Recently published by the Commonwealth of Learning is this edited e-book titled Education for a Digital World – advice, guidelines and effective practice from around the globe. This 500-page volume contains a comprehensive collection of proven strategies and tools for effective online teaching, based on the principles of learning as a social process. It offers practical, contemporary guidance to support e-learning decision-making, instructional choices, as well as program and course planning, and development.

There are five sections in the book, with contributed chapters under the headings of:

• The impact of Instructional technologies
• Preparing Online Courses
• Implementing Technology
• eLearning in Action
• Engagement and Communication

The book itself has been designed in such a way that it could be used as a handbook for a course on the topic – with each of the 31 very informative chapters introduced with a list of learning outcomes that should be achieved as the reader works his/her way through the chapter.

There’s simply too much in this book for me to do it justice with a brief mention here – suffice to say that there is something of value in here for everyone, from the newcomers to the topic to those who are well down the track.

I found chapter 30,”Supporting eLearning through Communities of Practice” of particular interest having just attended an all day seminar yesterday with Etienne Wenger, whose work gets quoted in this chapter. There are some very useful models and frameworks explained in the chapter, as well as some informative case studies that illustrate the nature and operation of some of these communities of practice – including one that I’ve been a part of for a while, namely the SCoPE online community hosted Simon Fraser University in Australia which brings together individuals who share an interest in educational research and practice.

Another excellent piece of work from the Commonwealth of Learning!