Through 15 chapters, instructional designers, technology specialists, and educators from North America, Jamaica, Pakistan, Zambia, and Australia discuss how to create teacher immediacy in online learning environments. They consider building presence, creating immediacy through beliefs and behaviors, emphasizing and enhancing presence, emphasizing interactivity, the effectiveness of instructional videos for immediacy, instructional design and organization and directed facilitation, the use of synchronous and asynchronous tools, Facebook-mediated learning environments, the use of synchronous online webinars, and more.
– ProtoView Reviews
...A well-written and useful title, tackling critical issues of the online learning phenomenon and offering strategies which can help instructors and program developers alike. [...] for those institutions looking to enhance their online programs and provide meaningful professional development resources to their online instructors, the price is worth the investment. Highly recommended for college/research libraries, particularly institutions with educational degree programs and eLearning programs.
– Megan W. Lowe, Reference/Instruction Librarian, University of Louisiana at Monroe, American Reference Books Annual (ARBA)
The volume begins with a helpful detailed table of contents that provides a brief synopsis of each chapter. There is also a useful foreword by Karen P. Kaun which underscores the importance of the human component in teaching and learning regardless of the instructional format. The preface speaks to the impact of the “interactive turn,” the “undesigned remainder,” and the “modelling function” in asynchronous learning. In addition, there is a brief description of each chapter that complements the summaries in the table of contents. Every chapter also starts with an abstract and an introduction. Pedagogy, not technology, is the focus of each chapter. Therefore, this reference is valuable for course designers, media specialists, instructors, and researchers across a range of academic disciplines. That said, there are a few chapters that all will want to read and ponder.
– Gary S. Eller, University of Nebraska Omaha, Journal of Reflective Teaching