Scott McLeod

Two well-known technology leaders have pulled together a star-studded cast of tech professionals to introduce a wide range of tech tools and how they can be used in the classroom. There are other books introducing such tools, but you can sell this one to school administrators and tech directors on the basis of the renowned authors that have written the chapters. First, a list of the technologies covered: blogs, wikis, podcasts, RSS, digital video, virtual schooling, One-to-on computing, free and open source software, educational gaming, social bookmarking, online mind mapping, course management systems, online tool suites, twitter, online images and virtual literacy, mobile phones and mobile learning social networking. Now, let’s suppose you are doing an inservice, a formal discussion, a presentation to parents, or other demo and you want something quick and authoritative for folks to read before hand. This is a great collection with the best of the best folks in the field writing the advice. So, have the audience read the chapter beforehand if you can and then begin the discussion. The book is published in such a way that you could discuss a variety of technologies in small groups. That is, if you purchase a copy of the book and cut it up, each chapter is an entity by itself. So, let’s assume that you want to have several small groups talking about various technologies. The group leader can read the chapter beforehand and then lead the group and you have a very inexpensive but authoritative basis of discussion. On another plane, we still seem to be in the lock of discussing the technology and then its uses. We’d like to see a book that is just the opposite; arrange the volume by type of learning objective and then suggest a few of the best tools to accomplish that objective. Perhaps we will come into that phase of maturity. Right now, the authors assume to emphasize the sparkle of technology by technology… Nevertheless, this is an excellent and current and brief but excellent introduction technology by technology.… (altro)