Book Review: Faculty Guide for Moving Teaching and Learning to the Web

Abstract

Web-based teaching and learning are changing the face of higher education and rapidly becoming commonplace in institutions of higher learning. Web-based courses are being developed at a rapid pace, and faculty are working at a frenzied pace to develop the skills needed to instruct in an on-line environment. These new demands are creating instructional challenges for faculty. In the Faculty Guidefor Moving Teaching and Learning to the Web, Boettcher and Conrad provide a comprehensive guide for faculty on concepts related to moving teaching and learning to an interactive and collaborative Web-based environment. Instead of presenting a "how-to" book on Web-based instruction, the authors focus on integrating technological concepts with teaching and learning. In addition, the authors introduce issues and perspectives for the future surrounding teaching and learning via the Web.Boettcher, the executive director of the Corporation for Research and Educational Networking, and Conrad, an on-line instructor at Florida State University, have assembled a comprehensive monograph about Webbased teaching and learning. These authors have developed the eleven chapters of this monograph so that it can be divided into three parts: theory, practice, and implications for higher education. The first three chapters offer the framework for the monograph by exploring the theoretical principles behind teaching and learning in a Web-based environment. Chapters 4 through 9 offer practical methods and processes for moving teaching and learning to the Web. The concluding two chapters explore implications and the future for higher education by discussing the issues of teaching and learning in a Web environment.Chapter 1 introduces the reader to the Web by presenting a brief history of the Intemet. This chapter also focuses on how the Internet works and how the Web developed. The purpose of this chapter is to help the reader build a "conceptual understanding of the Internet and the Web infrastructure and it clarifies their usefulness for teaching and learning"