Customer Reviews

Learning Networks: A Field Guide to Teaching and Learning On-Line

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Whether you are planning to develop, teach, or even take an online course, this book at least deserves a flip-through. It covers the major issues in the field today, and is a useful reference. Also, the book was written by the "pioneers" in the field, who were working with computer learning networks since the 1980s. A couple of items are out of date (since the book was published in 1995), but the topics are general enough to keep it usable for years to come.

I appreciated this "field guide" and think it should be a recommended read for educators who are new to technology. It provides a thorough overview of teaching and learning even though it includes "outdated" information. What was interesting to me, as a Higher Ed faculty member, was the number of K-12 activities of which I was unaware. The chapter on Problems in Paradise really rings true in Higher Ed as well; lack of support, lack of planing, lack of time, limited access....yikes. I think a wonderful ancillary might be an updated CD/ROM with the newest links and information on distance learning programs available, similar to the "old fashined" yearbook.

I found this book interesting and informative, but from more of a 'reference book' view. I found the reading dry but the ability to skip around and read bits here and there useful. The suggestion that there should be no problem for a teacher with 36 kids a class five times a day to "handle a few more students"," REALLY hit home to me. Not from the experience in K-12, but in medical rehabilitation where the initial thought was we could line patients up in front of computers and one therapist could oversee a room of patients on computers, practicing repetitive and learning skills (some of which have been found very useful with brain injury patient). I would like to think we are now (since the book uses 1992 examples) mostly beyond the idea of lining people up in front of computers like a high techy's Skinner box. Technology has changed so much since the publication of this book that some of the information is outdated, and the resources in the back are definitely dated with companies rise and fall, and new leader in this industry emerging quickly. I would still recommend this book to the new user of educational technology because it provides some examples about which many people are unaware - reference more than reading, and then move the reader on to some other materials related to the rapid changes in technology, especially interactive multimedia since the book focuses on text based interactions. --