As a fan of the superhero story, I thought this collection of short stories on that subject was about as good as they come! I'm told the stories are all based on a role playing game, but even though I'm not familiar with the game at all, I enjoyed the stories tremendously. I thought it was reminiscent of the Astro City comics - a deeper-than-dime-novel examination of superheros, supervillains and why they are such enduring archetypes of fiction. The writing and storytelling is just plain good old-fashioned fanboy entertainment. I'm hoping there's a volume II!

Reading this collection of articles gave me a better understanding of the people and ideas that helped shape computer-based communication. The contributors are for the most part well chosen; a few that I might well have done without, I must admit -- but far more excellent choices than "questionable" ones. The organization of the book is interesting as well. I was reminded of the magazine "Mondo 2000" that I subscribed to in the early '90's (multimedia/geek chic).

This is the first time I've read Chabon's work - I was very impressed. This is an excellent read, with a number of delicate touches -- the character of Sammy Clay is sensitively and humanely constructed, as are most of the supporting characters. I must admit I felt Josef Kavalier was more difficult to understand and empathize with (the novel bogs down a bit about two-thirds of the way through, where the focus is on Joe). As someone fascinated with the history of New York City and with comic books in general, I found the story well researched and exceptionally well told.

Bowers' work is an excellent argument for careful reconsideration of "pushing" computing tools as a panacea. I was especially struck by hi intimation that technology is like a drug that causes addiction. Books of this type should be required reading for a variety of policymakers, and this particular book makes the issue of 'tech addiction" easy to understand.

This is a very well presented description of Mayer's research on whether people learn better using multimedia (as opposed to just reading text). He describes the tests he and colleagues have performed to see how much learners are able to remember (retention) and how much learned information they can apply to new situations (transfer), and presents the results in manner that is relatively easy to understand (you have to know a little something about statistics, but not too much). The number of subjects tested is small, and Mayer is sure to point that out - but the basic research should lay groundwork for others to conduct similar tests on larger groups. The design principles Mayer puts forth (e.g. "contiguity") are very much in keeping with the general principles of good visual design (esposed by design notables such as Robin Williams (not the actor)). It's both a good read and good research.

A very well written and thoughtful examination of the 'challenges' faced by k-12 educators dealing with the general public's view that getting computers into the schools will improve learning. The book supports a number of ideas I already subscribe to (making me a decidely biased reviewer) -- essentially, putting computers in classrooms is not enough (Alan Kay's observation that there's no music in a piano is one of my favorite succinct statements on this subject). Cuban reveals himself to be somewhat unsophisticated with computing tools/techniques, but I'm not sure this is a bad thing - he's an educator, not a 'tech-geek' and the educator's point of view on the subject of computers in the classroom has not been heard well enough in the past few years.

This is a very decent collection of individually authored chapters from various groups of educators and engineers working in the field of robotics for teaching and for play. Most of the information presented is anecdotal and case-study, giving what seems to be a good overview of the current state of the art (particularly the state of the art in schools). Some of the reference sections at the end of the chapters point to very good articles that help ground one in the theory of techno-literacy.

I really enjoyed reading this collection of critical essays. They are well-written, interesting (well, interesting if one is a fan of "Buffy" and "Angel") and insightful. For me, the best aspect of reading this book was that I wanted to watch many of the episodes of the first five seasons of "Buffy" again.