Delivered from Distraction: Getting the Most out of Life with Attention Deficit Disorder


Edward M. Hallowell - 2004
    Widely recognized as the classic in the field, the book has sold more than a million copies. Now a second revolution is under way in the approach to ADD, and the news is great. Drug therapies, our understanding of the role of diet and exercise, even the way we define the disorder–all are changing radically. And doctors are realizing that millions of adults suffer from this condition, though the vast majority of them remain undiagnosed and untreated. In this new book, Drs. Edward M. Hallowell and John J. Ratey build on the breakthroughs of Driven to Distraction to offer a comprehensive and entirely up-to-date guide to living a successful life with ADD.As Hallowell and Ratey point out, “attention deficit disorder” is a highly misleading description of an intriguing kind of mind. Original, charismatic, energetic, often brilliant, people with ADD have extraordinary talents and gifts embedded in their highly charged but easily distracted minds. Tailored expressly to ADD learning styles and attention spans, Delivered from Distraction provides accessible, engaging discussions of every aspect of the condition, from diagnosis to finding the proper treatment regime. Inside you’ll discover• whether ADD runs in families• new diagnostic procedures, tests, and evaluations• the links between ADD and other conditions• how people with ADD can free up their inner talents and strengths• the new drugs and how they work, and why they’re not for everyone• exciting advances in nonpharmaceutical therapies, including changes in diet, exercise, and lifestyle• how to adapt the classic twelve-step program to treat ADD• sexual problems associated with ADD and how to resolve them• strategies for dealing with procrastination, clutter, and chronic forgetfulnessADD is a trait, a way of living in the world. It only becomes a disorder when it impairs your life. Featuring gripping profiles of patients with ADD who have triumphed, Delivered from Distraction is a wise, loving guide to releasing the positive energy that all people with ADD hold inside. If you have ADD or care about someone who does, this is the book you must read.From the Hardcover edition.

How We Learn: The Surprising Truth About When, Where, and Why It Happens


Benedict Carey - 2014
    We’re told that learning is all self-discipline, that we must confine ourselves to designated study areas, turn off the music, and maintain a strict ritual if we want to ace that test, memorize that presentation, or nail that piano recital.   But what if almost everything we were told about learning is wrong? And what if there was a way to achieve more with less effort?   In How We Learn, award-winning science reporter Benedict Carey sifts through decades of education research and landmark studies to uncover the truth about how our brains absorb and retain information. What he discovers is that, from the moment we are born, we are all learning quickly, efficiently, and automatically; but in our zeal to systematize the process we have ignored valuable, naturally enjoyable learning tools like forgetting, sleeping, and daydreaming. Is a dedicated desk in a quiet room really the best way to study? Can altering your routine improve your recall? Are there times when distraction is good? Is repetition necessary? Carey’s search for answers to these questions yields a wealth of strategies that make learning more a part of our everyday lives—and less of a chore.   By road testing many of the counterintuitive techniques described in this book, Carey shows how we can flex the neural muscles that make deep learning possible. Along the way he reveals why teachers should give final exams on the first day of class, why it’s wise to interleave subjects and concepts when learning any new skill, and when it’s smarter to stay up late prepping for that presentation than to rise early for one last cram session. And if this requires some suspension of disbelief, that’s because the research defies what we’ve been told, throughout our lives, about how best to learn.   The brain is not like a muscle, at least not in any straightforward sense. It is something else altogether, sensitive to mood, to timing, to circadian rhythms, as well as to location and environment. It doesn’t take orders well, to put it mildly. If the brain is a learning machine, then it is an eccentric one. In How We Learn, Benedict Carey shows us how to exploit its quirks to our advantage.  Praise for How We Learn“This book is a revelation. I feel as if I’ve owned a brain for fifty-four years and only now discovered the operating manual.”—Mary Roach, bestselling author of Stiff and Gulp“A welcome rejoinder to the faddish notion that learning is all about the hours put in.” —The New York Times Book Review   “A valuable, entertaining tool for educators, students and parents.” —Shelf Awareness   “How We Learn is more than a new approach to learning; it is a guide to making the most out of life. Who wouldn’t be interested in that?” —Scientific American   “I know of no other source that pulls together so much of what we know about the science of memory and couples it with practical, practicable advice.”—Daniel T. Willingham, professor of psychology at the University of Virginia

Special Education in Contemporary Society: An Introduction to Exceptionality


Richard M. Gargiulo - 2002
    Blending theory with practice, the book helps pre-service and in-service teachers develop the knowledge, skills, attitudes, and beliefs they'll need to construct learning environments that make it possible for all students to reach their potential.

The Future of the Internet and How to Stop It


Jonathan L. Zittrain - 2008
    With the unwitting help of its users, the generative Internet is on a path to a lockdown, ending its cycle of innovation—and facilitating unsettling new kinds of control.IPods, iPhones, Xboxes, and TiVos represent the first wave of Internet-centered products that can’t be easily modified by anyone except their vendors or selected partners. These “tethered appliances” have already been used in remarkable but little-known ways: car GPS systems have been reconfigured at the demand of law enforcement to eavesdrop on the occupants at all times, and digital video recorders have been ordered to self-destruct thanks to a lawsuit against the manufacturer thousands of miles away. New Web 2.0 platforms like Google mash-ups and Facebook are rightly touted—but their applications can be similarly monitored and eliminated from a central source. As tethered appliances and applications eclipse the PC, the very nature of the Internet—its “generativity,” or innovative character—is at risk.The Internet’s current trajectory is one of lost opportunity. Its salvation, Zittrain argues, lies in the hands of its millions of users. Drawing on generative technologies like Wikipedia that have so far survived their own successes, this book shows how to develop new technologies and social structures that allow users to work creatively and collaboratively, participate in solutions, and become true “netizens.”The book is available to download under a Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial Share-Alike 3.0 license: Download PDF. http://futureoftheinternet.org/download

Library 2020: Today's Leading Visionaries Describe Tomorrow's Library


Joseph Janes - 2013
    (No doubt seminars were organized by the Alexandria Librarians Association on the future of the scroll and what to do about the rising barbarian tide.) At no time in our memory, though, have these discussions and conversations been so profound and critical. Here one of today's leading thinkers and speakers about the future of libraries brings together 30 leaders from all types of libraries and from outside librarianship to describe their vision of what the library will be in 2020. Contributors including Stephen Abram, Susan Hildreth, Marie Radford, Clifford Lynch, and Library Journal's The Annoyed Librarian were asked to describe the "library of 2020," in whatever terms they wanted, either a specific library or situation or libraries in general. They were told: "be bold, be inspirational, be hopeful, be true, be provocative, be realistic, be depressing, be light-hearted, be thoughtful, be fun...be yourself, and for heaven's sake, don't be boring." Not that they could be. Broadly representative of important perspectives and aspects within the profession as well as featuring important voices beyond the professional realm, Library 2020 presents thought-provoking and illuminating visions from many points of view. It is both required reading for library leaders and trustees as well as an ideal supplemental text for LIS classes looking at the future of the profession.

Year of the Flu: A World War I Medical Thriller


Millys Altman - 2017
    He was eager to begin his first practice, but it turned out to be more than he bargained for. In just two years, in September, 1918, the entire village was sickened in rapid succession in the flu pandemic that killed quickly and indiscriminately throughout the world. It was wartime, and Nixon was unable to find help., This story is an up close and personal account of what it was like to be sick with the HINI type virus in 1918. It is a tale of a dedicated doctor whose selflessness, compassion and courage helped the villagers survive in the pandemic that killed more people in a year than the Black Death killed in a century...

Bound by Law?: Tales from the Public Domain


Keith Aoki - 2006
    A cell phone rings, playing the "Rocky" theme song. The filmmaker is told she must pay $10,000 to clear the rights to the song. Can this be true? "Eyes on the Prize", the great civil rights documentary, was pulled from circulation because the filmmakers' rights to music and footage had expired. What's going on here? It's the collision of documentary filmmaking and intellectual property law, and it's the inspiration for this comic book. Follow its heroine Akiko as she films her documentary, and navigates the twists and turns of intellectual property. Why do we have copyrights? What's "fair use"? Bound By Law reaches beyond documentary film to provide a commentary on the most pressing issues facing law, art, property and an increasingly digital world of remixed culture.

How to Make Sense of Any Mess: Information Architecture for Everybody


Abby Covert - 2014
     It is easy to be overwhelmed by the amount of information we encounter each day. Whether at work, at school, or in our personal endeavors, there’s a deepening (and inescapable) need for people to work with and understand information. Information architecture is the way that we arrange the parts of something to make it understandable as a whole. When we make things for others to use, the architecture of information that we choose greatly affects our ability to deliver our intended message to our users. We all face messes made of information and people. I define the word “mess” the same way that most dictionaries do: “A situation where the interactions between people and information are confusing or full of difficulties.” — Who doesn’t bump up against messes made of information and people every day? This book provides a seven step process for making sense of any mess. Each chapter contains a set of lessons as well as workbook exercises architected to help you to work through your own mess.

Diffusion of Innovations


Everett M. Rogers - 1982
    It has sold 30,000 copies in each edition and will continue to reach a huge academic audience.In this renowned book, Everett M. Rogers, professor and chair of the Department of Communication & Journalism at the University of New Mexico, explains how new ideas spread via communication channels over time. Such innovations are initially perceived as uncertain and even risky. To overcome this uncertainty, most people seek out others like themselves who have already adopted the new idea. Thus the diffusion process consists of a few individuals who first adopt an innovation, then spread the word among their circle of acquaintances--a process which typically takes months or years. But there are exceptions: use of the Internet in the 1990s, for example, may have spread more rapidly than any other innovation in the history of humankind. Furthermore, the Internet is changing the very nature of diffusion by decreasing the importance of physical distance between people. The fifth edition addresses the spread of the Internet, and how it has transformed the way human beings communicate and adopt new ideas.

Principles of Instrumental Analysis


Douglas A. Skoog - 1971
    Emphasis is placed upon the theoretical basis of each type of instrument, its optimal area of application, its sensitivity, its precision, and its limitations. The text also introduces students to elementary integrated circuitry, microprocessors and computers, and treatment of analytical data.

The Mammoth Book of Losers


Karl Shaw - 2014
    It rejoices in men and women made of the Wrong Stuff: writers who believed in the power of words, but could never quite find the rights ones; artists and performers who indulged their creative impulse with a passion, if not a sense of the ridiculous, an eye for perspective or the ability to hold down a tune; scientists and businessmen who never quite managed to quit while they were ahead; and sportsmen who seemed to manage always to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory. Like Walter Oudney, one of three men chosen to find the source of the River Niger in Africa, who could not ride a horse, nor speak any foreign languages and who had never travelled more than 30 miles beyond his native Edinburgh; or the explorer-priest Michel Alexandre de Baize, who set off to explore the African continent from east to west equipped with 24 umbrellas, some fireworks, two suits of armor, and a portable organ; or the Scottish army which decided to invade England in 1349 - during the Black Death. Entries include: briefest career in dentistry; least successful bonding exercise; most futile attempt to find a lost tribe; most pointless lines of research by someone who should have known better; least successful celebrity endorsement; least convincing excuse for a war; worst poetic tribute to a root vegetable; least successful display of impartiality by a juror; Devon Loch - sporting metaphor for blowing un unblowable lead; least dignified exit from office by a French president; and least successful expedition by camel.

The Research Methods Knowledge Base


William Trochim - 1999
    It can be used in a variety of disciplines and is ideal for an introductory comprehensive undergraduate or graduate level course. Through its conversational, informal style it makes material that is often challenging for students both accessible and understandable. The Research Methods Knowledge Base, 3e covers everything from the development of a research question to the writing of a final report, describing both practical and technical issues of sampling, measurement, design and analysis.

Wrightslaw: All about IEPs


Peter W.D. Wright - 2010
    

On the Mend


John Toussaint - 2010
    Gerard, PhD, its chief learning officer, candidly describe the triumphs and stumbles of a seven-year journey to lean healthcare, an effort that continues today and that has slashed medical errors, improved patient outcomes, raised staff morale, and saved $27 million dollars in costs without layoffs. Find out:> How lean techniques of value-stream-mapping and rapid improvement events cut the average “door-to-balloon” time for heart attack patients at two hospitals from 90 minutes to 37.> What ThedaCare leaders did to replace medicine’s “shame and blame” culture with a lean culture based on continuous improvement and respect for people.> How the lean principle of “building in quality at the source” broke down divisions among medical specialties allowing teams to develop patient care plans faster.> Why traditional modern management is the single biggest impediment to lean healthcare.> How the plan-do-study-act cycle coupled with rapid improvement events cut the wait time at a robotic radiosurgery unit from 26 days to six.> How the lean concept of “one piece flow” saved time in treating ischemic stroke patients, increasing the number of patients receiving a CT scan within 25 minutes from 51% to 89%.> How senior leaders at other healthcare organizations can begin their own lean transformations using a nine-step action plan based on what ThedaCare did — and what it would do differently.Toussaint and Gerard prove that lean healthcare does not mean less care. On the Mend shows that when care is truly re-designed around patients, waste and errors are eliminated, quality improves, costs come down, and healthcare professionals have more time to spend with patients, who get even better care.

On Writing Well: The Classic Guide to Writing Nonfiction


William Zinsser - 1976
    It is a book for everybody who wants to learn how to write or who needs to do some writing to get through the day, as almost everybody does in the age of e-mail and the Internet. Whether you want to write about people or places, science and technology, business, sports, the arts or about yourself in the increasingly popular memoir genre, On Writing Well offers you fundamental priciples as well as the insights of a distinguished writer and teacher. With more than a million copies sold, this volume has stood the test of time and remains a valuable resource for writers and would-be writers.