Books about Informs from Amazon.com

"Hutus kill Tutsis, then Tutsis kill Hutus--if that's really all there is to it, then no wonder we can't be bothered with it," Philip Gourevitch writes, imagining the response of somebody in a country far from the ethnic strife and mass killings of Rwanda. But the situation is not so simple, and in this complex and wrenching book, he explains why the Rwandan genocide should not be written off as just another tribal dispute.

The "stories" in this book's subtitle are both the author's, as he repeatedly visits this tiny country in an attempt to make sense of what has happened, and those of the people he interviews. These include a Tutsi doctor who has seen much of her family killed over decades of Tutsi oppression, a Schindleresque hotel manager who hid hundreds of refugees from certain death, and a Rwandan bishop who has been accused of supporting the slaughter of Tutsi schoolchildren, and can only answer these charges by saying, "What could I do?" Gourevitch, a staff writer for the New Yorker, describes Rwanda's history with remarkable clarity and documents the experience of tragedy with a sober grace. The reader will ask along with the author: Why does this happen? And why don't we bother to stop it? --Maria Dolan.
Price: $8.35 [Notify me when price goes down.]

Transform your presentations and boost your impact with practical, easy-to-apply techniques for using PowerPoint 2007. Author Cliff Atkinson is a presentation-skills expert who is helping revolutionize the way Fortune 500 companies design and deliver their critical presentations. Even major news media reported the contribution of Cliffs techniques to a verdict in a high-profile trial. In his highly-regarded, popular book Beyond Bullet Pointsnow fully updated for PowerPoint 2007Cliff shares his innovative three-step method that helps you unlock the amazing story buried in those bullet-riddled slides. He guides you, step by step, as you discover how to combine the tenets of classic storytelling with the power of projected media to create a rich, engaging experience. With easy-to-use templates, advanced tips, and plenty of illustrations and examples, youll learn techniques to help you clarify, visualize, and present your ideas so that your audience will remember your important message. This newly revised, popular guide now includes a CD with sample PowerPoint 2007 files and graphics..
Price: $17.22 [Notify me when price goes down.]

Improve your presentationsand increase your impactwith 50 powerful, practical, and easy-to-apply techniques for Microsoft PowerPoint. With Beyond Bullet Points, youll take your presentation skills to the next levellearning innovative ways to design and deliver your message. Organized into five sectionsDistill Your Ideas, Structure Your Story, Visualize Your Message, Create a Conversation, and Maintain Engagementthe book uses clear, concise language and just the right visuals to help you understand concepts and start getting better results. Not just a how-to for PowerPoint, this book will help take your presentation skills to the next level! Features 50 innovative, easy-to-apply techniques to help you clarify, visualize, and present your ideas using PowerPoint. Author is a leading presentation-skills consultant. Targeted for intermediate to advanced level users of PowerPoint who are looking to stand out from the crowd and make sure people remember what they say..
Price: $10.95 [Notify me when price goes down.]

Foundations of IT Service Management based on ITIL has become the industry classic guide on the topic of ITIL. Over the years this authoritative itSMF guide has earned its place on the bookshelves and in the briefcases of industry experts as they implement best practices within their organizations.

This 2007 version has now been upgraded to reflect ITIL V3. Written in the same concise way and covering all the facts, readers will find that this title succinctly covers the key aspects of the ITIL V3 upgrade.

The new ITIL V3 approach covering the ITIL Lifecycle is fully covered. In addition those who are familiar with the Version 2 process approach will be delighted to discover that this new edition of Foundations of IT Service Management based on ITIL V3 has split out all the processes and describes them in detail. This means that it is easy for all readers to access and grasp the process concepts that are so pivotal to many service management day-to-day operations.

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Price: $51.53 [Notify me when price goes down.]

Wiggins makes the most convincing case yet that school-based assessment should aim mainly to improve, rather than to audit, student performance. Thanks to his penetrating discussions of feedback, the relationship of formal designs to practice, teaching for understanding, and rubrics, this book should dispel common misconceptions and elevate both the understanding and practice of authentic assessment


?Fred M. Newmann, professor of curriculum and instruction, University of Wisconsin , Madison

Assessing Student Performance laid out the theoretical foundations of a new assessment system that provides a more authentic picture of student capabilities than standardized testing. In Assessment for Excellence, Grant Wiggins provides guidance on how to design performance-based assessments for use in the classroom. This book covers all aspects of assessment design, including how to craft performance tasks that meet rigorous educational standards, how to score assessments fairly, and how to structure and judge student portfolios. It also looks at how performance assessment can be used to improve curriculum and instruction, grading and reporting?and teacher accountability..
Price: $34.00 [Notify me when price goes down.]

Educators, politicians, parents, and even students are consumed with speaking the language of academic achievement. Yet something is missing in the current focus on accountability, standardized testing, and adequate yearly progress. If schools continue to focus the conversation on rigor and accountability and ignore more human elements of education, many students may miss out on opportunities to discover the richness of individual exploration that schools can foster.

In The Best Schools, Armstrong urges educators to leave narrow definitions of learning behind and return to the great thinkers of the past 100 years—Montessori, Piaget, Freud, Steiner, Erikson, Dewey, Elkind, Gardner—and to the language of human development and the whole child.

The Best Schools highlights examples of educational programs that are honoring students' differences, using developmentally appropriate practices, and promoting a humane approach to education that includes the following elements:
*An emphasis on play for early childhood learning.
*Theme- and project-based learning for elementary school students.
8Active learning that recognizes the social, emotional, and cognitive needs of adolescents in middle schools.
*Mentoring, apprenticeships, and cooperative education for high school students.

Educators in "the best schools" recognize the differences in the physical, emotional, cognitive, and spiritual worlds of students of different ages. This book will help educators reflect on how to help each student reach his or her true potential, how to inspire each child and adolescent to discover an inner passion to learn, and how to honor the unique journey of each individual through life..
Price: $8.45 [Notify me when price goes down.]

Learn how to take the skills and knowledge you use to make games for entertainment to make serious games: games for education, training, healing, and more. "Serious Games: Games That Educate, Train, and Inform" teaches game developers how to tap into the rapidly expanding market of serious games. Explore the numerous possibilities that serious games represent such as the ability to teach military training in a non-lethal environment and the ability to convey a particular political viewpoint through a game's storyline. You'll get a detailed overview of all of the major markets for serious games, including the military, educators, government agencies, corporations, hospitals, non-profit organizations, religious groups, and activist groups. Discover the goals of each market, the types of games on which they focus, and market-specific issues you need to consider. Case studies of how professionals in these various markets utilize games provide ideas and inspiration as well as credibility for serious games. "Serious Games" shows you how to apply your game development skills to a new and growing area and also teaches you techniques to make even entertainment-based games richer and more meaningful..
Price: $19.98 [Notify me when price goes down.]

Knowing how to produce effective written communications—proposals, executive summaries, important emails—is more crucial than ever for today’s managers In Written Communications That Inform and Influence, readers will find powerful tools for crafting communications that get results. Experts provide suggestions for structuring your written pieces, striking the right tone and style, and avoiding all-too-common grammar goofs and gaffes..
Price: $3.89 [Notify me when price goes down.]

Communication coach Tony Jeary estimates that we make one hundred presentations every day. He tells readers, "Whether you are talking to a soccer coach or potential client, the way you present your thoughts and ideas to people have a profound effect on the shape of your life." Jeary paves the road to friendly persuasion with theory and practice in Life is a Series of Presentations.

Drawing upon established research in the psychology of influence and neuro-linguistic programming, he guides readers to define their "presentation universe" by using a "3 Dimension" (what-why-how) outline. Although Jeary introduces eight general practices of successful presenters, he shines in describing the practical nuances of presentations including how to: do homework to understand an audience, cut tensions that interfere with rapport, give an audience breathing space, handle hecklers, wrestle stage fright to the ground, and build a presentation arsenal of anecdotes.

A call to self-awareness adds depth to his strategies. For example, one insightful chapter lists eight inhibitors (such as perfectionism, desire to please, aloofness, and good student syndrome) that sabotage presentations. Another section focuses on the anatomy of how to say "thank-you"--and what it communicates about a speaker's self regard. At times, the chapters suffer from too many theories backing up Jeary's smart suggestions. But this is an insightful book on how to change someone's mind. --Barbara Mackoff.
Price: $1.89 [Notify me when price goes down.]

A reorganized and comprehensive major revision of a classic book, this edition provides a bridge between introductory digital communications and more advanced treatment of information theory. Completely updated to cover the latest developments, it presents state-of-the-art error control techniques. Coverage of the fundamentals of coding and the applications of codes to the design of real error control systems. Contains the most recent developments of coded modulation, trellises for codes, soft-decision decoding algorithms, turbo coding for reliable data transmission and other areas. There are two new chapters on Reed-Solomon codes & concatenated coding schemes. Also contains hundreds of new and revised examples; and more than 200 illustrations of code structures, encoding and decoding circuits and error performance of many important codes and error control coding systems. Appropriate for those with minimum mathematical background as a comprehensive reference for coding theory..
Price: $122.66 [Notify me when price goes down.]