A Particular Way of Selling – A Book Critique

 

       Routledge's The Theory and Practice of Online Teaching and Learning: A Guide for Academic Professionals is a free online book of only sixty pages aimed at those who want to delve into the online education topic. It is organised into six different chapters where each one presents excerpts from various books claimed to be written by experts on the field. The work seems to be designed to provide readers with an overview of other books to attract customers. As a compilation of many titles in a slightly short number of pages, it exposes a varied scope of topics around the central theme: online education. The variety of authors compiled in the book might confuse the prospective readers as it seems a hodgepodge of different writing styles.

      The book provides a great range of sub-topics related to the field of online education that starts with the presentation of differences between online and traditional education in chapter one. Chapter two provides general characteristics of asynchronous learning. In chapter three, the author unearths e-tivities and their uses, values and purposes. Chapter four focuses on different approaches an online learner or teacher may encounter. Chapter five issues the historical background of the use of open resources for learning. The book ends in chapter six with an analysis of the development of digital technologies and their use in the educational field. All of the chapters are written by a different author and hence, with his/her writing style.

       While from chapter one to chapter three, it seems to be prominent an informal -or friendly- register, the rest of the chapters reflect a more formal one. This complex arrangement includes sentences such as "Is there anything else that we might say to those of you who come to this book with one arm twisted behind your back, unconvinced of the desirability of teaching online?" (Routledge - Taylor & Francis Group, n.d., p. 13). More formal sentences such as "The cascade of boundary-crossing resources shared openly is largely determined by individual learners and is unpredictable" (Routledge - Taylor & Francis Group, n.d., p. 55) are found in the rest of the chapters. This transition from an utterly informal register to a more academic one produces a phenomenon that leads the whole text to seem a non-cohesive mixture of related topics with the excuse they share the same core.

       The compilation of the excerpts, providing prospective readers/purchasers with a short reference of what the titles the editorial wishes to sell, are about may nail the purpose of making the reader feel intrigued about the topics they present and hence, want to buy them. However, if any intrigue is raised, it would probably be because of the lack of development of the topics rather than because of the book's arrangement. Despite its prominently ambitious purpose, the quantity of topics included in such short space makes the book not only fail to develop useful subjects but also to catch the readers' attention. Furthermore, had the publisher rewritten the chapters in a way they would reflect the authors' main ideas, it could have probably been better for the readers' comprehension of the text. Probably it is safer to conclude that the arrangement of the book will discourage possible customers from acquiring the books, making it unsuccessful on its purpose.

 

Reference

Routledge - Taylor & Francis Group. (n.d.). The theory and practice of online teaching and learning: A guide for academic professionals. Routledge. Retrieved from https://s3-us-west-2.amazonaws.com/tandfbis/rt-files/docs/FreeBooks+Opened+Up/Theory_and_Practice_of_Online_FB_final.pdf