Playful Minds

Revolutionize Learning: Dive Into the Joy of Educational Games Imagine a world where the joy of play infuses every lesson, where students of all ages are eager to learn, spurred by curiosity and engagement. "Playful Minds: Transforming Education with Gamification" extends a thrilling invitation to educators, parents, and innovators: to reimagine the educational landscape through the potent magic of gamification. The journey starts at the intersection where education meets fun, guiding readers through a captivating exploration of what gamification really is and why it has become an imperative in today's teaching toolkit. Discover the core principles of game design and how they can be harnessed to create enriching educational experiences that captivate both the mind and the heart. Sink your teeth into the psychology that intertwines learning with gaming. Unlock compelling insights into motivation, flow state, and the psychological underpinnings that make game-based learning incredibly effective. Design your very first educational game with strategies right from the minds of seasoned experts, employing powerful narrative techniques, reward systems, and game mechanics that translate across different subjects and cater to diverse learning styles. Dive deep into digital versus non-digital gaming applications, and witness how each can beautifully complement the art of teaching. Equip yourself with the knowledge of the latest technologies, such as AR and VR, and understand how they are revolutionizing learning spaces. While addressing the inclusivity in game design, the book ensures that no learner is left behind. Armed with a plethora of case studies and actionable tools for crafting your own gamified classroom environment, "Playful Minds" ensures that your educational practice is equipped to meet the needs of the modern learner. Evolve your teaching, connect with a passionate educator community, and confidently lead the charge towards a future where learning and play are indistinguishable. As the final page turns, it's not game over, but the next level in educational excellence. Embrace the power of "Playful Minds" to craft experiences that linger long after the lesson ends, fostering a lifelong love for learning.

Follow the curious and free-spirited Mau as he journeys across worlds and muses about interesting characters and situations. From serenading a dinosaur to battling a mighty swordfish, Mau rhymes about his adventures as he stumbles his way through fun and folly. With a knack for sniffing out the unusual, he draws lessons from life’s curious ironies and celebrates the will to push limits. Light-hearted, playful, and sometimes profound, there is something in Mau’s tales for everyone. Young readers will love Mau’s quirky style as they rhyme along to the fun beat, while grown-ups may enjoy a deeper engagement with his philosophical musings. Intricately hand-drawn in pen and ink, the illustrations convey fantastical scenarios that beautifully capture Mau’s encounters and the essence of his characterisation and stories with a charming style and classical simplicity.

Has Chris Dearing finally broken his family’s run of bad luck? Find out in this hilarious, high-stakes companion to Mine! After a lifetime of bad luck, Chris Dearing is sure his family fortunes have finally turned around. With the help of some friends, he’s reclaimed his granddad’s old land in Dawson City, Yukon, and is adjusting to life with his new foster parents. While he waits for his dad to get out of jail — and get sober — Chris turns his attention to his next challenge: finding the gold that he knows is somewhere on his family’s claim. What’s standing in his way? A few things: a) he doesn’t know a thing about gold mining, and it turns out there’s a lot more to it than a pan in a creek; b) Lucy, the attack goose guarding the local junkyard; c) the fact that Family Services keeps getting in the way; d) two Filthy Rats trying to swindle Chris’s dad out of the gold; oh, and last but not least, e) the rumours that Chris’s grandfather didn’t actually find his gold — he stole it. The stakes are high and the hijinks even higher in this touching, witty companion to Mine!

Some people think that they are not creative. Some recall a teacher or a parent who communicated this message which they embraced as the truth. Others developed the belief they weren’t creative by comparing themselves to sisters or brothers who were recognized as creative, or to people whose talents they used as a standard against which they evaluated their own. Other peoples’ opinions, but most importantly their own, led them to turn off creativity they expressed freely as children. Believing they weren’t creative, life lost some of its vitality. What is "creativity?" Playful Mind establishes a starting point that is embellished as the reader continues through the book. It’s the ability to imagine, to courageously pursue ideas and goals, and to think and live with a playful mind. Playful Mind is the free spirit within our thinking that loves flexibility and the adventure of exploring new ideas. It’s the part of our creative spirit that can surprise and shift our thinking. It’s a character we can cultivate and use. Imagine it and give it a name. Invite it to inspire your thinking and your life. Let Playful Mind start you on a journey that will change your life.

A Playful Path, the new book by games guru and fun theorist Bernard De Koven, serves as a collection of ideas and tools to help us bring our playfulness back into the open. When we find ourselves forgetting the life of the game or the game of life, the joy of form or the content, the play of brain or mind, body or spirit, this book can help us return to that which our soul is heir.

Or What You Will is an utterly original novel about how stories are brought forth from Hugo, Nebula, and World Fantasy Award-winning author Jo Walton. He has been too many things to count. He has been a dragon with a boy on his back. He has been a scholar, a warrior, a lover, and a thief. He has been dream and dreamer. He has been a god. But “he” is in fact nothing more than a spark of idea, a character in the mind of Sylvia Harrison, 73, award-winning author of thirty novels over forty years. He has played a part in most of those novels, and in the recesses of her mind, Sylvia has conversed with him for years. But Sylvia won't live forever, any more than any human does. And he's trapped inside her cave of bone, her hollow of skull. When she dies, so will he. Now Sylvia is starting a new novel, a fantasy for adult readers, set in Thalia, the Florence-resembling imaginary city that was the setting for a successful YA trilogy she published decades before. Of course he's got a part in it. But he also has a notion. He thinks he knows how he and Sylvia can step off the wheel of mortality altogether. All he has to do is convince her. At the Publisher's request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied.