Authors Discuss The Mathematical Theory In Detail And Then Provide The Geometric Interpretation Necessary To Make 3D Math Intuitive. Working C++ Classes Illustrate How To Put The Techniques Into Practice, And Exercises At The End Of Each Chapter Help Reinforce The Concepts. This Book Explains Basic Concepts Such As Vectors, Coordinate Spaces, Matrices, Transformations, Euler Angles, Homogenous Coordinates, Geometric Primitives, Intersection Tests, And Triangle Meshes. It Discusses Orientation In 3D, Including Thorough Coverage Of Quaternions And A Comparison Of The Advantages And Disadvantages Of Different Representation Techniques. The Text Describes Working C++ Classes For Mathematical And Geometric Entities And Several Different Matrix Classes, Each Tailored To Specific Geometric Tasks. Also Included Are Complete Derivations For All The Primitive Transformation Matrices.

Morphology of the Folktale


Vladimir Propp - 1928
    -- Alan Dundes. Propp's work is seminal...[and], now that it is available in a new edition, should be even more valuable to folklorists who are directing their attention to the form of the folktale, especially to those structural characteristics which are common to many entries coming from even different cultures. -- Choice