Results tagged “education” from WorldCat Blog

Cory Doctorow has made the first collection of his essays, "Content: Selected Essays on Technology, Creativity, Copyright and the Future of the Future," available as a free PDF download. He is also providing (as he's done with previous books) a "matching service" to connect folks who would like to support his efforts with libraries and educators. From the page on the book release:

If you’re a teacher or librarian and you want a free copy of Content, email freecontentbook@gmail.com with your name and the name and address of your school. It’ll be posted below by my fantastic helper, Olga Nunes, so that potential donors can see it.

If you enjoyed the electronic edition of Content and you want to donate something to say thanks, check below to find a teacher or librarian you want to support. Then go to Amazon, BN.com, or your favorite electronic bookseller and order a copy to the classroom, then email a copy of the receipt (feel free to delete your address and other personal info first!) to freecontentbook@gmail.com so that Olga can mark that copy as sent. If you don’t want to be publicly acknowledged for your generosity, let us know and we’ll keep you anonymous, otherwise we’ll thank you on the donate page.

Very cool idea. Once I've read the book (I've read some of the essays already over the years, and assume the rest will be as good), I'll get a review up on WorldCat.org and let y'all know.

Links:

• Main book page for "Content..." 
• Free PDF of the entire book
• WorldCat.org entry for "Content..."
• WC Identities page for Cory
  

Howdy folks. I’m Bob Schulz and I’m the product manager for WorldCat.org. I also like to pretend that I’m a superb Guitar Hero shredder.

I am not.

So it’s science fair project preparation season and as I avoided blogging about it I ran across this little item:

2008 IGF Awards Topped by Crayon Physics Deluxe

The Independent Games Festival celebrates achievements by, well, independent game developers. Small game shops, or people sitting in their basements, are creating some of the most innovative, exciting, and, frankly, addictive games available today. I urge you to check out the winners and nominees.

But I digress. The concept of Crayon Physics is simple: draw objects on the screen that will move the circle so that it touches all the stars. The objects the player creates move realistically, have weight, turn on axes, etc. The increasing difficulty of the levels forces the player to experiment with more complex objects, and sets of objects, to achieve the goal. Behold this lovely video:

What an elegant, intuitive, and fun tool to introduce kids to the fundamentals of Newton’s laws of motion and theory of universal gravitation. The game also provides a level editor so players, students, teachers could create new challenges. Wouldn’t this be a great addition to the computers in schools and libraries? Say “yes, Bob, it would.”

Unfortunately, the Deluxe version is not yet available, but the original prototype, which the developer wrote in less than 7 days, can be snagged freely from Kloonigames’ site. Download it and have at it.