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Featured eBooks
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99 Tips for Creating Simple and Sustainable Educational Videos
The research is clear: online learning works best whenfaculty build regular, positive, and interactive relationships withstudents. A strategy that helps forgesuch a relationship is the use of videos. Student satisfaction and courseengagement levels also increase with the use of instructor-generated videos -the subject of this book. Beginning by outlining the different types of videos you cancreate, and what the research says about their effectiveness, Karen Costaexplains how they can be designed to reinforce learning, to align with andpromote course outcomes, and to save you time across your courses. She thendescribes how to create successful videos with commonly available technologiessuch as your smartphone, and without a major investment of time, demonstratingthe simple steps she took to develop her bank of videos and build herconfidence to deliver short, straightforward learning aids that are effectiveand personal. EmbeddedQR codes in the text enable you to view sample videos and screencasts thatbring the book's advice to life as you read. If you've been wanting to include videos in your teachingbut haven't found the time or confidence, this book will help you to develop asimple and sustainable video development process, supporting both your successand the success of your students.
Best Practices in Engaging Online Learners Through Active and Experiential Learning Strategies
Best Practices in Engaging Online Learners Through Active and Experiential Learning Strategies, Second Edition, is a practical guide for all instructors, instructional designers, and online learning administrators designing, developing, teaching, and leading online, hybrid and blended learning courses and programs, who seek to provide supportive, engaging, and interactive learner experiences. This book explores the integration of active and experiential learning approaches and activities including simulations, gamification, social media integration, project-based learning, scenario-based learning, virtual tours, and online micro-credentialing as they relate to the development of authentic skill-building, communication, problem-solving, and critical-thinking in learners. New and emerging learning technologies of virtual and augmented reality along with artificial intelligence are included in this updated edition with examples of how instructors can actively use them in online courses to engage learners in experiential experiences. Readers will find guidelines for the development of participatory and peer-learning, competency-based learning, field-based experiences, clinical experiences, and service-learning opportunities in the online classroom. In addition, the authors provide effective learning strategies, discipline-specific examples, templates, and additional resources that align learner engagement with assessment practices and course outcomes.
Increasing Student Engagement and Retention in e-Learning Environments
Increasing Student Engagement and Retention in e-Learning Environments: Web 2.0 and Blended Learning Technologies examines new research on how online and blended learning technologies are being used in higher education to increase learner engagement in an era of increasing technological convergence and dependence. These enabling technologies are reshaping and reframing the practice of teaching and learning in higher education. Through case studies, surveys, and literature reviews, this volume will examine online and blended technologies are being used to improve academic literacies in students, to create engaging communities of practice, and how these technologies are being used to improve learner motivation and self-empowered learners. This volume will also discuss a framework for adopting and deploying these technologies.
Leading the eLearning Transformation of Higher Education
eLearning has entered the mainstream of higher education as an agent of strategic change. This transformation requires eLearning leaders to develop the skills to innovate successfully at a time of heightened competition and rapid technological change.
In this environment eLearning leaders must act within their institutions as much more than technology managers and assume the prime role of helping their institutions understand the opportunities that eLearning presents for faculty, for students, and for client organizations in the community. They need to prepare to participate in policy development around these opportunities. They must understand the multiple dimensions of practice in the field—operations, administration, and working within the complex culture of a higher education institution—while also functioning as scholars of the field who can bring the best ideas from other institutions to help shape policy around eLearning.
Learning Online : The Student Experience
What's it really like to learn online?Learning Online: The Student Experience Online learning is ubiquitous for millions of students worldwide, yet our understanding of student experiences in online learning settings is limited. The geographic distance that separates faculty from students in an online environment is its signature feature, but it is also one that risks widening the gulf between teachers and learners. In Learning Online, George Veletsianos argues that in order to critique, understand, and improve online learning, we must examine it through the lens of student experience. Approaching the topic with stories that elicit empathy, compassion, and care, Veletsianos relays the diverse day-to-day experiences of online learners. Each in-depth chapter follows a single learner's experience while focusing on an important or noteworthy aspect of online learning, tackling everything from demographics, attrition, motivation, and loneliness to cheating, openness, flexibility, social media, and digital divides. Veletsianos also draws on these case studies to offer recommendations for the future and lessons learned. The elusive nature of online learners' experiences, the book reveals, is a problem because it prevents us from doing better: from designing more effective online courses, from making evidence-informed decisions about online education, and from coming to our work with the full sense of empathy that our students deserve. Writing in an evocative, accessible, and concise manner, Veletsianos concretely demonstrates why it is so important to pay closer attention to the stories of students--who may have instructive and insightful ideas about the future of education.
Microsoft Teams for Dummies
Discover the power of Microsoft Teams Millions of people access Microsoft Teams every day to assist with the collaboration it takes to get work done. That number continues to grow thanks to the countless communication tools for working with associates inside and outside your organization you can find in Microsoft Teams. If you're new to Microsoft Teams, start here. This book will give you must-have insight on chatting, file sharing, organizing teams, using video communication, and more. You'll also see just how you should be doing things, with best-practice recommendations and ideas for integrating Microsoft Teams into your existing workflows. Learn your way around Microsoft Teams and set up the interface Communicate via chat and video chat, inside and outside your org Integrate Teams with other Office apps for seamless collaboration Use Teams to optimize your meetings, build a knowledge wiki, and more! Microsoft's shared workspace can help you get collaborative and stay connected to the people and files you need, whether you're at your desk or on the go.
The Productive Online and Offline Professor
The Productive Online Professor assists those who teach online and blended courses with managing their personal productivity. Faculty are often expected to provide support and feedback to learners outside of normal work hours in non-traditional classes. Programs that are designed with more asynchronous content may cause faculty to perceive that it is difficult to ever press the “off button” on their teaching.The author offers guidance and suggests software tools for streamlining communication and productivity that enable faculty to better balance their lives while giving rich feedback to students.
Reach Everyone, Teach Everyone : Universal Design for Learning in Higher Education
Advocates for the rights of people with disabilities have worked hard to make universal design in the built environment "just part of what we do." We no longer see curb cuts, for instance, as accommodations for people with disabilities, but perceive their usefulness every time we ride our bikes or push our strollers through crosswalks. This is also a perfect model for Universal Design for Learning (UDL), a framework grounded in the neuroscience of why, what, and how people learn. Tobin and Behling show that, although it is often associated with students with disabilities, UDL can be profitably broadened toward a larger ease-of-use and general diversity framework. Captioned instructional videos, for example, benefit learners with hearing impairments but also the student who worries about waking her young children at night or those studying on a noisy team bus. Reach Everyone, Teach Everyone is aimed at faculty members, faculty-service staff, disability support providers, student-service staff, campus leaders, and graduate students who want to strengthen the engagement, interaction, and performance of all college students. It includes resources for readers who want to become UDL experts and advocates: real-world case studies, active-learning techniques, UDL coaching skills, micro- and macro-level UDL-adoption guidance, and use-them-now resources.
Redesigning Courses for Online Delivery: Design, Interaction, Media and Evaluation
This volume examines key considerations for effective online course redesign. Using a 4-phase approach, Redesigning Courses for Online Delivery informs thinking, inspires creativity, and structures decisions to drive the development of high quality online learning experiences. Both scholarly and practical, it provides a comprehensive approach to redesign useful to novices and veterans alike.
Thrive Online: A New Approach to Building Expertise and Confidence as an Online Educator
Research shows that online education, when designed and facilitated well, is as effective as traditional campus-based instruction. Despite the evidence, many faculty perceive online education as inferior to traditional instruction--and are often quite vocal in their skepticism. Simultaneously, however, more and more students are seeking online courses and degree programs. Thrive Online: A New Approach to Building Expertise and Confidence as an Online Educator is an invitation for the rising tide of online educators who are relatively new to teaching online, and also for those more experienced instructors who are increasingly frustrated by the dominant bias against online education. Readers will find: * An approach that empowers online educators to thrive professionally using a set of specific agentic behaviors * Strategies for approaching conversations about online learning in new ways that inform the skeptics and critics * Strategies that celebrate the additional skills and proficiencies developed by successful online educators * Guidance for educators who want to feel natural and fluent in the online learning environment * Guidance for enhancing the user-centered nature of online spaces to create student-centered learning environments * Encouragement for online educators to pursue leadership opportunities The internet is changing how people communicate and learn. Thrive Online: A New Approach to Building Expertise and Confidence as an Online Educator offers guidance, inspiration and strategies required to adapt and lead higher education through this change. This book is for higher education instructors who are seeking community, a sense of belonging, and the professional respect they deserve. Thriving is not a reaction to our environment, but rather a state of being we can create intentionally for ourselves. The time has come to change the conversation about online education. Add your voice - join the community and #ThriveOnline.
Featured Print Books

Search OneSearch for books, eBooks and media items in COM Library.
Assessing the Online Learner : Resources and Strategies for Faculty
Written by Rena M. Palloff and Keith Pratt, experts in the field of online teaching and learning, this hands-on resource helps higher education professionals understand the fundamentals of effective online assessment. It offers guidance for designing and implementing creative assessment practices tied directly to course activities to measure student learning. The book is filled with illustrative case studies, authentic assessments based in real-life application of concepts, and collaborative activities that assess the quality of student learning rather than relying on the traditional methods of measuring the amount of information retained.
Essentials of Online Course Design : A Standards-Based Guide
In spite of the proliferation of online learning in higher education, creating online courses can still evoke a good deal of frustration, negativity, and wariness in those who need to create them. Essentials of Online Course Design takes a fresh, thoughtfully designed, step-by-step approach to online course development. At its core is a set of standards that are based on best practices in the field of online learning and teaching. Pedagogical, organizational and visual design principles are presented and modeled throughout the book and users will quickly learn from the guide's hands-on approach. The course design process begins with the elements of a classroom syllabus which, after a series of guided steps, easily evolve into an online course outline. The guide's key features include: a practical approach informed by theory clean interior design that offers straightforward guidance from page one clear and jargon-free language examples, screen shots, and illustrations to clarify and support the text a Companion Website with examples, adaptable templates, interactive learning features, and online resources a checklist of online course design standards that readers can use to self-evaluate. Essentials of Online Course Design serves as a best-practice model for designing online courses. After reading this book, readers will find that preparing for online teaching is, contrary to popular belief, a satisfying and engaging experience. The core issue is simply good design: pedagogical, organizational, and visual.
The Excellent Online Instructor : Strategies for Professional Development
The hiring, training, and evaluation of good online instructors are high priorities for online institutions, and increasingly, all colleges and universities. This book shows what it takes to develop a new instructor in order to promote excellent online teaching, describes the qualities of a good online instructor, and reveals how to evaluate online teaching. In addition, it includes illustrative models of faculty training for online teaching based on adult learning principles and best practices in faculty training and identifies how technology can be used to facilitate and enhance the training process. The Excellent Online Instructor is perfect for faculty developers, instructional designers, program directors, and other administrators tasked with developing new instructors or training experienced faculty for the online environment.
Motivating and Retaining Online Students : Research-Based Strategies that Work
Finally, the first research-based book of sound strategies and best practices to help instructors motivate students to complete their online courses. Although studies support the effectiveness of learning online, students often fail to complete online courses. Some studies have found that as many as 50 70% drop out of their online courses or programs. Retention is not only a growing expectation and imperative, but it is also as opportunity for faculty members to take the lead in innovating, researching, and implementing new strategies while demonstrating their effectiveness. Designed for instructors and instructional designers, Motivating and Retaining Online Students is filled with empirical research from the authors study of motivation and retention strategies that can reduce online learner dropout. Focusing on the most important issues instructors face, such as course design; student engagement and motivation; and institutional, instructional, and informal student support strategies, the book provides effective online strategies that help minimize student dropout, increase student retention, and support student learning. While helping to improve the overall retention rates for educational institutions, the strategies outlined in the book also allow for student diversity and individual learner differences. Lehman and ConceiÇÃo s proven model gives instructors an effective approach to help students persist in online courses and succeed as learners.
The Online Teaching Survival Guide : Simple and Practical Pedagogical Tips
The Online Teaching Survival Guide offers faculty a wide array of theory-based techniques designed for online teaching and technology-enhanced courses. Written by two pioneers in distance education, this guidebook presents practical instructional strategies spread out over a four-phase timeline that covers the lifespan of a course. The book includes information on a range of topics such as course management, social presence, community building, and assessment. Based on traditional pedagogical theory, The Online Teaching Survival Guide integrates the latest research in cognitive processing and learning outcomes. Faculty with little knowledge of educational theory and those well versed in pedagogy will find this resource essential for developing their online teaching skills. Praise for The Online Teaching Survival Guide "At a time when resources for training faculty to teach online are scarce, Judith Boettcher and Rita-Marie Conrad have presented a must-read for all instructors new to online teaching. By tying best practices to the natural rhythms of a course as it unfolds, instructors will know what to do when and what to expect. The book is a life raft in what can be perceived as turbulent and uncharted waters." -Rena M. Palloff and Keith Pratt, program directors and faculty, Teaching in the Virtual Classroom Program, Fielding Graduate University "Developed from years of experience supporting online faculty, Judith Boettcher and Rita-Marie Conrad's book provides practical tips and checklists that should especially help those new to online teaching hit the ground running." -Karen Swan, Stukel Distinguished Professor of Educational Leadership, University of Illinois Springfield "This book blends a fine synthesis of research findings with plenty of practical advice. This book should be especially valuable for faculty teaching their first or second course online. But any instructor, no matter how experienced, is likely to find valuable insights and techniques." -Stephen C. Ehrmann, director, Flashlight Program for the Study and Improvement of Educational Uses of Technology; vice president, The Teaching, Learning, and Technology Group
Teaching Online : A Practical Guide
Teaching Online: A Practical Guideis a practical, concise guide for educators teaching online. This updated edition has been fully revamped and reflects important changes that have occurred since the second edition's publication. A leader in the online field, this best- selling resource maintains its reader friendly tone and offers exceptional practical advice, new teaching examples, faculty interviews, and an updated resource section. New to this edition: new chapter on how faculty and instructional designers can work collaboratively expanded chapter on Open Educational Resources, copyright, and intellectual property more international relevance, with global examples and interviews with faculty in a wide variety of regions new interactive Companion Website that invites readers to post questions to the author, offers real-life case studies submitted by users, and includes an updated, online version of the resource section. Focusing on the "how" and "whys" of implementation rather than theory, this text is a must-have resource for anyone teaching online or for students enrolled in Distance Learning and Educational Technology Masters Programs.