The SAGE Handbook of E-learning Research

The second edition of The SAGE Handbook of E-learning Research continues and expands the success of the first edition. The editors have convened a remarkably strong and diverse set of authors who manage to include established areas such as CSCL and Networked Learning, as well as emerging areas and trends within e-learning such as learning analytics, social media and posthumanist perspectives. It covers an impressive breadth without compromising the depth and I am certain that it will be an indispensable resource to researchers, students and practitioners in the years to come.

Amidst the noise and fury surrounding learning technologies, this Handbook is an invaluable compass to help readers map the territory of E-Learning, and figure out which way may be true north for them. The editors have recruited undisputed leaders in their fields, who combine historical context, theoretical depth and real world experience to comment on the tech trends that swirl around us. Highly recommended for reflective practitioners and researchers looking for the bigger picture, and the defining contours of the future landscape.

In today's dynamic education environment in which fundamental changes are being driving by technology the second edition of the SAGE Handbook of E-learning Research provides institutional leaders, instructors and researchers with an invaluable reference to the latest e-learning research on how technology is impacting on and furthering our understanding of the learning process.

This second edition of the handbook of e-learning research edited by Caroline Haythornthwaite, Richard Andrews, Jude Fransman and Eric M. Meyers is an intellectually stimulating examination of the field and, at the same time, an invaluable resource. While the first edition gave us excellent coverage of the e-learning field at the time (2007) this 2nd edition offers a fascinating and challenging set of new chapters. The 26 chapters each introduce the reader to important new ideas and research thinking that reflect superbly how the field has developed and matured as its significance and importance has grown.

The first chapter covers concisely and well some of the key issues and debates in what has become a major area of interest and research – foregrounding both the role of the human in digital education as well as the socio-materiality and the role of artefacts alongside and together with the human; it covers the importance of the role of the learners and other significant issues around ethics and assessment and many other important concepts and ideas for digitally mediated and supported learning practices.

The remaining chapters go on to deal in more depth with these wide ranging issues and ideas. Including posthumanism’s critique of essentialism in educational research that questions and challenges the existence of an autonomous human subject whose voice is both authentic and uniquely expressive of experience. Through to the increasing important area  and interest in big and, more specifically, learning analytics as well as  the ethical issues and concerns associated with this  and e-learning research more generally.

There is arguably not a current e-learning issue and challenge that is not touched on in the handbook. The different authors recognise and address a wide range of important issues that each relate to the socio-material nature of digital learning processes and the role of the digital in the cultural shaping of new institutional and pedagogical practices. Which are themselves being changed and shaped by the digital practices we now nearly all engage in on a daily basis. This book is not just for specialist e-learning researchers it is for anyone involved or interested in learning and teaching whether as formal educators, learners or as learning practitioners within any aspect of formal and informal enterprise or organisation.  All will find chapters relevant and of interest to them, I recommend they take the time to read and consider the many interesting and current ideas in this latest edition. 

"The SAGE Handbook of E-Learning Research is a useful tool for the student and researcher alike, and provides an up-to-date, flexible, and accessible resource for a science that is still evolving and is subject to changes both large and small. This book is recommended for public and academic libraries."

The Sage Handbook of E-learning Research, Second Edition, is a comprehensive collection of chapters that explores the essential areas in the field of e-learning. The handbook, which is comprised of twenty-six articles from a cadre of about fifty different international writers, is well worth the time it will take to read cover to cover; indeed, the editors have done a thorough job gathering content from noted experts in the field and organizing the material into six themed sections: theory; literacy and learning; methods and perspectives; pedagogy and practice; beyond the classroom; and futures. The collection provides an excellent representation of the best research in the field and thus serves as a foundation for the research that will follow. In a field that changes as quickly as the technology, The Sage Handbook of E-Learning Research does an excellent job covering the breadth of the research, looking at the past, considering the present, and imagining the future.