Macromedia MX Elearning: Advanced Training from the Source [With CDROM]

by Jeffrey Bardzell

This title enable readers to learn all they need to know to design effective, interactive, educational products using Macromedia tools This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0201795361
• ISBN13: 9780201795363
• Release Date: August 2002
• Publisher: Prentice Hall
• Weight: 2.10 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.1" x 8.0" x 10.1"

Customer Reviews

Professor Says, "A+"

I'm an assoc. prof. of New Testament currently working to produce an interactive web workbook for teaching/learning skills for New Testament interpretation. I want to give students practice developing close reading skills rather than ask them simply to drill content. For a couple of years, I have had a dream for such a site, and I felt sure it was buildable, but didn't know how. I care enough about how the interactions work and the relationship of content to design that I wanted to design the interactions myself if possible. Yet I didn't know anything but a little Dreamweaver and its CourseBuilder extension. Working my way through a copy of Macromedia MX eLearning is changing all that. Wow! The book teaches how to develop interactions in Dreamweaver and Flash as well as offering several chapters on putting ColdFusion to work in eLearning. Each chapter includes a fine combination of hands-on work and explanation for why we are being asked to do what we're doing, especially at those places where some task is counter-intuitive. The book is also free of mistakes, typos and muddled language, a welcome plus when so many computer books seem to have been rushed to press without having been edited or proofed.Bardzell's book is giving me two things: (1) hands on work with the software that introduces and reinforces learning without devolving into busywork and (2) a model for developing materials (like the book itself) that teach effectively from a distance. A+

Intelligent and Easy to Understand

Jeffrey Bardzell's book is intelligently written with plenty easy-to-understand examples. He engages, inspires, and motivates learners throughout. His Dante's Inferno project makes learning fun. He breaks subject matter down into comprehendible pieces, using Aristotelian logic in places. This guy knows what he's doing. Of several computer books that I have purchased over the years, this is the first time I have written a review. You can learn eLearning and website design, and this book will teach you how-even if you are a motivated beginner, technical type, or humanities person-this book is suited for most everyone.

Excellent explained and a broad scope of topics

This book gives you a broad scope of the to be used topics when creating elearning sites. You will get a quick tutorial of the most important Macromedia features to get the process done. In a clear way building up from using templates, attaching stylesheets, showing and hiding layers with Dreamweaver and using Flash for simulation and user-interactivity the book introduces the interaction with databases by using Coldfusion.I thought Coldfusion was rather difficult to learn, because the tips of the week by Macromedia were a little to quick for me. But Jeffrey Bardzell proved it is easy. In a straight-forward way you are taken by the hand to take all the basic steps for building a data-driven website.

An exceptional look at eLearning applications

The field of electronic learning applications may seem an esoteric one, but the fact is more and more companies and schools are turning to the Web for delivery of instruction. Until now, learning how to build interactive learning modules was a chore that many people labored through alone, pulling bits and pieces from here and there until they were finally able to cobble something together.Macromedia and Jeffrey Bardzell have changed that paradigm. Macromedia with its fabulous suite of web-authoring tools, and Mr. Bardzell with his outstanding examination of how those tools can be employed. This book is thoroughly documented and yet suprisingly easy to read. The chapters and their lessons have a natural flow to them that makes the process of building dynamic learning modules exceptionally easy to follow.If you are an instuctor or an instructiona designer, or someone who wants to deliver any kind of dynamic content on the Web in the field of electronic learning then this book is a must-have. Clear, thorough, and very logically stuctured, you'll learn not only the necessary background information on each type of technology, but also see numerous practical examples of how it is done.

Good Choice

I purchased this book because I have an interest in developing an elearning website for accountants. My background in web design was minimal with a little html and Frontpage experience. I completed the flash tutorial that comes with FlashMX before I started reading this book. I found this book to be excellent introduction to DreamweaverMX, FlashMX and ColdfusionMX as well as an excellent guide on how to build an interactive elearning website. I thought the author did a very good job of balancing his commentary and explanations along with the instructions for building the exercises and the related screenshots.I recommend this book not only to people with an interest in developing an elearning website, but anyone with an interest in learning how to build an interactive website using the above Macromedia products.