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Web-Based Education: Learning from Experience, by Anil K. Aggarwal. (Hershey, PA: Information Science Publishing, 2003, 464 pages, $74.95)
Web-Based Education: Learning from Experience, edited by Anil Aggarwal, is a collection of 25 articles addressing many of the aspects of providing e-learning in a marketplace that includes for profit colleges and universities that compete with traditional institutions. Writing in the forward, Distinguished Professor Starr Roxanne Hiltz states, "this book is an invitation to learn from mainly anecdotal evidence of faculty members in varied roles within the web based educational experience" (p. ix). Designed for students of Web-based education (WBE), this book covers most aspects of online teaching and learning. In the culture of online education, it is important to understand how the interplay of ideas affects these dynamics. The culture of WBE is continually evolving, given the volatile nature of the medium, making this book an important means to provide a more comprehensive understanding of relevant issues.
This review briefly describes each of the book's five sections. Their focus is on emerging technologies in which "issues must be addressed, and the theories must be tested and validated" (p. xi). The sections are:
* Part I. WBE: An Overview, Current and Future
* Part II. WBE: Enhancing Technologies
* Part III. WBE: Design Issues
* Part IV. WBE: Diffusion Across Disciplines and Communities
* Part V. WBE: Diffusion Across Boundaries (case Studies)
Each section contains a group of articles divided into chapters.
PART I. WBE: AN OVERVIEW, CURRENT AND FUTURE
The effective design and application of Web-based learning and teaching environments is a challenge that confronts educators who have received no formal training in this discipline. Experience-based reports comprehensively examine the virtual nature of education from the perspectives of faculty, students, and technical personnel. References to eManagement and ePreparation are reminders that these practices may be different than non-Web-based practices because of the dynamic environments of which they are a part.
Information structure framework (ISF), in the context of five fundamental categories of learning theory (objectivism, collaborativism, constructivism, cognitive information processing, and socioculturalism), provides an appropriate mechanism to foster information literacy and thwarting information overload. Theoretical diversity drives comprehensive instructional design.
New ethical issues arising from e-education show the need for systematic revisions as the mass...