E-Learning Curve Blog

What’s on your e-learning bookshelf?

Here is my shelf of “go to” e-learning texts. Regardless of my other sources of information about the domain, this is the well I return to again and again to find knowledge, information, wisdom and (in one case) wit. What do you keep on your E-Learning Shelf?

• Designing Web-based Training: How to Teach Anyone Anything Anywhere Anytime
• Moodle 1.9 E-Learning Course Development
• E-Learning: Strategies for Delivering Knowledge in the Digital Age
• E-Learning and the Science of Instruction: Proven Guidelines for Consumers and Designers of Multimedia Learning
• Designing World-Class E-Learning
• Classic Drucker
• E-Learning Strategies: How to Get Implementation and Delivery Right First Time
• Michael Allen’s Guide to E-Learning
• Evaluation in Organizations: A Systematic Approach to Enhancing Learning, Performance and Change
• Evaluating Training Programs: The Four Levels (3rd Ed.)
• E-Learning Tools and Technologies
• Integrating Educational Technology and Teaching (4th Ed)
• Managing Organizations
• Real World Research (2nd Ed.)
• Multimedia Learning. Cambridge University Press
• How To Research
• Interaction Design Beyond Human Computer Interaction
• E-Learning Standards:A Primer for Using the Standards as Decision Support Tools
• Evaluating the performance impact of non-formal learning on knowledge workers in a Small-to-Medium Sized Enterprise (Unseen)

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March 03 2009 03:31 pm | e-learning

4 Responses to “What’s on your e-learning bookshelf?”

1. Virginia Yonkers on 04 Mar 2009 at 1:24 am #

   I find it interesting you have a book shelve for elearning. I find many of the books I read are outdated by the time they hit market. I guess I’m more of a magazine/journal person.

2. Michael Hanley on 04 Mar 2009 at 1:13 pm #

   Hi Virginia,
   Yeah: I know – ironic, isn’t it? I wondered would anyone pick up on that.

   Should I reject books, give (or take) an instructor-led course, or use any other channel to learn that suits me, just because I am an e-learning professional?

   My answer is emphatically “No. Not a chance.”

   Would I recommend that anyone else should keep an E-Learning Shelf?

   Yes, but it’s not my call. E-Learning is about expanding learners’ choices and extending the ways they can learn.

   I take your point about information remaining current, but if you have a look at the list, you’ll see that the texts reflect aspects of learning and development that don’t change – at least not *that* quickly. Luckily I am at this stage in my career where I have the skills to critically analyze any piece of information (analog or digital) and evaluate its relevance and currency, so I’m not too bothered about that.

   I would assert that Mayer & Clark’s work on multi-modal learning, or Kirkpatrick’s classic on measuring learning are fundamental, for example. Don Morrrison’s text will not go out of print any time soon, and is as much a treatise in organizational strategic development as it is about e-learning.

   Equally, while the specific tools and technologies we use do change over time, a server is still a server, an summative evaluation form is relatively constant (especially since testing can be bound to the QTI standard).

   The is another reason that I have a bookshelf: I like books. I also love my (12-inch vinyl) record collection, even though I have no end of CDs, DVDs, and MP3s. Last week I bought the new U2 album in LP and CD format. I know which format sounds better (to me) despite the lack of portability, the extra care needed, and so on.

   As I mentioned in my blog post, this library is my knowledge well: magazines and journals are equally a valued learning resource for me: I also subscribe to a range of electronic and print media, as well as reading blogs and wikis etc.

   In another way, this shelf is a tangible representation of my personal growth and history as an e-learning pro. Some of those text has been with me for quite a while and they’re not going anywhere, anytime soon.

   So what do you keep on YOUR shelf, whether it be physical or virtual?

   Michael
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3. Virginia Yonkers on 11 Mar 2009 at 3:46 pm #

   Well, it’s taken a while for me to do it, but I put together a book list here.

4. E-Learning Authoring Tools Guide 2009 Released: Some Meditations on the Nature of Information | E-Learning Curve Blog on 01 Jul 2009 at 6:54 pm #

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