Many faculty these days seem enamored with the idea of "putting a class on the web." Indeed, many institutions are feeling pressure from higher administrations to provide "distance education" in some form. However the realities of getting that accomplished are often daunting. Not only do many faculty not have the technological mastery needed for such work, they may not even have the vocabulary necessary to formulate useful questions. The technical issues one must understand and resolve are only the initial, visible elements of such a project. Lessons from the Cyberspace Classroom leaves the answers to those nuts and bolts questions to your local computer resource person, understanding that for whatever you want to do, there is probably a tool out there that will get it done. This approach frees Palloff and Pratt to address less tangible, yet more practical questions about making the online course into a "learning community."

In two parts, and with excellent exhibits and resource suggestions, Palloff and Pratt first address the sorts of "rethinking" teachers must consider in preparing an online course. They describe and explain the pressures faced throughout higher education for increased "distance learning." They discuss, with some frankness, administrative issues for online teachers, including tenure and promotion credit, student support issues and intellectual property matters. One of the things the book does well can be found in the chapter they call "The Art of Online Teaching." Here Palloff and Pratt explain that some classroom skills are transferable to the online environment, but other skills may need some re-tuning in order to work in cyberspace. Ways of encouraging participation, for example, must shift when we move to what is largely a print form of interaction. Tools of online teaching are examined not in specifics that would immediately push the work into obsolescence, but rather in terms of criteria for evaluating tools for online courses.

In the second part of the book, we learn that we can't simply put our syllabi on a web page and expect things to start popping. Palloff and Pratt offer advice about ways to more comfortably move into online teaching. In doing so, they consider the problems associated with adapting existing courses to the web. They also discuss ways to adjust to delivering a course developed by others, as we sometimes see in general education survey courses. The remaining chapters of Lessons from the Cyberspace Classroom feature several useful comparisons of online to face-to-face versions of teaching syllabi, structures and materials, and discussion of how to promote discussion and manage interpersonal dynamics in an online course.

Alan Hantz
UNC Asheville