Customer Reviews

Instructional and Cognitive Impacts of Web-Based Education

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As a faculty trainer and instructional designer, I have had the opportunity to read many volumes dealing with the instructional design process and Web-based courses. This volumn is simply the best I have read. There is not a single chapter that I did not get domething from. I will begin teaching a certificate program in Web-based course design and implementation in the Spring and this book will the text for the first course.

I have had the opportunity to critique several hundred Web-based courses over the last three years. The vast majority are flawed from an instructional desing standpoint. This book should be required reading for all persons designing Web-based courses as, if followed, the percentage of courses that are designed and implemented correctly would increase dramatically.

I cannot recommend this volume too highly. In addition to being well written, the references (many on the Web) are great.

Jim

Ostensibly, this book covers the subject of creating web-based educational courseware thoroughly; however, it is mostly geared towards university distance learning (including hypbrid uses), which I found of limited use to those in military or corporate training development. The basis of the information, where each chapter is written by a different author, ranges from tenets based on primary research, to those based on extrapolation from text and CBI research, to "common practice" and personal experience (but written as though the truth). Very little information is based on primary research for web-based instructional design (including interface issues), although each chapter has a long bibiography. Also, this is one of the worst-edited books I've read in a long time, though the first chapter is the killer. If you're new to the subject of distance learning and you're in K-12 or higher education, it may be useful to you. Else...is there "else"? I'm still searching.

Ostensibly, this book covers the subject of creating web-based educational courseware thoroughly; however, it is mostly geared towards university distance learning (including hypbrid uses), which I found of limited use to those in military or corporate training development. The basis of the information, where each chapter is written by a different author, ranges from tenets based on primary research, to those based on extrapolation from text and CBI research, to "common practice" and personal experience (but written as though the truth). Very little information is based on primary research for web-based instructional design (including interface issues), although each chapter has a long bibiography. Also, this is one of the worst-edited books I've read in a long time, though the first chapter is the killer. If you're new to the subject of distance learning and you're in K-12 or higher education, it may be useful to you. Else...is there "else"? I'm still searching.

Like many of the other books on this subject, it is a collection of articles which vary considerably in their usefulness. Many of the articles begin with a rather basic summary of the depth of the changes that the internet and new learning technologies are bringing to education. If you've purchased or borrowed this book, my guess is that you're already aware of this and are looking for interesting ideas and some pointers to directions that are likely to be fruitful and interesting.
For me, the following chapters fulfilled those criteria

· Conditions for Web-based Learning with real events, Theo J Basstiaens and Rob L. Martens, Open University of the Netherlands
· Preparing tomorrow's teachers to Use web-based education, Lowther, Jones & Plants University of Memphis
· Using Situated Learning as a Design Strategy for Web- based Learning, Oliver and Herrington, Edith Cowan University