TeXt Marks The Spot

The editor in me had to pick at a few typos on the brilliant Sergey Safonov’s Rotocasted database, and that critique lead to a great friendship and a position as Database Librarian. When I’m not correcting tags and typos, I’m taking pictures of toys for safe archiving in the library. Lots of good stuff is in store for this site. In the meantime, pardon the dust!

Creating a custom textbook involves melding an established textbook with a course instructor’s syllabus and objectives. I match the individual course objectives with the pre-existing content. This creates a textbook that is customized to the course content and in order of the instructor’s lesson plans. Custom textbooks are proof of both the quality of the core textbook and the ability of an instructional designer to become a Subject Matter Expert (SME).

In creating a custom textbook on Music Appreciation, I was given Charles Hoffer’s Music Listening Today to use as the basis for the new book. I aligned the content of Music Listening Today with the objectives for a college course on Music Appreciation, which resulted in a custom textbook of 43 chapters. The real pièce de résistance of this project is the 600+ quiz questions I created to correspond to the course’s learning objectives. I enjoy making assessments. Perhaps I got that from my mother, who is a teacher. I’ve made a few sample quizzes from Music Appreciation available below.

This was one of the most comprehensive projects I worked on for Delmar Cengage Learning. It began with a developmental edit of psychologist, Roxanne DuVivier’s manuscript. I was brought on to make the textbook flow for its intended audience: students. Where the script needed additional support, I contributed copy (in the areas of Communication, Health and Technology).

I then made the Online Learning Companion (for students) to the core text. I created assessment quizzes for each of the 9 chapters and wrote 2 tip sheets per chapter. Tips include topics ranging from budgeting to ergonomics to stress reduction. Finally, I created a selection of Web Resources to further supplement the content.

I was also asked to edit the Online Learning Companion (for instructors). I edited lesson plans, created 9 more quizzes and wrote PowerPoint presentations for teaching the material.