Overview
Beyond the hype of online learning lies a straightforward question: how do you really deliver worthwhile learning online? This book, based on action research, provides a simple answer to this fundamental question by exploring a key technique that enables teachers and learners to use available technologies happily and successfully.
So, what are e-tivities? They are motivating, engaging, purposeful activities developed and led by an e-moderator. They are frameworks for active and interactive online learning. E-tivities are in the hands of the teachers themselves and promote active e-learning.
This is not a book about the technology of online learning. Practical, accessible and direct, it looks at personalizing and customizing teaching and learning. Written for use in any topic, subject or course, E-tivities explores:
• the importance of activities in online learning;
• designing and running e-tivities;
• the five-stage model of teaching and learning online.
Backed up extensive illustrations and case studies, and including a unique collection of 35 Resources for Practitioners, this is a book for all professionals involved in online learning.
Synopsis
Beyond the hype of online learning lies a straightforward question: how do you really deliver worthwhile learning online? This book, based on action research, provides a simple answer to this fundamental question by exploring a key technique that enables teachers and learners to use available technologies happily and successfully.
So, what are e-tivities? They are motivating, engaging, purposeful activities developed and led by an e-moderator. They are frameworks for active and interactive online learning. E-tivities are in the hands of the teachers themselves and promote active e-learning.
This is not a book about the technology of online learning. Practical, accessible and direct, it looks at personalizing and customizing teaching and learning. Written for use in any topic, subject or course, E-tivities explores:
• the importance of activities in online learning;
• designing and running e-tivities;
• the five-stage model of teaching and learning online.
Backed up extensive illustrations and case studies, and including a unique collection of 35 Resources for Practitioners, this is a book for all professionals involved in online learning.
Brent Muirhead
Gilly Salmon's latest book "E-tivities: The key to active online learning" reflects her passion to encourage today's online instructors. Salmon has addressed the need for relevant online instructional activities that can be used in a diversity of academic disciplines. Salmon's online work at the Open University has provided an excellent basis to develop a research-based book. Instructors will appreciate the creative ideas and activities that support her innovative five stage teaching and learning model. The book offers practical strategies that personalize student learning and cultivate interaction within classes. Contemporary distance educators will find a wealth of valuable curriculum resources in E-tivities that can energize their students by participating in meaningful and intellectually challenging projects.
Editorials
Betty Collis
Gilly Salmon's E-tivities are important ideas, particularly for those who think of e-learning as the solitary process of reading pre-made and pre-selected study materials off the computer screen. E-tivities, in contrast, are intensely interpersonal and their results are not known in advance. But they do not happen based only good intentions; Salmon's book is a valuable guide to scaffold their development for the instructor or facilitator as well as for those who "train the trainers". The idea of the learners leaving "footprints" for others to follow is particularly powerful.Brent Muirhead
Gilly Salmon's latest book "E-tivities: The key to active online learning" reflects her passion to encourage today's online instructors. Salmon has addressed the need for relevant online instructional activities that can be used in a diversity of academic disciplines. Salmon's online work at the Open University has provided an excellent basis to develop a research-based book. Instructors will appreciate the creative ideas and activities that support her innovative five stage teaching and learning model. The book offers practical strategies that personalize student learning and cultivate interaction within classes. Contemporary distance educators will find a wealth of valuable curriculum resources in E-tivities that can energize their students by participating in meaningful and intellectually challenging projects.Dale Spender
(This really is a marvellous handbook. A practical guide to the new e-learning, it takes the angst out of online tutoring and provides a much needed comfortzone. "E-tivities" is the craft of online tutoring made easy.Jenny Preece
"E-tivities" provides a very practical way of engaging students in online collaborative online learning. It is the first book that I have read that actually deals in a very practical way with the very thorny problem of how to get students to collaborate successfully with peers in learning projects using textual computer mediated communication. I'm happy to say that this book goes beyond such superficial advice as 'make sure that online activities count towards students' final grades'. Encouraging online participation by such extrinsically motivated ploys will put students off who are looking for a meaningful experience; particularly if the activities seem trivial and could be done in other ways, or contribute little to the goals of the course, as is so often the case. Based on her many years of working with students and tutors at the British Open University, Salmon has devised a model for e-learning which she supports with a range of 'how to do it' and 'try this' examples for novice instructors who want to use computer-mediated communication with their students but who aren't sure what to do or where to start. Many of these suggestions are unthreatening and can be tried by anyone, others are more challenging and will be useful for those with experience in online teaching.Martyn Sloman
For many training professionals, e-moderating offers a compelling new opportunity to play a business-critical role. A future is beckoning. E-tivites offers an eminently practical guide on how to begin and advance in this role. It is written in simple straightforward language and is full of practical examples. Gilly Salmon argues that the future of e-learning lies beyond information and will be about greater interaction and participation. Her awareness of the current challenges facing trainers in organizations is apparent from the opening paragraphs. Her central questions are "how can teachers and learners use technologies happily?—Author of The E-Learning Revolution