Review of How to Use an Interactive Whiteboard Really Effectively in your Secondary Classroom (Paperback)

This is not a how to book for taking advantage of a digital white board.This is guide for a campaign to update 19th century administrators on 21st century technological advances in presentation.
It reads pretty much like an ad for the next version of Windows, telling you how much you will like it when you get it, with very little supporting examples.
If you read the previous book on the Elementary classroom, you will quickly see the only difference is Elementary has been replaced with Secondary in the title.

Product Description

This book helps teachers get to grips with using software and offers advice on the different classroom management, differentiation and learning styles issues involved in using a whiteboard in a classroom context by:

* Covering issues specific to Primary school teachers integrating whiteboard teaching into their classrooms

* Providing cross-curricular strategies that help teachers incorporate the board in a range of subjects

* Including screenshots and photos that show what can be created and how to do it

* Offering innovative ways of presenting curriculum topics

* Including a CD packed full of resources that teachers can develop for their own use.

About the Author
Jenny Gage is Academic Co-ordinator for the Motivate Project, Millennium Mathematics at Cambridge University. She also provides training in the use of interactive whiteboards for teaching mathematics at all levels.

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Review of e-Learning by Design (Paperback)

This author actually was able to present detailed and effective solutions for E-Learning problems.You could sense that he had to solve similar problems.He also seemed to have encountered a broad range of real E-Learning problems, rather than simply theorize about them.The solutions made sense.In addition, Horton presented a number of well researched issues that appear to have caused problems due to frequent instructional designer beliefs that the E-media itself is good enough to cover the lack true learning assistance...... real learning assistance, that all too often is missing in many E-Learning presentations due to interaction gimmicks that offer no relationship to assisting with the learning process.

Great book! Sits now on top of my Michael Allen E-Learning books. I also liked Horton's apparent attitude that philosophizing does not solve instructional problems, but offering solid detailed solution approaches can.

Product Description
From William Horton -- a world renowned expert with more than thirty-five years of hands-on experience creating networked-based educational systems -- comes the next-step resource for e-learning training professionals. Like his best-selling book Designing Web-Based Training, this book is a comprehensive resource that provides practical guidance for making the thousand and one decisions needed to design effective e-learning.

e-Learning by Design includes a systematic, flexible, and rapid design process covering every phase of designing e-learning. Free of academic jargon and confusing theory, this down-to-earth, hands-on book is filled with hundreds of real-world examples and case studies from dozens of fields.

"Like the book's predecessor (Designing Web-based Training), it deserves four stars and is a must read for anyone not selling an expensive solution. -- From Training Media Review, by Jon Aleckson, www.tmreview.com, 2007

From the Back Cover
From William Horton-a world renowned expert with more than thirty-five years of hands-on experience creating networked-based educational systems-comes the next-step resource for e-learning training professionals. Like his best-selling book Designing Web-Based Training, this book is a comprehensive resource that provides practical guidance for making the thousand and one decisions needed to design effective e-learning.

E-Learning by Design includes a systematic, flexible, and rapid design process covering every phase of designing e-learning.?Free of academic jargon and confusing theory, this down-to-earth, hands-on book is filled with hundreds of real-world examples and case studies from dozens of fields.

E-Learning by Design guides both industrial trainers and academic educators in:

• Inventing engaging learning activities
• Targeting specific goals
• Designing learning games and simulations
• Writing online tests and assessments

It also helps readers select media, ensure reuse of content, specify learning objects, design the display, and make courses navigable. But wait, there's more! E-Learning by Design goes beyond traditional e-learning to include guidance on creating electronic job aids, virtual classroom activities, and mobile learning for PDAs and SmartPhones.

E-Learning by Design is jam-packed with best practices you can apply right away, using tools you already own.This is the guide trainers and educators need on their journey to creating successful e-learning programs.

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Review of Designing Web-Based Training: How to Teach Anyone Anything Anywhere Anytime (Paperback)

note: I submitted my review yesterday and incorrectly put the publishers name instead or Horton in the review. I have corrected thaterror below

Excellent overview and covers the in depth considerations necessary for any successful WBT program

I do consulting in education on WBT and I am a Director of a WBT Consulting Certification Program and consequently usually do not have the time to write reviews.However, in this instance I had to take the time. Horton has done an excellent job of providing an overview of WBT and an in depth study of the instructional design related to a WBT program. He covers most of the issues you will be facing setting up WBT and his book should be on your shelf and one of the first that you read if you are just getting started in WBT or in need of further guidance in this area. He doesn't go into the practical development side of the how to do the graphics, programming, and Web architecture, but that is OK because that is a separate area in itself.If you need to know most of the considerations involved with WBT, then this is definitely your book. After you have read his book sit down and use his suggestions to plan your WBT program and you will not go wrong. He also addresses very practical issues in the instructional design of the WBT program and the courses within the program, how to set them up and conduct them.I can't say enough about how well he covers these topics. If you need a book that will give you ideas and make you think about your WBT program and the instructional design and development within your upcoming or current WBT program, his book will do all of that and more. His book will definitely make you think and will provide insightful assistance for WBT program managers, WBT instructional designers, WBT course development teams and WBT instructors alike. I particularly liked the instructional design of his book; it is full of illustrations that are as thought provoking as his words. The book is truly an idea generator.It is an easy read for a newcomer and a must read for the WBT professional.

Product Description
The surge in the number of online training sites has created an unprecedented demand for experts who know all aspects of Web-based training (WBT) site design. Written by bestselling author William Horton, this book provides the hands-on and practical guidance that trainers demand. Packed with over 100 examples, this well-illustrated guide walks you through every phase of designing WBT, from analyzing your course requirements and assessing the needs of potential students to designing a course for a global audience.

You'll find out how to combine elements into effective and interesting learning sequences, discover how to overcome any technical hurdle that may arise, how to offer materials that motivate learning, and how to use Web technologies to create 21st-century alternatives to traditional courses.

Praise for Designing Web-Based Training

"Horton has done it again! He's addressed the cutting-edge problem of Web-based training design with his pragmatic, research-based approach. His work is task-oriented and down-to-earth. He doesn't waste our time with excessive educational philosophy. In short-comprehensive overview, practical advice, engaging presentation."-Robert E. Horn, Author, Visual Language: Global Communication for the 21st Century

"As each new media wave is adopted for instructional pur-poses, there is a lag in effective exploitation of the unique features the medium brings for supporting learning. Designing Web-Based Training bridges the gap by providing a rich and detailed reference."-Ruth Clark, EdD, President, Clark Training & Consulting

"Designers have been seeking guidance on how to exploit the Web's distribution potential while combining it with powerful instructional programs. Horton provides structure, stimulation, and substance in this important book. Web-based training is definitely what is happening now. Designing Web-Based Training will be a de facto classic in the field.* Design guidelines
* Live versions of many examples from the book
* A course shell and sample lessons
* Links to helpful references

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Review of Computers in the Classroom: How Teachers and Students Are Using Technology to Transform Learning (Hardcover)

"Computers in the Classroom:How Teachers and Students Are Using Technology to Transform Learning" is written by Andrea R. Gooden, the former program manager for the Education Grants program at Apple Computers, Inc.Having known that, I expected this book to be informative and of course, filled with success stories.This book highlights six schools in impoverished communities, all whom received money from the Apple Computer's Educational Grants program.The stories include high schools in New York, Pennsylvania, California, and South Dakota.Elementary schools covered in this book represent Louisiana and New York.Each story discusses the ways in which technology was used to enhance, and sometimes enable education.Students used computers to experience education rather then simply learn.Technology was the key that unlocked the door to success for these students.This book included actual work from students and teacher comments.Although this book does not fully describe the programs used at these schools, it does provide information and resources.This book is not a teacher's lesson guide; it is a teacher's inspiration.



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Review of Oversold and Underused: Computers in the Classroom (Paperback)

If you're looking for a thoughtful, insightful analysis of the use of technology in the classroom, this book is NOT it.Two of the book's conclusions seem unassailable, i.e., the benefits from using computer technology in the classroom have been oversold by its proponents and the technology is little used in the classroom despite pervasive access to computers.This, however, is not news, as virtually any thoughtful parent with school-age children could tell you.Unfortunately, the book is rambling, and the analysis is sophomoric and naive.It might have made a useful magazine article, but the book-length format has resulted in the inclusion of so much chaff with the few grains of wheat as to make reading this rambling, poorly argued book a frustrating and annoying experience.

The unspoken assumption that underlies the whole book is that computers represent a genuinely transformative technology that should and inevitably will result in a revolution in instructional methods from pre-school through the university level.The author investigates a number of reasons why this revolution has not yet occurred notwithstanding the pervasive availability of computers in the school systems he studies but fails to investigate or discuss one of the obvious reasons, i.e., that the technology (at least at the current state of hardware and software development) is a vehicle ill-suited to producing the author's hoped-for instructional revolution.

The author uses the advent of film, radio and television as models for the acceptance of new instructional technologies in the school systems.He fails to discuss in any of these cases the ultimate reasons for their failure to revolutionize the classroom experience, i.e., their fundamental unsuitedness to the task.No one today would seriously advocate the widesrpead use of any of these still "underused" technologies to transform the educational experience for the better.

The author would have been able to explore his subject more effectively if he had compared these supposed revolutionary technologies, which advocates argued would fundamentally transform education but were never widely adopted, with technologies that have been widely adopted in the classroom.Teachers, like other workers, will rapidlyadopt procedures and technologies that they believe will improve their ability to function effectively.(See, for example, the pervasive use of computers by teachers for preparatory and administrative activities, which the author discusses but whose significance escapes him.)The computer revolution in business was driven from the bottom up.Workers clamored for computers that they knew would simplify complex tasks and improve their ability to get their work done, much the way teachers have embraced computers for preparatory and administrative tasks.By contrast, computers have been introduced to the classrooms not by grassroots demands from teachers but from top down pressures from parents and administrators.As the author rightly points out, teachers today are not technophobes and commonly make extensive use of PCs outside the classroom for person use or to prepare for classes.If there were readily apparent, readily implementable and educationally beneficial uses of computer technology for instructional purposes in the classroom, teachers would be clamoring for more computers not letting them sit "underused."

The author investigates any reason he can think of to explain why teachers don't integrate computer technology into the classroom except the most obvious one -- that computer technology (like film, radio and television) is not a suitable vehicle to produce a revolution in instructional methods.

The author fails to cite even one example where computers have had a revolutionary effect on classroom instruction, even among teachers who are highly motivated to use and promote the technology.Even the few teachers he praises for integrating computers into the classroom seem to be doing nothing more than using computers to do the same old things that could otherwise have been easily done with slides, pictures and other low tech technologies.There was nothing "transformative" or "revolutionary" about any of the "innovative" uses that he lavishly praises.

The term "underused" in the title of the book assumes that computers should be used in the classroom much more than they currently are, but this assumption goes wholly unexamined by Mr. Cuban.

JHB



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