Customer Reviews

147 Practical Tips for Teaching Online Groups : Essentials of Web-Based Education

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This is a book with a promising title and little else. The opening chapter suggests that the book is intended for experienced teachers who are new to the online environment. Consequently, readers are led to expect useful tips that will help them translate their classroom experience to the Web. But instead readers will find revelations such as these:
"You can create quiz questions that are true-false, matching, multiple choice, completion and short answer, and essay." (page 40) Really? What news!
"Evaluate Your Learners" (Tip 82, page 38) Indeed! What a concept! Actually find out what your students know!
As Fred Gailey, the attorney defending Kris Kringle in "Miracle on 34th Street" told the judge when he offered some letters in evidence of Santa's identity, "I have further exhibits, but I hesitate to produce them."
A teacher with the most modest experience can open this book at random and find such [content] on any page.
I hope that these comments help someone else ...

If you are looking for specific distance education methodologies and techniques you might want to look elsewhere, but if all you are looking for are general distance education concepts put into a book- then this is for you. I thought that the tips were similar to something you might get in a "Thought of the Day" email, some interesting concepts with very little substance.

The book does have some very good ideas and the structure of the book allows you to quickly browse through the tips if you are looking for new ideas or affirmation of something that you are currently doing. The 4 chapters present the tips in a logical framework of ideas to help you find something, even if you're not quite sure what it is you are looking for:
Chapter 1. Before You Begin
Chapter 2. Myths and Constraints of Online Teaching and Learning
Chapter 3. Organizing the Online Course
Chapter 4. Beginning Instruction in the Online Course: Implementing the Course Design

The fact that they don't go into specific technologies very much also facilitates the tips being useful across a wider variety of technologies.

I would recommend this book for someone new to the field of distance education looking to get a handle on general concepts, but for anyone who has been around the block this book is only going to tell you what you already know.

147 Practical Tips for Teaching Online Groups delivers what the title implies and much, much more. Over the last three years I have traveled to scores of universities across the United States and talked to chancellors, presidents, provosts, deans, and faculty about technology in education. Online education is on everyone's mind. Most faculty members are very un-nerved and yet intrigued by the idea of exploring this new mode of publishing and. So many faculty I have visited with from all academic fields are holding back, unsure of where to step into this seeming ocean of unknown waters. 147 Practical Tips for Teaching Online is the PERFECT book to start faculty off on this new adventure. If I were a dean wondering how to start a discussion with faculty about exploring online education, I would purchase everyone a copy.

This book provides a practical road map, warns of the potholes to avoid, asks readers to think about important questions they will face along the way, and illuminates the myths about teaching online. It is written in a gentle yet affirming tone that lets the reader evaluate from her/his own experience, how he/she might jump into this new medium of information and discourse.

Professors will make the decision to adopt new ways of teaching and learning when they hear about it from another professor, from a colleague who has been there before and can show them some of the journey they will encounter. This book takes nothing for granted about what an instructor may or may not know about effective teaching. It gives a reasonable and detailed series of guideposts that even the best instructors can appreciate in planning their own first adventure into online education.

I recommend this book even for experienced distance educators as I learned a great deal from it myself. I wish I could have had this book when I jumped into distance education 13 years ago.

As an experienced learner and instructor in online education, I found this book to be a nice, quick read that provides some very practical tips and suggstions in teaching online. What I really liked about it was its simplicity-finally, a book that reads like a book and not like an academic journal article. ( I like academic journal articles, but when I read them all day, this is a nice change of pace.)

Not meant to be a comprehensive resource nor the final solution to online teaching problems, these tips generate intrigue and interest-enough to encourage you to explore additonal resources.

A great road map for beginners and for seasoned veterans in online education.

"In an interactive online course, some content and methods work better than others." (p.32) Yes, I know this. That's why I bought this book. Do I have to wait for the sequel to actually find out *which* content and methods work better than others?

This book provides only a superficial look at the complexity of teaching online groups. The 147 tips are not organized in any fashion, and most of them are just plain old common sense.

First, let me say that the material in this book is valid and helpful. That said, this seems to be a collection of suggestions that any teacher would hear from a mentor-teacher or should have heard in the most basic education class. A few of the "tips for teaching online groups": 5) Understand your audience, 23) Be prepared and flexible, 30) Expect learners to be ready to learn, 80) Develop assignments. Don't misunderstand; these are certainly practical tips, but my expectations for a book targeted toward teachers facilitating online classes were not met.

Part of my own mistake was buying this book based on the cover and not doing a little bit of research first. Copyrighted in 2000, this book was already eight years old by the time I got it. Some of the philosophical, big-picture ideas are helpful (share your work, promote critical thinking, and use case studies), but not what I was hoping for in a book targeted to as specific of an audience as this one is.

I was hoping to start teaching online groups and needed some practical tips to get me started. I estimated that I would need 183 practical tips before I could start. I knew 22 good tips already - 4 of those appeared in here so it was effectively 143 tips + 22 tips leaving me at 165 tips - 18 short of my target! If they write a book called '161 Practical Tips for Teaching Online Groups: Essentials of Web-Based Education' (with none I know already) then we might be talking. Verdict: short of the mark.

As the Bard said, "ripeness is all." If you are ready for a 65-page checklist about online teaching, and if you are hungry for a succinct set of reminders in four chapters with two short appendices of helpful websites-- here it is. You can read this in a couple of hours, as I did, and get a satisfying overview. I'm going back to it for the occasional reality check, like chatting to an experienced and non-threatening colleague, when I need a few calming words. The extended essay 147 Tips will be for some people, such as myself, a reassurance that the "black hole" of Virtual Learning Environments (VLE) will not devour me totally. The four things I liked best about this slim volume are (1) an emphasis on knowing yourself and your philosophy of teaching, (2) itemisation of most common myths and constraints of online instruction, (3) lots of practical reminders (don't expect revolutionary or stunning) about content and assessment, and finally (4) a sense of "go ahead, you can do it" attitude. The three authors first share their medieval self-profiles (I'm not joking!), so that you can see they are real people trying their best to figure out how to be responsible pioneers. No big words. But if you are not "ripe" for this kind of "guide on the side" type of humane encouragement, I expect you'll be frustrated. This extended outline of 147 "tips"-- a bit of a misnomer-- is for people who want a point-form set of reminders. It is a sequential shoppling list of topics. It leaves one with a sense of modest suggestions offered by caring educators.

In 147 Practical Tips For Teaching Online Groups: Essentials of Web-Based Education, Donald E. Hanna, Michelle Glowacki-Dudka, and Simone Conceicao-Runlee effectively collaborate to create a practical and succinct compendium of "tips, tricks and techniques" for successfully conducting a workshop, seminar or classroom symposium over the Internet. Each technique is succinctly presented and will increase effectiveness for both the teacher and the group discussion participants. 147 Practical Tips For Teaching Online Groups is essential and invaluable reading for anyone charged with the responsibility for using the Internet as a means of instructional contact whether in academia, a corporate in-service, non-profit organizational seminar, or educating an Internet newsgroup or listserv in some particular subject, issue or topic.