The TAA blog, Abstract, has been awarded top honors ranked as the #1 Academic Blog on Feedspot’s Top 10 Academic Blogs list.
Re-engineering the modern textbook: A conceptual shift from content delivery to learning design
Textbooks have historically provided the core content from which teachers develop and deliver learning experiences to their students – a static, paper manuscript delivering conceptual knowledge and exercises to reinforce the material. As mobile technology has provided alternative ways to access and read content in electronic form, most textbooks have been distributed in an e-book format (commonly ePub or PDF) as well, but is this “new” format providing any benefit to student learners?
Arguably the costs of this paperless format are less; search features can improve the speed at which content can be located; and assistive technology, such as screen readers and magnification tools, can improve the accessibility of the information over the print alternative. But, does the technology improve learning?
The most useful textbook & academic posts of the week: July 20, 2018
This week’s collection of articles from around the web begins with a couple perspectives on how to prepare for successful submission of journal articles. We then explore ways to develop an author platform, how to communicate with a supervisor, and some academic taboos. Finally, we look at why the Academy hasn’t taken control of publishing and a novel approach to self-publishing a journal article.
Whatever you are working on this week, let it flow and give it the chance to be great. As William Faulkner once said, “Get it down. Take chances. It may be bad, but it’s the only way you can do anything really good.” Happy writing!
How-to: Creating author pages on Facebook, Amazon, and Goodreads
Creating a brand for yourself as an author can be one of the most challenging things to accomplish. If you’ve ever attempted to launch a website for yourself as an author or penetrate social media channels to develop a following for your book, chances are you’d agree success is far from immediate.
The good news is that sites like Facebook, Amazon, and Goodreads already have a significant audience and make it easy for you to announce yourself as an author to potential readers everywhere. Here we’ll explore the basic steps necessary to get you started on each.
Member Spotlight: Micki M. Caskey
TAA member Micki M. Caskey is a Professor and academic author in the education and middle grades education writing disciplines.
Her most recent publications include Literature reviews in support of the middle level education research agenda (2018), Imagine a place: Stories from middle grades educators (2017), and The encyclopedia of middle grades education (2016). She has also published 8 other academic books and two other textbooks.
Member Spotlight: Joan Wink
TAA member Joan Wink is Professor Emerita at California State University, Stanislaus and is both a textbook and academic author in the ESL, TESOL, curriculum & instruction, education, literacy, pedagogy, language acquisition, and critical pedagogy writing disciplines.
Her most recent publications include The Power of Story (2018) Libraries Unlimited/ABC-CLIO, Critical Pedagogy: Notes from the Real World (2011, 4/e) Pearson, Teaching Passionately: What’s Love Got To Do With It? (2004) AllynBacon/Pearson, A Vision of Vygotsky (2002) AllynBacon/Pearson, and scores of academic refereed publications, years of presentations and keynotes, and her blog, WinkWorld, since 2002.