Customer Reviews

e-Learning 2.0: Proven Practices and Emerging Technologies to Achieve Real Results

5 star:		(4)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

In this wide-ranging exploration of how to use new technologies to make training work over the web, Anita Rosen looks at basic business principles and new technologies and discusses how they can be applied to e-Learning. It's obvious she comes from a management and project management background, has created many business plans, and given many management presentations. She uses her management eye to provide focused recommendations of how to set goals, create an ROI and get buy in. She applies these concepts to the specific needs of eLearning.

What I found really helpful was when she explained that you can't create an effective classroom experience online, so don't bother trying. It's much better to create a good web experience. Then she explains, in a real nut-and-bolts way, what a good web experience looks like and how to effectively create it. Best of all she backs it up with real field tests performed at real companies.

All in all, it's a fast paced, interesting read that explains business and technology without getting preachy or to techy.

Had I Read Anita Rosen's book years ago, I would have saved my organization a lot of money and myself a lot of time.

My big walk away is that I spend too much time focusing on technologies instead of figuring out what my goals are and aligning my goals to my stakeholder's goals. Sure, I recognize the importance of working with my SMEs. I just did not write my goals and their goals down in a way that was measurable and actionable.

Rosen, has done a great job explaining that when you create an effective e-Learning course strategy you can use it to keep your project focused and get corporate buy-in. She made the technology section interesting and engaging without being overly technological. I found it helpful that she explains each of the technologies, highlights what works for e-Learning and what doesn't work. Then she discusses how by staying focused on your goals you can use technology to achieve your goals. What really brought things home for me was her use of real life case studies that highlight what some companies have done to successfully implement their e-Learning projects.

Training consultant Anita Rosen designed her book to resemble one of the "asynchronous e-learning courses" she describes within its pages. Her presentation on e-learning is exceptionally clear and is filled with very strong content. Rosen explains that you can't make many of the decisions involved in developing e-learning courses too far in advance, because technology is changing so quickly and new tools are emerging constantly. That said, she does a great job of methodically covering the major aspects of e-learning. She explains current principles and practices, and sums them up at the end of the book in a guide for "subject matter experts" who design e-learning courses. getAbstract recommends this book to corporate trainers, academic distance-learning developers, and anyone else who makes decisions about training.

The author makes some good and well-known points and suggestions on eLearning and eLearning initiatives. However, it is extremely geared toward corporate training. Also, seems especially geared towards eLearning that is consumed as a self-paced course rather than instructor-led. As such, information in the book seems to lack the depth and considerations you might expect in launching a more academic-based eLearning program. Also, information seems to be repeated from one chapter to another. I am giving 3 stars simply because it might be far more relevant in the corporate eLearning arena.

Education has taken a new turn in the 21st Century with the advent of e-learning. This book offers a comprehensive explanation and analysis of the latest trends and technologies for organizations to effectively and successfully launch and execute e-learning strategies in the workplace.

I am impressed by Rosen's broad brush as she examines the corporate training and workforce development field in what is essentially an e-learning revolution in adult education.

Corporations and organizations are cutting costs and saving money by going online with training and workforce development. This book serves as a best-practices guidebook to maximizing the e-learning initiative from concept to delivery, creation to evaluation, with all the necessary bells and whistles that we need to achieve success top down and at the grass roots.

I highly recommend this book to all those interested in e-learning and/or the use of technology in training and education.

Hands-down this is the best book I've come across on e-Learning!! It provided me with the necessary foundation to conduct an intelligent conversation on this topic. What I particularly appreciated was the pragmatic nature of the book. In and of themselves, the checklists at the end of each chapter justify the purchase of this book.

The book is geared toward companies that are rushing to implement training initiatives. As such, it provides an overview regarding computer technologies that can be used for e-Learning. Unfortunately, the topics discussed in the book are too shallow. For instance, the very beginning of the book establishes that goals must be set and they must be set properly: measurable, actionable, and realistics. However, such goals are not defined anywhere else (e.g., I was expecting they could be defined for some case studies). The only mechanisms that are provided for guidance are hints and checklists. Even those checklists seem grounded only by the author's knowledge, as can be verified by the absence of bibliography or references in the book. That is odd, as there is plenty of literature on the subject, that could (and should) be cited.

Finally, the '2.0' is just about technological features. Pedagogically, it is more to '0.5'. It suggests courses organized in chapters, pages, subpages, almost as a book. Most companies are not looking anymore for such structure. Project and problem-based courses, with highly interactive content (like simulations and games, and not as simple tests) are desirable, but the book does not provide any help regarding that.

So, if you are looking for a solid book to implement an e-learning, be aware there are other options more suitable. However, if you need an overview of the technologies and you need to bootstrap a simple e-learning initiative, the contents, specially the checklists, can be useful.

The book has some chapters with 'overview-type' information for beginners and new users seeking to invest/or absorb a white-paper-like handybook for e-learning.

The few concepts in the book are very basic and rather dated - for e.g.
- bullets not paragraph
- confusing/mining learning styles with communicative preferences - (audio, visual etc) or
- the difference between rapid and traditional, amongst others.

The book also does not touch upon the effectiveness of some of the approaches mentioned - most of which I think will achieve 'awareness only'.

Too many typos (not just spelling) made it a little bothersome. I think googling shall get you most of what you find in this book - and maybe some more. Buy it if you need that in a handybook. (though in principle that may beat the whole point: e-learning)

I liked this book. Maybe because I am a fan of the Internet being used as a teaching tool. Maybe it is because I see so much potential the Internet has to offer for people who want to sell information and run infopreneur companies. Maybe it is because I thought the book was well organized and fairly well written. Yes, there were lots of typos, misspellings, & grammar errors - and it would have been nice if the publisher's editors could have cleaned much of that up. But the substance and content of the book is wonderful.

The author says she wrote this book not to list the different options that are available for use on the Internet to provide company training programs, school courses, consultants' seminars & workshops, and other tutorial and coaching services. This book was written in order to cut through the long list of what is possible and to highlight the tools and techniques that have thus far proven to be successful.

I liked the way the author organized her chapters. Each chapter started with a sidebar that told us what we'd learn by reading the chapter. And at the end of each chapter there was a meaningful checklist that summarized what the chapter was all about. By reading the chapter intros and checklists first it was a breeze flying through the book from cover to cover. As a result, the typos did not bother me all that much. 4 stars!

This book has some decent information, especially for the novice who, for instance, doesn't know the difference between synchronous and asynchronous delivery.

However, the number of typos, misspellings, and grammar errors is a major distracter. The editors must have been novices themselves, because the abundance of mistakes in this book is waaaaay too much. C'mon, folks!

K. Pressey, PhD