Educational Software Books

I highly recommend Teaching with the Internet to the novice and experienced net user. It is a great sounce of "current" web sites spanning the educational needs for K-12 students. I have used lessons taken directly from the book with great success. I consider the text to be an invaluable resource in my personal journey in understanding the "net" as well as to open new areas of exploration for my young students. This book is also a wonderful tool for parents trying to assist their children with study projects, book reports, etc. The information in this book is updated regularly through its web site as changes take place on the www. This educational tool is a wise investment for anyone who uses the "net".

The is a very good resource. It gives great ideas on how to use the internet in the classroom. What I like particulary is the wealth of ideas it gives on how to incorporate the internet in the classroom.

Teaching With the Internet: Lessons From the Classroom is a practical, hands on guide well suited for layman use. It encompasses both Netscape and Internet Explorer browsers as well as the IBM and Macintosh systems. Each chapter is devoted to either a specific Internet strategy such as navigating and communicating or to specific subject areas and concerns within the public school curriculum K-12. This text should be included as an essential component in every school's technology reference library and utilized as an indispensable resource in effective Internet teaching. It is packed with countless creative teaching suggestions and noteworthy web sites as well as step by step instructions on how to implement it all.

This book proved to be very informative, giving step-by-step models to use to incorporate internet resources into classroom activities, computer workshops, research projects and student inquiries.It is organized by chapters that give curriculum based internet ideas, with excellent related educational web-sites. It is geared for all levels of teacher ability, so everyone can get their classroom started. Although some ideas and sites seemed repetitious, it allows you to refer to a specific chapter by subject area to find related sites and sample activities. This book is comprehensive enough to highlight features of various navigation tools, cover both MAC and PC platforms for grades K-12.

Don and Deborah Leu have created a great Interent reference/teaching guide for teachers of all computer skill levels, from beginners to old pros!

The book not only inlcudes explicit explanations of Internet terms and procedures, but includes plenty of figures and examples of what the screen would actually look like as you are working. The Email to You sections contain real teachers describing real projects that they have sucessfully done with their students. Leu and Leu also provide many, many links to resources and project ideas in the major academic disciplines for teachers to use as they begin to incorporate the Internet in to the classroom.

I would highly recommend this book to teachers and teacher educators alike. I consider my self to be an advanced user of the Internet and I learned several new things from reading this book!

This book gives you a broad scope of the to be used topics when creating elearning sites. You will get a quick tutorial of the most important Macromedia features to get the process done. In a clear way building up from using templates, attaching stylesheets, showing and hiding layers with Dreamweaver and using Flash for simulation and user-interactivity the book introduces the interaction with databases by using Coldfusion.

I thought Coldfusion was rather difficult to learn, because the tips of the week by Macromedia were a little to quick for me. But Jeffrey Bardzell proved it is easy. In a straight-forward way you are taken by the hand to take all the basic steps for building a data-driven website.

I'm an assoc. prof. of New Testament currently working to produce an interactive web workbook for teaching/learning skills for New Testament interpretation. I want to give students practice developing close reading skills rather than ask them simply to drill content. For a couple of years, I have had a dream for such a site, and I felt sure it was buildable, but didn't know how. I care enough about how the interactions work and the relationship of content to design that I wanted to design the interactions myself if possible. Yet I didn't know anything but a little Dreamweaver and its CourseBuilder extension.

Working my way through a copy of Macromedia MX eLearning is changing all that. Wow! The book teaches how to develop interactions in Dreamweaver and Flash as well as offering several chapters on putting ColdFusion to work in eLearning. Each chapter includes a fine combination of hands-on work and explanation for why we are being asked to do what we're doing, especially at those places where some task is counter-intuitive. The book is also free of mistakes, typos and muddled language, a welcome plus when so many computer books seem to have been rushed to press without having been edited or proofed.

Bardzell's book is giving me two things: (1) hands on work with the software that introduces and reinforces learning without devolving into busywork and (2) a model for developing materials (like the book itself) that teach effectively from a distance. A+

I am a trainer and instructional designer at a university. I thought this book was very useful in helping me to use Flash MX for education. You would likely need some introductory training in Flash and Dreamweaver basics before using this book.

This is an excellent book where you learn how to integrate ColdFusion MX, Dreamweaver MX, and Flash MX by building interactive learning applications. The exercises are explained in great details and contain many tips and techniques especially for Dreamweaver and Flash. The newer aspects of interacting ColdFusion MX with Flash MX are not covered, but for those of us still using ColdFusion 5 there is a good coverage of LoadVars. I recommend this book without any reservation as it is one of the best technical books I have read so far.

Jeffrey Bardzell's book is intelligently written with plenty easy-to-understand examples. He engages, inspires, and motivates learners throughout. His Dante's Inferno project makes learning fun. He breaks subject matter down into comprehendible pieces, using Aristotelian logic in places. This guy knows what he's doing. Of several computer books that I have purchased over the years, this is the first time I have written a review. You can learn eLearning and website design, and this book will teach you how-even if you are a motivated beginner, technical type, or humanities person-this book is suited for most everyone.

This book is a true student service for online learning and is a great step toward online student retention! It covers everything the online student would need to know in order to succeed in a self-paced, self-motivated, and technology dependant environment!!

I compared Online Student Skills and Strategies Handbook (Pearson Longman 2006) to E-Learning Companion A Student's Guide to Online Success (Houghton Mifflin 2005) in order to select a resourse to support distance learning. I found Online Student Skills and Strateiges Handbook much more useful, learner oriented and readily accessible. It includes large, clear screen captures to accompany step by step directions. It handles practical topics like using Rich Text Format (RTF), practicing netiquette, storing lessons in a binder, and submitting assignments. It also includes cross references to other relevant chapters in the handbook, and it includes other Internet resources for each chapter. In comparison, E-Learning seems too textbookish. While E-Learning has a useful glossary and index, Online Student Skills and Strategies has a glossary, index and Webliography.

This is a valuable resource for students interested in a successful on-line learning experience. The straightforward and practical examples should help guide everyone from novice to experienced.

I was very impressed with the format, content, attention to detail, step-by-step approach to help users work through technology, and the success-oriented focus of the text. The first chapter utilized an innovative and unique assessment to help users identify what they already know and what they will need to focus on to learn. The text is a well-designed and non-threatening resource for any online user.

I think this text is a practical and useful guide for both novice and experienced online students. The information is very well organized throughout with a couple great appendices containing websites and computer skill tips. The helpful screenshots and lay flat binding are a plus for use as you are working on the computer.

Good for someone who is just starting to use CATIA V5

It is an excellent book for beginner. It lets you get into Catia easily. It is important to make things simple for beginners. This book does a good job of making things simple.

This book offers the principles needed for any Catia user, both experienced and new, to be able to obtain a firm understanding of Catia V5. It teaches through easy-to-follow examples and illustrations. It was well worth the money.

A good book is the one that doesn't require an engineer to understand. This book is excellent! It slowly guides a beginner step by step away from frustration and closer to satisfaction. However, the minus side is that it doesn't cover any electrical application. I would pay triple the price if this book had electrical coverage.

This book is a good introduction to Catia. The steps taken and the end result of the book is good and successfully takes you through the basic workbanches. However much of the book is waisted with repetition and over worded explinations for the simplest tasks. The illustrations, typography and loayout are typical home-word processor stuff (clearly an accademic project) after the first chapter the lengthy explinations take far to long to get through and you find yourself skipping them and just getting on with the task. At the end of the day there dont seem to be any other books out there so this is probably your best bet, but I was still left with a few basic problems that were not covered. This book could probably have been edited down to half its size if the wordy introductions were cut out and you would be able to get though it much quicker - after this work book you are left with both a need to learn all the workbenches covered in more depth and many many more workbenches to learn.

If I could only put one multimedia learning book on my bookshelf, this would be it. The "General Principles" section provides one of the best overviews I've read of Behavioral, Cognitive, and Constructivist approaches to learning (although I do think they misrepresent the Instructional Systems Design process and treat it as a purely Behavioralist approach). This section also presents an excellent overview of the learning process. The book moves on to discuss methodologies and learning sequences at an unparalleled level, including a brilliant discussion of simulations and educational games. The book closes with an overview of an approach to Design and Development that's worth reading, but far less valuable than the previous sections. Of all my design books, this one has the most dog-eared pages and underlined text; the chapter-level bibliographies alone are worth the book's price! Anyone looking to delve deep into multimedia design for learning should have this book on his or her shelf.

This is an excellent text in terms of coverage and pacing. If you are interested in human-computer interaction, this is a 'must have' text. What astonished me about this book is that it covered more issues in HCI than many dedicated user interface design books. The text admirably blends practical considerations with theoretical concerns and trends. It strongly focuses on motivational issues surrounding users of learning packages(an area largely ignored in the bulk of standard HCI texts). Don't pass over this book.

I just find it very well put together.. It takes you through the various facets of designing a course/presentation that will actually be used and useful.

Had to buy it for a class; execellent resource for it's target audience. Make sure you're a memeber of that target audience (instructional technologists) before you buy :)

The first clue as to the value of a book is the number of editions. Generally, the true standards in a field will continue to live and be revised. This book is the standard for multimedia design and production. The foundations and theory that are explored in the beginning are as valuable as the detail in the production process that is explained. The most significant aspect of this book has to be the detail concerning methods, especially instructional simulations. Simply a must have for anyone in the field of multimedia who is looking to develop products that go beyond the traditional page turner.

This book is written in a clear language, easy to understand. I found chapter 3 (Software Development Based on Reusable Technology) very helpful with its client-server example. Excellent work!

The book is a comprehensive guide to understanding software engineering and especially recommended for beginners as well as intermediates in the field of software development. Provides varied dimensions of software engineering and combining the best of theoretical and practical aspect of software development. The book forms a very good resource for understanding software engineering terminology without being intimidated by technical jargon. The code accompanying the book is concentrating on JAVA2 and subsumes concepts of any Object-Oriented Programming language. The contents of the textbook deal with understanding the complete software development life cycle model and its different phases from inception to termination.
It is an absolute must for a clear understanding of good software engineering practices.

This book was my class textbook in a second year software engineering class. Personally, I found that it covers quite well the basic, and some of the more complex, aspects of software engineering. A sample of the numerous software engineering topics covered include software patterns, requirements gathering, software testing and project management. The book also serves as an excellent introduction to certain of the more important aspects of the current version of the Unified Modelling Language (UML). The book also reviews some concepts of Object-Oriented Programming (OOP). Although it uses Java 2 as its example language, the concepts explained in the book can be applied to another programming language such as C++. Finally, the book is written in such a manner that it can be of use to the novice software engineer (or software engineering student) as well as an experienced developper looking to enhance his or her knowledge. I would not hesitate to recommend this book to people wishing to increase their knowledge of software development.

I used this textbook as an introduction to Software Engineering, and for the first time in my University career, I didn't find my textbook lacking or incomplete.
This book covers it all: the basics of Software Engineering, a review on Object-orientation, the software life cycle, detailed modelling in UML, architecture and design, patterns, and testing.
The material is easy-to-read, in-depth, well organized, and comprehensive. Too often, you find a book that bogs you down in its wordiness and jargon, but this isn't one of them.
This book was written by professors in the Software Engineering field who know, from years of experience, what a student needs to know in order to learn and understand the process of software engineering.
This is not a book that will sit on your shelf: I used it all the time during my first software course and still take it as my reference for all my other software courses.
I recommend it to anyone who wants to learn a lot about software.

This is an excellent introductory textbook for CS courses on software engineering. It features OO, UML, iterative processes, a good treatment of software frameworks and design patterns, constructive sample projects, and complete set of slides and full-length lecture RealOne video for free downloading. It is a thin book, but it contains more updated information than many classical ones. Most importantly, the authors have the confidence to air their opinions with justification, instead of compiling and citing a lot of inconsistent historical definitions or events.

The book came amazingly fast and was in great condition!

Thanks!

It's a great book. The authors explain step by step from tutorials to simulations.

This book should be on the shelf of very instructional designer and course developer responsible for creating computer-based training or web-based training. The book stands out for three important reasons: (1) if offers concrete directions regarding how to develop instruction at the lesson level; (2) the recommendations are based on research findings and when research findings are contradictory the authors acknowledge the divergence; and (3) the book is well written, it is accessible to the average reader. The first chapter **alone** makes the book worth the price - it will help you answer the question "What is the difference between information and instruction?"

Seen from the point fo view of a non-expert readers, and comparing with <10 other books on similar subjects, the book looks quite good. It covers most of the basic types of learning activities (tutorials, drills, simulations, educational games and tests), plus a detailled overview on more organisational issues (analysis, design, ...), some chapters on technology for implementation of CBI as well as more advanced topics as instructional modelling, computer managed instruction and AI-techniques. Good reading, no hyper-specialised vocabulary. Happy that my holiday in canada brought me back this good reading to Flanders (Belgiium/Europe). Coming from an IT background (engineering & computing), it gives some goods clues on project management for development of CBI products. Les solid on educational/didactic theories.

Hesitating between 3 and 4 stars (don't feedl myself sufficiently qualified to give higher scores).

This book is excellent. There are many sections, in fact, which I will refer back to later as job aids. This book reinforces and elaborates on many concepts and methods that I, as an instructional designer, have been using intuitively when developing courses. It provides a structure to the process of organizing content and developing computer-based training. The only drawback to this book is that it is slightly out of date from a technology standpoint. However, it is so strong in every other area, including instructional design, interface design, interactivity design, and project management, that its strengths far outweigh its weaknesses. I would definitely recommend this book to anyone who designs or develops CBT and WBT, I think it will prove to be a valuable resource.

For anyone who has grappled with the question of why technology hasn't lived up to its promise in schools, this book is a must-read. Pfaum's observations are fresh and candid, and he examines the question of the "technology fix" of schools without an axe to grind or pre-formed conclusions. This very readable book will ring true to those who have spent time in classrooms and have wondered why technology has not had a greater impact on improving student achievement.

This is a wise and thought-full book. Unlike many books about technology in education that are often too theoretical, too empirical, too uninformed, or too polemical, this book is anchored in real classrooms. Rather than starting with a breathless vision of the future or a cranky rant about the imagined glories of the past, Bill Pflaum begins with what is happening in classrooms right now. He gathers his data first hand - not from surveys, focus groups, or aggregated data but from a year-long personal journey through classrooms all across the country. His careful, thoughtful (and often entertaining) observations are neither completely unexpected, nor completely predictable - instead they explode with authenticity. From such a solid foundation, both personal and universal, he reflects carefully on what is working and what is not working - and offers thoughtful suggestions for a better future that is both reachable, and worth reaching. I liked reading this book.

This book is a must read for decision makers at every level.

Data rules in the age of standards. This is the only book that I have read that discusses educational technology with a genuinely human voice. Pflaum takes a refreshing welcome approach to the task of thoughtfully examining the use of technology in America's schools. Instead of recycling mountains of data from research studies, he visited classrooms across the country and talked to students, teachers, principals, and technology co-coordinators who are on the frontline of the problem.

For educators, like myself, who deal daily with the problems and the blessings of technology in the schools, the book is raw opportunity to view the problem outside of the boundaries of their state and local district.

Pflaum ends his book with some clear, realistic guides for future directions, but the real value of the book is in its rich, constantly thought-provoking portrayal of things as they are now.

Computers have been a part of our schools for about two decades now. Many people believe that computers are the solution to the problems of American education; however, it is pretty clear that they have not been the magic bullet many thought they'd be. The questions then arises: why? Why haven't computers fulfilled the promise they seemed to have in their early days?

In The Technology Fix, William Pflaum tries to answer the question. Taking a sabbatical, he travels the country and visits a number of schools, trying to get a sense of the impact computers are actually having. This book is mainly a report of the visits he made and the different ways he sees computers being used (or, more than likely, not being used) in the classroom. He then gives some of his interpretations of what this means and suggestions for how technology might be used better.

What impact this book has it has through its observations on what is actually happening in schools. As a consultant for schools on technology, I have seen many of the same things Mr. Pflaum has: computers sitting unused, resources managed inappropriately, focus on computer bells and whistles over curriculum content, etc. I agree whole-heartedly that computers have yet to fulfill their promise and I find Mr. Pflaum's categorization of implementation on the basis of commitment and focus to be very revealing. On the other hand, despite the depression I feel sometimes after visiting a school where technology, if it is being used at all, is being used poorly, I maintain my belief that technology is the future and we can use it more effectively. Mr. Pflaum seems more pessimistic.

Within his descriptions of what he's seen in schools, Mr. Pflaum has some useful insights; however, when he tries to build these into universals at the end of the book, he is less powerful. Not that his suggestions are necessarily lacking merit. Instead, some are so obvious as to not be worth the effort of a book-length study. Use computers for assessment? I would think so. Use computers to align standards, instruction and assessment? Of course. Coordinate computer skills across grade levels? I hope so.

This is not to say that schools are actually doing these things. Many aren't. But he's pointing towards obvious best practices here that just need to be implemented. His one controversial suggestion--that computers be target towards those that can use them most as opposed to spreading the wealth equally--is practical but also a sign of his pessimism. We aren't committed enough to do what we should so we should at least do what we can.

In his book, Mr. Pflaum has provided valuable insights into what is actually going on in schools today per their use of technology. This alone makes the book valuable. Though his suggestions for improvement are a bit short-sighted, they have their place and could open the eyes of some administrators and teachers. Still, his bleak view clouds the possible bright future and growing impact technology could have if we are willing to have commitment and focus. I hope readers won't let his attitude bring them down.

Too many books are either all for technology in schools or completely against it. Neither kind of book is very useful for teachers who are trying to figure out how to use technology intelligently in their classrooms.

This author takes a walk through 20 or so schools, and describes what he observes with the insight of a seasoned educator. He does a very good job of spotlighting the intelligent uses of technology, and an equally good job of uncovering the dreary, wasteful uses. I found the book is a wonderful way to hone my own thinking.

Moreover, the book is a fast read, and very engaging. Pflaum writes with an uncommon honesty and humanness, and he has that wonderful ability to draw pictures in your mind. I'd recommend it to both teachers and parents who have input in the way schools are run.

Sub-Title: Approaches and Technologies to Enhance Organizational Knowledge, Learning, and Performance

This book is the second edition or followup to the authors original book on E-Learning. It is perhaps the most complete analysis on the subject.

Education is in an interesting time. The basic structure of the ecucational system of a teacher and a group of students gathered around him dates from the time of the Greeks. Computer aided instruction where essentially a computer uses some of these same techniques to pass the knowledge of an expert on to students using a computer.

There are, a lot of little steps between the idea and the actuality. Of course there are the mechanics of how to do it. And there is the problem of finding the right teachers. [One military training course, set up by people who have 'been there, done that' teaches things like selecting a candy bar that won't melt in the desert (M&M's?) and how to armor a truck.] There's also playing on the skill that today's game playing kids have learned playing video games. What a way to teach someone how to drive a tank!

This is a book I'd recommend to anyone interested in or in charge of setting up a computer based training program. Dr. Rosenberg has 'been there, done that' in so far as e-learning is concerned.

Marc has taken the time to explain through examples what we need to know to make wise decisions about E-Learning. I walked away with ideas and guidelines I can use immediately.

I have been using this book for grad course at Roosevelt U. Most books used for the classroom are dry and outdated, but I found "Beyond E-learning" informative and innovative. I would highly recommend this book to all Learning and Development professionals. If this wasn't a very good book, I would take the time to write this blurb.

Once again, Marc Rosenberg shows us the way to really transform our organizations into efficient, effective knowledge-centered enterprises. He warns that e-Learning, like training in general, is often done the wrong way, for the wrong reasons. He busts myths right and left (the section on "the myths of e-Learning" alone is worth the purchase price!), and steadfastly refuses to be swept along by fads, technologies -- or even traditions of training.

What Rosenberg does is to lay out a vision of the Smart Enterprise, in which the focus is on performers rather than learners. He argues persuasively that technologies such as e-Learning, classroom learning, knowledge management, communications and collaboration technologies are best viewed not as individual technologies (or fads), but rather as complementary parts of a balanced strategy for performance improvement in enterprises which effectively translate data to knowledge to information to performance. Detailed chapters then discuss each of the key components of this strategy for performance improvement, including practical advice on how to implement them and where the pitfalls are. Examples and issue sidebars featuring luminaries in the field and corporate success stories add weight to the argument.

This is not just another "business book of the month" full of quick-fix half-truths. It is a mature, broad and comprehensive view of what it really takes to make any knowledge-intensive organization get what it needs to reach its goals. Senior line organization managers will find it essential; training managers will find it liberating and exhilerating -- or threatening. It's required reading for everyone responsible for making their enterprises smart.

I'm working on a teaching moduel for an independent study in GIS and I purchased this book to help me understand how GIS can be used in the Health field. IT'S OUTSTANDING! For any GIS instructor out there, you should check out this book, because the chapter assignments are brilliant from a teaching stand point. They force the user to really explore how GIS is used in the world today and look beyond the simple tutorial commands to introduce you to the software. The assignments make you explore the internet for data and learn how GIS is being used elsewhere. By far the best GIS book I've used sofar.

This tutorial is written in clear and concise language. It introduces basic GIS operations in a logical stepwise progression which is ultimately a comprehensive basic course. The tutorial is very hands-on and interactive and it makes very good use of screenshots and other illustrations. It is a very effective learning tool in the field of public health GIS.

Although there is a very minimal incompatibility of this book if used with ArcGIS 9.2. (the software given with the book is 9.1 version), this book is still categorized as an excellent book for the Elementary GIS learner. This book is very helpful for Public Health professionals in learning how to create, analyze, display and inform the geographic health information which will be well complemented with health statistical facts and figures. The curricullum, the guidance, and the exercises given are well prepared that allows me to want to explore the endothelial layer other than just the epithelial layer of this knowledge.

I would recommend this book as a starting point of the journey to engage and marry GIS knowledge and practice with its excitements.

College-level collections strong in GIS mapping and health will want GIS Tutorial for Health: one of the few texts to apply GIS software to health profession research and objectives. Health care policy and planning within the GIS system leads students to design maps to investigate and analyze patterns of health, injuries, environmental hazards and more. The workbook helps students learn and maintain GIS software skills with specific application for the health sciences, going beyond your usual GIS focus on general geographic and population mapping information to address the specifics of the health industry. It comes with two CDs: one offers data to juxtapose with the book's exercises and case study examples; the other includes a 180-day trial of ArcGis9.1. The combination makes it a top pick for college-level health profession GIS course assignments.

Diane C. Donovan
California Bookwatch