The Savvy Student's Guide to Online Learning prepares students of all kinds for contemporary online learning. While technologies and formats vary, this book serves as an authoritative resource for any student enrolling in an online degree program or taking an online course. Topics covered include: * How to become a great online student * Creating an online presence * Interaction and communication techniques * Online group projects and individual work * Technological requirements and how to get technical support * Online classroom "netiquette" and time management The authors, both experts in online education, introduce the information and skills required of successful online students to navigate this new learning landscape with confidence. A highly useful companion website provides video presentations that explain the different types of online learning as well as a real online course with activities for students to practice and interact with other learners around the world.

Looking for a practical, straightforward guide that focuses on helping students acclimate to the online classroom faster?  Students are offered key information and suggestions for succeeding as online learners.  The material covers key topics with an online spin, such as motivation, time management, and self-knowledge.  It also discusses topics which are particularly relevant to online learners: the online classroom and community, the basics of working in the online classroom, communicating online, strategies for successful online learning, computer concerns, and creating the ideal personalized study environment for the online student.  The book is grounded in theories around learning styles, personality profiles and current research is applied to online learning.

Learning in Real Time is a concise and practical resource for education professionals teaching live and online or those wanting to humanize and improve interaction in their online courses by adding a synchronous learning component. The book offers keen insight into the world of synchronous learning tools, guides instructors in evaluating how and when to use them, and illustrates how educators can develop their own strategies and styles in implementing such tools to improve online learning.

Exploring the Digital Library, a volume in TheJossey-Bass Online Teaching and Learning series, addresses thekey issue of library services for faculty and their students in theonline learning environment. Written by librarians at AthabascaUniversity, a leading institution in distance education, this bookshows how faculty can effectively use digital libraries in theirday-to-day work and in the design of electronic courses.Exploring the Digital Library is filled with information,ideas, and Discusses how information and communication technologies aretransforming scholarship communication Provides suggestions for integrating digital libraries intoteaching and course development Describes approaches to promoting information literacy skillsand integrating these skills across the curriculum Outlines the skills and knowledge required in digital libraryuse Suggests opportunities for faculty and librarians tocollaborate in the online educational environment

More than 2 million children are currently being homeschooled in the United States. The writings in this anthology have been selected to introduce your readers to a wide array of leading viewpoints on homeschooling. Written by many foremost authorities in the field, these essays express contrasting views on issues such as the regulation and oversight of home schooling. Each chapter asks a relevant question about the topic, and the viewpoints that follow are grouped into "yes" and "no" categories. This format provides readers with a concise view of different opinions on each topic.

This volume explores the topics relating to homeschooling by presenting varied expert opinions that examine many of the different aspects that comprise these issues. Homeschooling is the education of children at home, typically by parents but sometimes by tutors, rather than in other formal settings of public or private school. The viewpoints are selected from a wide range of highly respected publications. This allows the reader to attain the higher-level critical thinking and reading skills that are essential in a culture of diverse and contradictory opinions. Essay sources include the Minnesota Homeschoolers' Alliance, Patricia R. Stokes, Graham Badman, and John Stossel.

In Homeschooling: The History and Philosophy of a Controversial Practice, James G. Dwyer and Shawn F. Peters examine homeschooling's history, its methods, and the fundamental questions at the root of the heated debate over whether and how the state should oversee and regulate it. The authors trace the evolution of homeschooling and the law relating to it from before America's founding to the present day. In the process they analyze the many arguments made for and against it, and set them in the context of larger questions about school and education. They then tackle the question of regulation, and they do so within a rigorous moral framework, one that is constructed from a clear-eyed assessment of what rights and duties children, parents, and the state each possess. Viewing the question through that lens allows Dwyer and Peters to even-handedly evaluate the competing arguments and ultimately generate policy prescriptions. Homeschooling is the definitive study of a vexed question, one that ultimately affects all citizens, regardless of their educational background.  

For a comprehensive guide to home-based education that does not promote any particular curriculum or religious view, this is one book parents should buy! Parents will appreciate practical advice on getting started, adjusting to new roles, designing schoolwork that is both child-centered and fun, and planning for social and emotional growth. Parents will turn to curriculum chapters again and again. Features interviews and tips from many home school parents as well as long lists of resources. 430 pages of tips and tools!

Presenting step-by-step instructions for tailoring a curriculum to the individual, this book helps you to integrate academic home schooling with public school extracurricular opportunities. It also helps you to maintain family energy and peace, and develop diverse community-based enrichment studies.

Essential reading for online instructors, updated to cover new and emerging issues and technologies The Online Teaching Survival Guide provides a robust overview of theory-based techniques for teaching online or technology-enhanced courses. Covering all aspects of online teaching, this book reviews the latest research in cognitive processing and related learning outcomes while retaining a focus on the practical. A simple framework of instructional strategies mapped across a four-phase timeline provides a concrete starting point for both new online teachers and experienced teachers designing or revamping an online course. Essential technologies are explored in their basic and expanded forms, and traditional pedagogy serves as the foundation for tips and practices customized for online learning.

There has been a steady increase of over 10% in online enrollment for higher education institutions since 2002, yet the visual look of online courses has not changed significantly in the last ten years. Adapting to the needs of students within online classes is critical to guiding your students toward success--and the right visual elements can play an integral role in your students' ability to learn and retain the information they need to thrive in their chosen programs. In fact, visual elements have been shown to increase student participation, engagement, and success in an online course. Written for both new and experienced instructors, the book guides you in adding pedagogically relevant visual design elements that contribute to effective learning practices. The text builds upon three conceptual frameworks: active learning, multiple intelligences, and universal design for learning. This resource explores critical issues such as copyright, technology tools, and accessibility and includes examples from top Blackboard practitioners which are applicable to any LMS. Ultimately, the author guides you in developing effective visual elements that will support your teaching goals while reinforcing the learning materials you share with your students. Leverage the best practices employed by exemplary Blackboard practitioners. Explore three foundational conceptual frameworks: active learning, multiple intelligences, and universal design for learning.

Minds Online is a concise, nontechnical guide for academic leaders and instructors who seek to advance learning in this changing environment, through a sound scientific understanding of how the human brain assimilates knowledge. Drawing on the latest findings from neuroscience and cognitive psychology, Michelle Miller explores how attention, memory, and higher thought processes such as critical thinking and analytical reasoning can be enhanced through technology-aided approaches. The techniques she describes promote retention of course material through frequent low‐stakes testing and practice, and help prevent counterproductive cramming by encouraging better spacing of study. Online activities also help students become more adept with cognitive aids, such as analogies, that allow them to apply learning across situations and disciplines. For a generation born into the Internet age, educational technology designed with the brain in mind offers a natural pathway to the pleasures and rewards of deep learning.

Educators around the world acknowledge the fact that we live in the knowledge society and ability to think systematically is one of the necessary skills in order to function effectively in the 21st century. In the past two decades, popular culture introduced digital games as part of leisure activities for children and adults. Today playing computer games is routine activity for children of all ages. Many have agreed that interactive computer games enhance concentration, promote thinking, increase motivation and encourage socialisation. Educators found their way in introducing game-based learning in science education to entice the students in teaching difficult concepts. Simulation games provide authentic learning experience and virtual world excites the students to learn new phenomena and enliven their inquisitive mind. This book presents recent studies in game-based learning and reports continuing attempts to use games as new tool in the classrooms.

Teachers, instructors and faculty are facing unprecedented change, with often larger classes, more diverse students, demands from government and employers who want more accountability and the development of graduates who are workforce ready, and above all, we are all having to cope with ever changing technology. To handle change of this nature, teachers and instructors need a base of theory and knowledge that will provide a solid foundation for their teaching, no matter what changes or pressures they face. Although the book contains many practical examples, it is more than a cookbook on how to teach. It addresses the following questions: is the nature of knowledge changing, and how do different views on the nature of knowledge result in different approaches to teaching? what is the science and research that can best help me in my teaching? how do I decide whether my courses should be face-to-face, blended or fully online? what strategies work best when teaching in a technology-rich environment.