Book ReviewWeb Teaching Guide: A Practical Approach to Creating Course Web Sites

Posted 02/21/01

Sarah Horton, Multimedia Applications Specialist for Curricular Computing, Yale University Press

Web teaching is all about making connections: connecting your students to one another and to resources around the world; combining different materials-music, motion, text, narration-into one presentation; collecting related information from multiple sources. When you incorporate the Web into your teaching, you also enable students to make their own connections by offering materials for download and use in their scholarship or by having them construct Web documents as part of their coursework. And this process of making meaningful connections is at the core of all learning.

The excerpt above is from Sarah Horton's new book, Web Teaching Guide. Horton, Dartmouth's Multimedia Applications Specialist for Curricular Computing, has extensive experience consulting on Web-related issues. Her experience advising faculty and as the author of numerous multimedia books has enabled Horton to create a thorough, easy-to-follow guide, which has been praised by professors across the country.

Because Internet's speed, wealth of information and accessibility make it an invaluable tool, colleges and universities are putting it to good use. Academic course Web sites are becoming increasingly popular as an easy way to enhance the depth of coverage in a class and provide students with unlimited access to course materials. Students can read articles online, limiting the need for photocopied handouts; they can view images and audio/video clips as often as they like; and can explore supplemental materials, related Web sites, texts and online discussions. Building such a site may seem like a daunting task, but Web Teaching Guide makes the project of planning and launching a course Web site feasible.

The first chapter, "Planning," urges readers to evaluate the amount of time they have to spend on the project as well as the support systems available to them, enabling potential site builders to be realistic when forming their goals, thereby limiting frustration caused by overly complicated goals.

Chapter two, "Developing Content," goes through the process of compiling the information and multimedia resources for the site. Each subsequent chapter details the methods for presenting the material in the most user-friendly way; whether it be a syllabus and office hours, or movies, audio clips and online discussions. The case studies included throughout offer a glimpse at the practical application of the accompanying instruction. The bibliography, broken down by topic, includes both written and online help resources, for any questions that go beyond the scope of the book.