Instruction and Resources Books

Jessica Morton's "Kids on the 'Net is inspiring. Between the lines it speaks to what 'good' teaching is really about and the lines themselves sing with a clear how to do it for using the net well. A great source for those who want to be creative and for the many who fear, for one reason or another, the use of the internet. It is so well written and presented that I felt like I was reading a terrific story. At t he end I knew I'd done that and more!

Jessica Morton has an easy way of writing that will make the reader feel she can use the 'net' with young children after reading about Mrs. Morton's successes in her own classroom. She does not use computer language that the average person cannot understand. She not only uses examples from her own classroom but also relates to the reader how to go about beginning using e-mail with simple dos and don'ts. I have used e-mail with my second grade students for many years but while reading this book I discovered some great ways to improve the use of e-mail with my class of 7-8 year olds. A definite book to read!

Jessica Morton's book, Kids on the 'Net, is absolutely outstanding for any educator who is leery about bringing the Internet into the classroom. This book takes you step-by-step into how the 'net can be beneficial for your students' or childrens' learning. The book is chock full of ideas and personal reflections by the author to show you that the Internet can be our friend. The book is written in a style that is non-threatening and easy to flip through. Morton's book teaches you how even young children can e-mail pen pals (e-pal) from around the world and be interactive in newsgroups. This is a must needed resource for teachers of the new millennium. She offers web sites that are useful for creating projects and reproducibles that go along with certain lessons. If technology is the way to go in your classroom, then you need this book.

"Lessons from the Cyberspace Classroom: The realities of Online teaching" is a great book for someone who is interested in the possibilities of online education and teaching. Palloff and Pratt offer a lot of great tips and ideas that are very concise and easy to understand. They provide commonsense guidelines in conducting online teaching in a way that is simple to digest, entertaining, and useful to teachers, administrators, or whoever else is interested in the realm of online teaching and education.

I personally liked the way the authors really tried the simplify their views on how to make a successful online teaching experience. Their "Keys to Success" seemed to be very helpful and realistic for many institutions to implement with careful planning.

Another especially helpful idea throughout the book was their tips at the end of some sections. By providing these simple tips it helps readers summarize the section and allows readers to easily review the material after they have read though the book once or twice.

I feel that this book is a "must-have" for people who have some interest in this relatively new and every changing field of online teaching.

Growing numbers of K-12 schools, colleges, universities, and businesses have begun offering online instruction, taking advantage of computer and Internet technologies to deliver instruction once confined to the realm of physical classrooms. Indeed, the Internet, so-to-speak, has become a virtual classroom and community where all kinds of instruction can take place - anytime day or night, anywhere around the world.

Lessons from the Cyberspace Classroom offers readers a broad treatment of the issues involved in planning, creating, and carrying out distance education via the Internet. In a concise manner the book introduces the issues, raises many serious questions, and provides many solutions to help meet the educational goals of instructors, their learning institutions, and their students.

The real beauty of the book lies in its effort to motivate instructors and learning institutions to think through the issues for themselves - to evaluate the unique circumstances they face and to encourage them to seek more effective ways of accomplishing their goals. Because each virtual learning experience will be unique, a number of important considerations should be weighed to determine course structure, content, and delivery, such as:

What technologies should be used?
Who will create the course?
Who will own the course material(s)?
How will the course be delivered?
How will assignments, projects, and exams be administered?
How will instructors and students be prepared?
How will student participation be controlled?
How will student behavior be controlled?

Lessons from the Cyberspace Classroom does a superb job of fostering community among educators and their students. The authors express the importance of creating learning communities were serious dialogue takes place - dialogue that enhances the learning process and leads to achieving specific educational goals. This book is must reading for online educational course development.

If "the devil is in the details" of online learning, Paloff and Pratt have done an excellent job exploring the promise and pitfalls of distance learning programs. Anyone in the process of designing online courses or programs in higher education should read both this book and their earlier book before they launch a new course or program. Personally, this book helped me avoid several mistakes I otherwise would have made in my first distance learning adventure.

The book looks at both teacher and administrator perpsectives, and understands that both insitutional support and instructor skill are key elements for success. While the authors are genuine advocates for the medium, they understand that interactivity does not equal mouse clicks, and that building learning communities takes skill, practice, and structures. The book is full of very helpful examples, learning constructs, and realistic assessments of distance learning successes and failures.

This book provides an important perspective for educators implementing technology into their curriculum. The "Big Twelve" categories provide a rich context to connect subject content & skills to developmentally appropriate learning (Chapter 2). The categories also limit the infinite ways to think about connecting web and classroom and this is critical when Technology is used as a teaching tool. The content examples are extensive and span science, social studies, art, music, language arts, and mathematics.

A must read when thinking about Standards and the Technology.

The first three or so chapters of this book contain great step by step information on all of the basics that a teacher needs to use the Internet for Project Based Learning. The following chapters are a collection of 100 or more tried and true online projects. Some of them are ongoing and can be joined, but most of them serve as an example for someone wanting to integrated this kind of instruction. I haven't seen a more helpful book.

In my work, I try to help teachers imagine how
they might use the Internet in their classes.
This is the first resource that I believe
will make that possible. It is inviting
and easy to use. I'm buying copies for
my favorite clients.

As a Kindergarten teacher, I find this book invaluable as I plan for my readers/writers workshop. I think it would help any teacher in planning for a succesful reading and writing workshop. I even passed it around my school, and both new and seasoned teachers found it both practical and relevant. It is truly a "Comprehensive" resource!

This book has strategies and ideas for K-2, but can also be implemented in the 3-5 classroom. Very easy to read and understand. Antoinette has really outdone herself!

I have always been a successful teacher in the sense that my 1st graders always leave me reading fluently and working on grade level across the subjects. Yet, I personally never felt as if I knew where I was going from day to day. I would work very hard on my lesson plans for the upcoming week to turn in to my principal. Then I would wake up each day wondering what I was going to specifically teach and do with my students. So somehow I would figure something out each morning, stressed to the max. Sure, I knew my overall goal, but this book helped me to get it all planned out. Now, I can tell anyone what my class will be working on today, two weeks from today, or any given month of the school year. This summer I have only spent one week on my plans and I have my year and all the months for reading and writing planned. Now I've just got to use that information to plan my weeks. I have never felt so prepared for teaching as I do now. I feel like I have a goal and a specific plan of action to lead me to it. This is a "Must Have" for anyone as unorganized and unfocused as I was.

. . . but this is an excellent read on the evolution of eastern Wrathful, great for serious students of eastern religions or for a larger esoteric library or as an artist!

Rob Linrothe has written a superb book on the evolution of Wrathful Deities in India and Tibet. Photos taken by the author and excellent explanations show us in exquisite detail how this form of art developed over the centuries. A wonderful book for those looking to understand Esoteric Buddhism!

Rob Linrothe's book is a must-have for any interested student of Esoteric Buddhism. It combines the author's knowledge of the religious texts with art historical analysis and provides a wonderful survey on the development of wrathful Buddhist deities from secondary attendant figures to objects of worship in their own right.

the product was in very good condition and i received it in a timely manner

Having purchased this book offline, at the beginning of my graduate studies, I would not have got through my first semester without it. The helpful, easy-to-read instructions to finding relevant books, articles and reputable online sources has proved invaluable!

A new guide to student research will help adults and students alike that provides tips on how to use library and school resources, Nancy Lane, et.al.'s Techniques For Student Research focuses on how to use the library, providing search keys for both printed and electronic references ranging from atlases and dictionaries to almanacs and online resources. This reference is keyed to common student research questions, with examples showing how to effectively use the indexes and database contents.

Turtle Geometry teaches mathematics and physics via the computer and the Logo programming language. The mathematics covered is pretty advanced, including topology, and general relativity. Yet, through the use of turtle geometry this advanced math and physics becomes accessible to the layperson. Although all of the examples are in the Logo programming language there are listings of Basic routines in the back of the book. With the help of the Basic routines I was able to easily translate the Logo/Basic code to the Python programming language which I choose to use for reading this book. The reviewers of this book mention it as the beginnning of a revolution in mathematics education. It seems though, that this revolution did not come about as computers are still not used very effectively in the classroom. I think this is very sad as the teaching approach used in Turtle Geometry could be very successful in the classroom.

Anyone interested in logo from beginners to advanced users will benefit from reading this book. It has very easy and simple to understand examples, along with a review, and questions at the end of every chapter. Some solutions are provided at the end of the book, (and their even correct, as opposed to many other text books I've read). The pace of the book gets gradually more difficulst, yet more interesting as you reach the climax at the end. A must read for anyone interested in Mathematics.

I discovered this little gem of a book while exploring the stacks in the library when I was attending a local junior college back in the 80's. The author uses Logo's turtle graphics as a way of exploring the properties of geometric space. From very simple beginnings drawing regular polygons and other simple shapes, the book gradually works its way to more and more complicated scenarios. After exploring the properties of ordinary turtle graphics, turtle graphics are tried on the surfaces of spheres and cubes, then on more complicated surfaces. Little by little, concepts of non-Euclidean geometry are introduced, until the final chapters in which the turtle is used to demonstrate the geometric nature of gravity in Einstein's general theory of relativity.

I strongly recommend this book to anyone with interests in computer programming, geometry and physics. The unusual approach this book takes to the understanding of curved space is deceptively simple and surprisingly powerful.

I cannot imagine WRITING an e-learning proposal of any kind without reading this knowledgeable book. The relationship between implementing enterprise and vendor is the fulcrum of a effective program, and this book will increase the odds of success, not just in finding the right partner and structuring the right arrangement, but rolling out the right work.

I also like how honest Kapp is in dealing with the fact that, while meeting the customers' needs is paramount, that does not mean the customer is always right.

This book is for anyone who expects to make it in the business world and be successful at winning customers for e-learning accounts. The steps in the book guide the user how to put together a proposal that will get business for you. I found the book very useful to write a proposal and give a presentation that will make anyone stand out from the competition. Dr. Kapp makes it easy to understand in a step-by-step approach. If anyone wants to be successful in the field of e-learning, this book is a must have.

The book details each of the steps involved in responding to an RFP. From analyzing the RFP, researching and preparing the written proposal, its submission and finally presenting it to your potential client.

The book is very practical in its structure - a chapter dedicated to each section of a proposal. Chapters begin with 'Why this section is needed' which provides a complete rationale for including that section in your proposal. For most of us on the team who were new to proposal writing, this was helpful in developing an appreciation and correct orientation to the proposal writing process. This is followed by a detailing of what content should, and more importantly should not, go into the section. Finally there are examples culled from RFP's. The examples, both good and bad, were a great springboard to begin writing our own proposal.

I would draw special attention to the 'Defining the Problem' chapter. Following the 'Requirements Matrix' the 'Thought Provoking Questions' and included sample 'Problem Definition Worksheet' helped us identify and home in on the 'problem'. This is perhaps by far the most critical aspect of the proposal writing process. I would suggest taking this chapter seriously.

At another level, having the book around cut short many debates and disagreements within the team about how to go about a certain issue. It helped us stay focused.

On the whole this book is a very practical guide to complete the task at hand. I recommend it highly.

I would recommend this book to anyone preparing to become a Sunday School Teacher or to those who want to enhance and sharpen thier skills and methods of teaching.

This is a great book of teacher helps that is useful for today's teachers who are on the go, and don't want to spend hours of training at the church. You can use these individual lessons as take home work for teachers. We bought 12 copies and circulated them around among our 50 teachers. It was great!

One of the most valuable resouce in this book is the first report on an educator, Mr. Fang of San Francisco, who used Internet with his Chinese English Language Learners to communicate with the world in Chinese. When most of the world just heard of the word "World Wide Web," he and his student were already publishing an online secondary school student magazine in Chinese. They also realized live chatting using Chinese characters on AOL. This is really amazing.

This is yet to be the first complete resource on how to implement computer integration of curriculum in classrooms. When computers are placed into our classrooms, most teachers do not have any idea on how to use them. This book serves as a wonderful resource to guide teachers step by step to set up a successful program. Also, it provides probably the first case study on how ESL students can benefit from computer based instruction in Chinese and how computers process a non-roman language like Chinese.