Sunday 2 June 2013

Connecting Online for Instruction and Learning: International Perspectives


I am absolutely delighted to announce the recent publication of a printed book called Connecting Online for Instruction and Learning: International Perspectives.  I am one of the 14 co-authors who collaborated on this book over a period of time from 2012 - 2013, under the gentle guidance of our inspirational editor Dr Nellie Deutsch. The book contains 312 pages, full of international perspectives based around aspects of elearning and instruction.

A Dream Team
I would like to say a huge thanks to Dr Nellie Deutsch for making this dream project happen, and also heartfelt thanks to all my fellow fabulous co-authors, for being a dream team to collaborate with.

'The authors of the book are: Janet Bianchini, Karen Blumberg, Dr. Christel Broady, Dr. Michele Drechsler, Jennifer D. Klein, Dr. NIki Lambropoulos, Alain Gourdin, Sophi Michael Danis, Antonio Nazzaro, Lenandlar Singh, Kemul Gaffar, Dr. Ludmila Smirnova, Diethild Starkmeth, Steve Tuffill, J. Aleta R. Villanueva, Dr. Revathi Viswanathan, Jason West.'

 I enjoyed every single aspect of this quite ambitious undertaking, and I am so proud to be a part of it all!!


 Screenshot image of book cover taken from Amazon site here. Copyright @ Nellie Deutsch 2013

 'The chapters were written by 14 presenters of Connecting Online (CO12) for instruction and learning live online conference on the first week of February 2012. The free online conferences for educators and by educators started in 2009. The conference takes place on WizIQ Education Online on the first weekend in February of each year'.

Enlightening
The process of working collaboratively with educators from around the world was an enlightening experience.  We each undertook in small groups of 4-5, to proofread and edit each other's book chapters, give comments and advice on how to improve the chapters.  Dr Nellie Deutsch allowed us to collaborate freely within our groups, and gave us gentle reminders for when deadlines were due. She oversaw the whole process from start to finish, and finally published it for us. I and the whole team of co-authors are indebted to her for her invaluable guidance and mentoring of us all.

Below a screenshot glimpse of the first few chapters:


I have just ordered my own copy from Amazon and I am very excited about reading all the book chapters and learning from each of my fantastic co- authors, who are experts in their field.

Now I can't wait for the postman to deliver my copy.  My only worry is that the Italian postal system can be rather unpredicatable at times, so fingers crossed!!

Currently if you click on the image of the book here, you can read a free sample first chapter....

My chapter is entitled: Teaching Idioms Effectively with Web 2.0 Tools. It is based on the background to my original slideshare presentation below:


I had originally created a Glogster, as at first I thought the book would be an ebook. It is in fact a printed publication.


Once again, many thanks to Dr Nellie Deutsch and all my fabulous fellow co-authors for making this dream project come true!!