Instructors can request a complimentary review copy of this text by completing the form below. If you qualify, you will be e-mailed the web address of a special "Instructor Download Site" where you can download a complete copy for review (PDF). Other information is also contained at this site, such as the procedures of how to adopt the book for a course you teach. I offer a special course adoption price of just $15 per duplicated copy. The catch is that the instructor assumes the tasks of downloading the book from this web site, printing a master copy of the book, and then taking the master copy to a copy service to be printed and distributed to the class. High-quality photocopies of the book are also available at the educator discount of $49 per copy (more information about this can be found at the "Instructor Download Site").
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Some notes on how to use this book
I've received much email from instructors about how I use this book. Obviously, everyone's teaching style is different, so take what follows with that in mind. My approach is to give students a good orientation/overview to Authorware on the first night of class and then set some due dates for getting through the chapters. (Helping them manage their time well to get through the chapters is important.) I actually spend about the first 6 weeks just facilitating students as they work through the book -- I don't hold any formal class sessions. Rather than the traditional "this week will cover this icon" approach, I use the book to completely introduce Authorware to students. The book really helped me to reorient my teaching to a style that I believe in, much prefer, and find more satisfying. I also liked the way I was freed from prepping for class for the first month or so! Since the book embeds the learning of Authorware in the context of designing interactive multimedia, there are lots of opportunities to hold conversations about design as well. The second half of the course is when I usually hold a variety of "advanced Authorware workshops" and design seminars. For example, I have found that learning the functions/features of Interaction icon still requires some additional instruction. But since everyone was introduced to the Interaction icon well through the chapters, it's relatively easy to build on that understanding.
This may be a little theatrical, but one of the things I do at the first night orientation is to discuss the benefits of designing for interactivity and experience and how simulations and games figures into this. But I'm just being a little sly because all I'm doing is showing a finished version of all the book's chapters. This is a nice way to then say "oh, by the way, I also just demonstrated every chapter in the book you are about to use." It's a nice way to pique their attention and seems to help their motivation to want to get started building these simulations and games. There is a "enhanced" ready-to-show slide show of all of the chapters that you can download off of the book's home page (by "enhanced" I mean that this slide show demonstrates examples that go a little beyond that covered in the book). I also have unpackaged copies of all the chapters, done "by the book" (samples that conform exactly to the step-by-step procedures detailed in the book), that you and your students are welcome to download and inspect.
The extra $5 discount is meant to recognize the extra work on the part of the instructor -- most pass the discount onto the students, announce this fact in class and thus start the class with the instructor already being a 'hero'. Frankly, I think it is also acceptable for the instructor to pocket the $5 per copy as compensation for the extra work (or to pay a student the $5 per copy to do the work).
Lloyd