Bibliographies and reading

 As in all our courses, there are various types of reading:

• recommended background reading;
• preliminary reading to orient you into the various topics in the course;
• directed reading tasks onscreen;
• broader bibliographies for each of the four topic based units.

The recommended texts for this course figure on the course unit outline. A few words on some of these, to which we refer in the course content, as they provide quite varied perspectives.

Collis, B. & J. Moonen. (2001) Flexible Learning in a Digital World: Experiences and Expectations. London: Routledge is useful in providing frameworks to think about dimensions of online learning design and we'll look at this in Unit 3.

A familiar name in e-moderating is Gilly Salmon and her book provides a pedagogical approach that is worth reading. Salmon, G. (2012 -- 3rd edition) E-moderating: the Key to Teaching and Learning Online. London: Kogan Page (earlier editions will be useful). This is not the only perspective though and we will consider other views in Units 3 and 4. Salmon's book is available as an e-book via the library (see below.)

We will look in some detail at the framework in Garrison, D. R. & T. Anderson. (2003) E-Learning in the 21st Century: A Framework for Research and Practice. London: Routledge Falmer. This provides a perspective on understanding tutor and student interactions in online conferencing, and is a framework that has been used in research here. This is also available as an e-book, and there are other online papers that outline their approach. This will be drawn on in Unit 4.

A good general background read, especially for language teachers interested in distance dimensions, is White, C. (2003) Language Learning in Distance Education. Cambridge: CUP. This covers various themes we will be addressing in the course.

Electronic journals, online sources and bookmarking

The majority of our reading during the course will be from electronic sources, and these will be varied so remember to keep a critical eye on what you read too :-).

However, one of the features of a constructivist approach is the flexibility to explore themes of interest or relevance to you personally. This can mean you find yourselves wandering off into all sorts of areas :-) The need to organise this reading and records of resources becomes an important part of the way we work. We strongly recommend organising your folders from the outset!

This is clearly an aspect of personal organisation but in the spirit of this course which looks at emerging technologies for online learning, we will use some of the Web2 applications that support collaborative knowledge construction.

Access to books: electronic and print

I've already referred to Salmon (2012) and Garrison and Anderson (2003) being available as e-books.

Other useful e-titles that you can get via the university system include:

Cleveland-Innes, M. and Garrison, D. R. (2010). Introduction to distance education: An understanding of teaching and learning in a new era. London: Routledge.

Kear, K. (2011). Online and social networking: A best practice guide for educators. London Routledge.

Laurillard, D. (2002). Rethinking university teaching: A conversational framework for the effective use of learning technologies, London: Routledge. (A useful read if you have not come across this in other units).

Philips, R., McNaught, C. and  Kennedy, G. (2012). Evaluating e-learning. London: Routledge.

Simpson, O. (2000). Suporting students in open and distance learning London: Kogan Page.

Thorne, K. (2003). Blended learning: How to integrate online & traditional learning. London: Kogan Page.

Weller, M. (2003). Delivering learning on the net: The why, what & how of online education. London: Taylor Francis.

Most of the books relevant to this field are available electronically via the Library. See here: http://www.library.manchester.ac.uk/searchresources/databases/e/dbname-163051-en.htm or here: http://lib.myilibrary.com/. Note that if you use e-books regularly, you can also save your favourites so you don't need to search each time you return.

You can go to the University catalogue and search for a specific book and this will alert you to whether there is an online version of it.

Finally don't forget that you can borrow books or request articles in a more traditional way through our distance service DELIVER. You can request up to 10 items like this free of charge per unit. See the DELIVER pages at http://www.library.manchester.ac.uk/ourservices/servicesweprovide/documentsupply/postalservicedeliver/

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