Product Description

Student engagement with digital learning resources and online social networking are strong forces in education today. How can these resources best be utilized by educators and course designers in higher education? This book aims to provide the reader with enough background information to appreciate the value of social networking, especially for distributed education. Through highlighting the most relevant, interesting, and challenging aspects of e-Learning the book provides practical advice for using social networking tools in course design.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #220305 in Books
• Published on: 2008-04-18
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 198 pages

Review

"Mason and Rennie have made a major contribution to the Learning Design literature by challenging us to use Web 2.0 tools in the most effective and creative ways to support networking and the social construction of knowledge. They describe how we might effectively design courses to address the challenge of distributed learning environments and provide examples of practice.. They also point out that their emergent approach to learning design ensures that the design is multimodal in representation and aware of the widening range of interactive possibilities."--John Hedberg, (Macquarie University, Sydney, Australia)

From the Back Cover

Student engagement with digital learning resources and online social networking are strong forces in education today. How can these resources best be utilized by educators and course designers in higher education? This book aims to provide the reader with enough background information to appreciate the value of social networking, especially for distributed education. Through highlighting the most relevant, interesting, and challenging aspects of e-Learning the book provides practical advice for using social networking tools in course design. This volume covers the following issues of course design using social networking:

• Key issues of social networking as an educational technique
• Designing for a distributed environment
• Strengths and weaknesses of delivering content in various formats: text, audio and video
• Specific media: blogging, wikis, podcasting, webcasting
• Constraints on course design
• Implementation, evaluation, induction and training

Illustrated by short descriptive case studies, it also highlights contact addresses, websites, and further reading to help readers find resources and enhance their design.

This practical guide will help all those involved in the design and delivery of online learning in higher education make the best choices when preparing courses for distributed learning.

Robin Mason is Professor of Educational Technology at the Open University, UK. where she is a specialist in the design and practice of online teaching and learning.

Frank Rennie is Professor of Sustainable Rural Development at the UHI Millennium Institute in the Highlands and Islands of Scotland.

Please visit the authors’ wiki at: www.socialnetworking.wetpaint.com

About the Author
The Open University, UK The University of Highlands and Islands Millennium Institute, UK

Customer Reviews

Excellent Introduction
This slim volume, nevertheless proves to be an informative book which is easily read. It sets out a clear context for the use of Web 2.0 to support learning, and interestingly enough, puts forward the argument that it is the students that have to be convinced of its usefulness. The book is clearly written and each chapter takes the reader through a different aspect of using Web 2.0 technologies. What I liked most about this book is that every area is very clearly linked to learning and how learning can be supported through these new technologies. This is an excellent book which has enhanced my knowledge of how I can use Web 2.0 with my students.