Based on four years of experience teaching computers to 8-12 year olds, media scholar Ellen Seiter offers parents and educators practical advice on what children need to know about the Internet and when they need to know it. The Internet Playground argues that, contrary to the promises of technology boosters, teaching with computers is very difficult. Seiter points out that the Internet today resembles a mall more than it does a library. While children love to play online games, join fan communities, and use online chat and instant messaging, the Internet is also an appallingly aggressive marketer to children and, as this book passionately argues, an educational boondoggle.
The tenth-anniversary edition of a foundational text in digital media and learning, examining new media practices that range from podcasting to online romantic breakups. Hanging Out, Messing Around, and Geeking Out, first published in 2009, has become a foundational text in the field of digital media and learning. Reporting on an ambitious three-year ethnographic investigation into how young people live and learn with new media in varied settings—at home, in after-school programs, and in online spaces—it presents a flexible and useful framework for understanding the ways that young people engage with and through online platforms: hanging out, messing around, and geeking out, otherwise known as HOMAGO. Integrating twenty-three case studies—which include Harry Potter podcasting, video-game playing, music sharing, and online romantic breakups—in a unique collaborative authorship style, Hanging Out, Messing Around, and Geeking Out combines in-depth descriptions of specific group dynamics with conceptual analysis. Since its original publication, digital learning labs in libraries and museums around the country have been designed around the HOMAGO mode and educators have created HOMAGO guidebooks and toolkits. This tenth-anniversary edition features a new introduction by Mizuko Ito and Heather Horst that discusses how digital youth culture evolved in the intervening decade, and looks at how HOMAGO has been put into practice. This book was written as a collaborative effort by members of the Digital Youth Project, a three-year research effort funded by the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation and conducted at the University of California, Berkeley, and the University of Southern California.
An illustrated encyclopedia of the best monsters from around the world, for fantasy fans and Dungeons and Dragons enthusiasts. Whether they’re beasts, spirits, demons, or even aliens, most fantasy worlds are filled with monsters. Some are harmless—many more are deadly. Luckily for the discerning adventurer, this book is here to help distinguish between the two. Animators Blanca Martinez de Riuerro and Joe Sparrow have compiled three volumes of their popular series into one deluxe edition. Each creature comes with a full-color illustration, a set of simplified statistics, a description, and a history section indicating its folkloric history and the scientific phenomena that may have influenced its creation. With creatures like the Archdevil, Dryad, Fire Bat, Gold Dragon, Smoke Devil, Bomb Plant, Ettin, and Spirit Fox, any tabletop player will find the perfect creature for their next campaign.
Prepare for competitive gaming like you've never seen it! The Manhattan Mist have beaten the odds to land themselves in the national championships for Renegade Rule, one of the hottest virtual reality games in existence. But they're in for competition fiercer than they ever imagined, and one team member's entire future could be at stake. Four queer female friends will have to play harder than ever against self-doubt, infighting, romantic distraction, and a slew of other world-class teams if they hope to become champions. Both hilarious and heartwarming, this new graphic novel from Ignatz-nominated writer Ben Kahn, debut author Rachel Silverstein, and artist Sam Beck is a celebration of friendship, competition, queer identity, and the insane things we do for the things and people we love.
MYFAROG (Mythic Fantasy Role-playing Game) (3rd edition) is a fantasy role-playing game, with a setting based on European mythology, religion and fairy tales. The rules are very modular, meaning you can play the game rules light or rules heavy, as you please. The rules are designed to make sense, and to give the players the ability to immerse themselves in Thulê; a highly credible fantasy world similar to Middle-earth and the European Classical Antiquity (some places touching into the Viking Age or the Bronze Age), but yet different. In Thulê, sorcery and the ancient deities are real, and the world is inhabited by not only humans, but also elves, nymphs, dwarves, orcs, gnomes, halflings, ettins and trolls, as well as other creatures. This art-minimalistic 221 page core rule-book (with black-and-white interior) is an all-in-one rule-book, so it contains all the information you need to play the game (and to make your own adventures and campaigns) indefinitely. A digital high resolution map of Thulê can be found here: www.myfarog.org. Because the setting is based on real world locations (Lofoten and Vesteralen in Northern Norway) you can also use online map services, to get highly detailed and realistic maps of the world of Thulê, in any scale you want. NB! You need a set of polyhedral dice to play the game.
Based on the online virtual world found at Neopets.com. Something is awry in the land of Neopia. This title is the first book in the Ghoul Catchers series, which chronicles the journey of two young heroes who set out to save their home. Illustrations.