I appreciate anyone making the effort to read what I write. Obviously, my blogs tend to focus on educational issues that overlap with the use of technology. As I examine the frequency with which my content is viewed, I have noticed that a couple of sources are often ignored. These sources were developed to accompany the books I have written, but the material does not require the purchase of these two books and include tutorials and comments on instructional issues.
Integrating technology for meaningful learning is the title of the textbook for the “technology for teachers course” my wife and I began writing in 1995. The book was first published with Houghton-Mifflin and as this company got out of the college textbook market it eventually ended up with Cengage. As I approached retirement, we attempted to convince Cengage to move to a different model for the book. Instead of a traditional book, I proposed the publication of what I described as a Primer to be sold for $29 (the textbook was sold for $140) and online resources. My goals were complex, but mostly concerned the cost of textbooks, the delay in the updating of textbook content over the 3 year run of an edition, and the way an author waited over this time period before being given the go-ahead to work on the next edition. Anyway, after exploring for some time with the company, we both gave up and because I wanted to pursue this approach we were granted our copyright back (both the author and the publisher share the copyright for a traditional textbook). The Primer has since been available through Amazon ($9) and the associated content online at no cost (see the link above).
Designing instruction using layering services is my other commercial product. This Kindle book is focused on the multiple online services that allow educators to add their own annotations, questions, links, and other components to existing online web content and videos to then be made available to learners. These copyright legal services allow what I describe as the development of educational content from online information. Again, I have approached this project as a combination of a Primer and online material. The online material is available at no cost to anyone (see the link above) and the Primer is $3.