Monday, May 19, 2008

Online Courses, Continued

No, I haven't abandoned my blog--just a very busy spell when I could not make time for it.

I was talking about online course development and have expanded my studies on this topic in preparation for participating in the 2008 convention of the Text and Academic Authors Association (TAA) in Las Vegas, June 19-21. On Saturday I will be in a publisher's Q&A roundtable and also will be giving a presentation on the future of textbooks (e.g., how textbook authors can continue to make money in the digital world of free online content). I also signed up for some 15-minute mentoring sessions with textbook authors on Friday. On Thursday I look forward to attending Michael Spiegler's workshop on writing a textbook. Michael has used my book as a text (Writing and Developing Your College Textbook, 2nd Edition, Atlantic Path Publishing 2008). TAA is a great resource for textbook authors and editors (www.taaonline.net).

Topics for my mentoring sessions cover standard areas in textbook publishing, such as writing a prospectus, finding the right publisher, the publishing cycle and process, textbook organization and headings, apparatus and pedagogy, working with co-authors and editors, and doing revisions. My presentation/discussion focuses on the online environment for instructional materials, however, and is called "Textbook 2.0" (at a TAA member's apt suggestion). The deeper I go into this subject, the more I find out, and the more questions arise--an exciting prospect as I love both the research and the puzzle. I look forward to writing and speaking on this and learning even more.

As it happens I have also been developing online courses for clients, learning by doing and thus discovering both limitations and ways to get outside the box. I've also discovered how expensive it can be to have software written for online course platforms and applications. I don't know much at all about that, as my involvement has been on the soft side, with content, using templates. I have not even had to learn a markup language (html or xml). I think I would like to do that anyway, though, as soon as I get a chance. There seem to be many good tutorials online, e.g., at www.killersites.com.

One platform you can check out without commitment and at no cost is the beta at www.utilium.com. [Disclosure: I am listed as a partner in that venture (though I'm only a consultant and not a legal partner or an investor).] In any case, I think Utilium and sites like it hold a lot of promise for instructor-led development of high-quality custom course content that can be sold or shared, as desired, without permissions problems, but with the full potential of the World Wide Web and, hopefully, the interactive user interfaces of social networking.

I look forward to sharing on this blog more of what I learn about the future of textbooks in a digital world.

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posted by Mary Ellen Lepionka @ 9:19 AM 0 Comments