Distance Learning

Using Moodle: Teaching with the Popular Open Source Course Management System (Using)

Using Moodle is a complete, hands-on guide for instructors learning how to use Moodle, the popular course management system (CMS) that enables remote web-based learning and supplements traditional classroom learning. Updated for the latest version, this new edition explains exactly how Moodle works by offering plenty of examples, screenshots and best practices for its many features and plug-in modules. Moodle gives teachers and trainers a powerful set of web-based tools for a flexible array of activities, including assignments, forums, journals, quizzes, surveys, chat rooms, and workshops. This book is not just a how-to manual. Every chapter includes suggestions and case studies for using Moodle effectively. By itself, Moodle won't make your course better. Only by applying effective educational practices can you truly leverage its power. With this book, you will: Get a complete overview CMS in general and Moodle in particular. Review Moodle's basic interface and learn to start a course. Learn to add Moodle tools to your course, and how different tools allow you to give quizzes and assignments, write journals, create pathed lessons, collaboratively develop documents, and record student grades. Discover some of the creative ways teachers have used Moodle. There are plenty of ideas for effectively using each tool. Effectively manage your Moodle course, such as adding and removing users, and creating user groups. Learn to use Moodle's built-in survey functions for assessing your class. Find out how to administer an entire Moodle site. A system administrator usually handles these functions, but if you're on your own, there's a lot of power behind the curtain. Using Moodle is both a guide anda reference manual for this incredibly powerful and flexible CMS. Authored by the Moodle community, this authoritative book also exposes little known but powerful hacks for more technically savvy users, and includes coverage of blogs, RSS, databases, and more. For anyone who is using, or thinking of using, this CMS, Using Moodle is required reading.

The Well-Adjusted Child: The Social Benefits of Homeschooling

Socialization may well be the single most important aspect of education today. With high and rising rates of divorce, drug abuse, youth violence, alcoholism, teen promiscuity, and so forth, we cannot afford to let this issue go unexamined.

To cling to the idea that what we, as a culture, are doing now is the right and best way for all children simply because it is what we are used to is to shut our eyes and minds to other possibilities--possibilities that may well afford greater happiness, success, peace, and safety to our own children.

At a time when people feel more disconnected than ever before, we cannot afford to overlook or allow ourselves to be blinded to an option which offers great benefits, including a rich, fulfilling, and healthy social life, that our children may well need for the future. Homeschooling offers great social benefits to kids and parents. And when we understand them, our children are the ones who will win.

The First Year of Homeschooling Your Child: Your Complete Guide to Getting Off to the Right Start

Homeschool the right way from day one.
Are you considering homeschooling for your family? Today, many parents recognize that their child's school options are limited, inadequate, or even dangerous, and an increasing number are turning to homeschooling. But where do you start and how do you ensure the highest-quality educational experience, especially in that pivotal first year?
This comprehensive guide will help you determine the appropriate first steps, build your own educational philosophy, and discover the best ways to cater to your child's specific learning style, including:
·When, why, and how to get started
·The best ways to develop an effective curriculum, assess your child's progress, and navigate local regulations
·Kid-tested and parent-approved learning activities for all age levels
·Simple strategies for developing an independent child and strengthening family and social relationships
·And much, much more!
"To the thousands of requests we receive for help from families new to homeschooling, we will now recommend this warm and knowledgeable book. It will ensure that all families make it to the second year—including yours!" —Elizabeth Kanna, editor in chief, Homeschool.com
"Linda Dobson addresses all the issues facing parents as they consider the task of homeschooling over other educational options. Those who wonder whether they really can or want to do the job will find unique perspectives in this well-researched work."—Beverly K. Eakman, author and cofounder, National Education Consortium

Teaching and Learning at a Distance: Foundations of Distance Education (4th Edition)

This book was written because of the recent growth in distance education and the anytime, anyplace teaching and learning trends that accompany it. Using a student-centered approach, it equips teachers and trainers with the basic information they will need to become effective navigators in distance education. The “foundations” portion of the book is designed to provide a conceptual, theoretical foundation. The “applications portion of the book provides practical skills and information, along with numerous opportunities for hands-on experience. For educators and administrators.

Empowering Online Learning: 100+ Activities for Reading, Reflecting, Displaying, and Doing

This is an essential resource for anyone designing or facilitating online learning. It introduces an easy, practical model (R2D2: read, reflect, display, and do) that will show online educators how to deliver content in ways that benefit all types of learners (visual, auditory, observational, and kinesthetic) from a wide variety of backgrounds and skill levels. With a solid theoretical foundation and concrete guidance and examples, this book can be used as a handy reference, a professional guidebook, or a course text. The authors intend for it to help online instructors and instructional designers as well as those contemplating such positions design, develop, and deliver learner-centered online instruction.

Empowering Online Learning has 25 unique activities for each phase of the R2D2 model as well as summary tables helping you pick and choose what to use whenever you need it.  Each activity lists a description, skills addressed, advice, variations, cost, risk, and time index, and much more. 

This title is loaded with current information about emerging technologies (e.g., simulations, podcasts, wikis, blogs) and the Web 2.0. With a useful model, more than 100 online activities, the latest information on emerging technologies, hundreds of quickly accessible Web resources, and relevance to all types and ages of learners--Empowering Online Learning is a book whose time has come.

Building Online Learning Communities: Effective Strategies for the Virtual Classroom (Jossey Bass Higher and Adult Education Series)

Building Online Learning Communities further explores the development of virtual classroom environments that foster a sense of community and empower students to take charge of their learning to successfully achieve learning outcomes. This is the second edition of the groundbreaking book by Rena Palloff and Keith Pratt and has been completely updated and expanded to include the most current information on effective online course development and delivery. A practical, hands-on guide, this resource is filled with illustrative case studies, vignettes, and examples from a wide variety of successful online courses. The authors offer proven strategies for handling challenges that include:

• Engaging students in the formation of an online learning community.
• Establishing a sense of presence online.
• Maximizing participation.
• Developing effective courses that include collaboration and reflection.
• Assessing student performance.

Written for faculty in any distance learning environment, this revised edition is based on the authorsâ many years of work in faculty development for online teaching as well as their extensive personal experience as faculty in online distance education. Rena M. Palloff and Keith Pratt share insights designed to guide readers through the steps of online course design and delivery.

Designing Web-Based Training: How to Teach Anyone Anything Anywhere Anytime

The surge in the number of online training sites has created an unprecedented demand for experts who know all aspects of Web-based training (WBT) site design. Written by bestselling author William Horton, this book provides the hands-on and practical guidance that trainers demand. Packed with over 100 examples, this well-illustrated guide walks you through every phase of designing WBT, from analyzing your course requirements and assessing the needs of potential students to designing a course for a global audience.

You'll find out how to combine elements into effective and interesting learning sequences, discover how to overcome any technical hurdle that may arise, how to offer materials that motivate learning, and how to use Web technologies to create 21st-century alternatives to traditional courses.

Praise for Designing Web-Based Training

"Horton has done it again! He's addressed the cutting-edge problem of Web-based training design with his pragmatic, research-based approach. His work is task-oriented and down-to-earth. He doesn't waste our time with excessive educational philosophy. In short-comprehensive overview, practical advice, engaging presentation."-Robert E. Horn, Author, Visual Language: Global Communication for the 21st Century

"As each new media wave is adopted for instructional pur-poses, there is a lag in effective exploitation of the unique features the medium brings for supporting learning. Designing Web-Based Training bridges the gap by providing a rich and detailed reference."-Ruth Clark, EdD, President, Clark Training & Consulting

"Designers have been seeking guidance on how to exploit the Web's distribution potential while combining it with powerful instructional programs. Horton provides structure, stimulation, and substance in this important book. Web-based training is definitely what is happening now. Designing Web-Based Training will be a de facto classic in the field." -Gloria Gery, Principal, Gery Associates, Author, Making CBT Happen

The companion Web site at www.wiley.com/compbooks/horton/ features:
* Design guidelines
* Live versions of many examples from the book
* A course shell and sample lessons
* Links to helpful references

Engaging the Online Learner: Activities and Resources for Creative Instruction (Online Teaching and Learning Series (OTL))

Engaging the Online Learners includes an innovative framework—the Phases of Engagement—that helps instructors become more involved as knowledge generators and cofacilitators of a course. The book also provides specific ideas for tested activities (collected from experienced online instructors across the nation) that can go a long way to improving online learning. Engaging the Online Learner offers the tools and information needed to:

• Convert classroom activities to an online environment and use online activities in a classroom-based course

• Assess the learning that occurs as a result of collaborative activities

• Phase-in activities that promote engagement among online learners

• Help online learners use online tools

• Build peer interaction through peer partnerships and team activities

• Create authentic activities

• Implement games and simulations

Moodle E-Learning Course Development

A complete guide to successful learning using Moodle, focused on course development and delivery and using the best educational practices. This unique book gives you more than just a guide to the Moodle software; it uses Moodle as a route to better teaching, more motivated students, and more successful courses. Moodle E-Learning Course Development shows you how to use Moodle as a tool to enhance your teaching. It will help you analyse your students' requirements, and come to an understanding of what Moodle can do for them. After that you'll see how to use every feature of Moodle to meet your course goals. The social constructionist learning philosophy is at the heart of Moodle: we all "construct" knowledge through interation with one another and with learning materials in a social way. Moodle E-Learning Course Develelopment will show you how to add static learning material, interactive activities, and social features to your courses so that students reach their learning potential. Whether you want to support traditional class teaching or lecturing, or provide complete online and distance learning courses, this book will prove a powerful resource throughout your use of Moodle.

Home-School Relations: Working Successfully with Parents and Families (3rd Edition)

Home-School Relations examines the nature of the contemporary family and its relationship to the school and provides practical advice for developing strong home-school relationships. This book discusses the need for educators to have positive working relationships with the students they teach and describes the techniques they must use to understand the families from which their students come. In addition to covering the traditional topics of ethnic families, change in families, and parent-teacher communication, Olsen, Fuller, and their contributors delve further into the issues facing families today. Poverty, advocacy, fathering and domestic violence and their effect on families are covered opening new paths of understanding for educators. In addition, diversity (cultural, racial, religious, and sexual orientation) is discussed, not only in a separate chapter, but throughout the book, to promote understanding of all students and their families. Unlike other book in this field, Home-School Relations confronts the alarming statistics on poverty and how it affects children, and ultimately, their performance in schools. In-service and pre-service teachers, parents