CAI sourcebook. (book reviews)

CAI Sourcebook, by Robert L. Burke. Prentice-Hall Inc., Englewood Cliffs, NJ. 219 pages, hardcover $14.95.1982.

The front of the dust jacket carries a subtitle of sorts, "Background and Procedures for Computer Assisted Instruction in Education and Industrial Training," white the back says "this book provides a step-by-step introduction to the systematic development and validation of CAI courseware," and also says the book shows how to develop CAI courseware for microcomputers.

The dozen chapters involve: Becoming a Computer Assisted Instruction Author, What is CAI?, Microcomputers and CAI, Systems Thinking and CAI, Instructional Writing and CAI, CAI Frame Protocols (with over 20 samples), CAI Lesson Designs, Validation of CAI Lessons, Developing the CAI Lesson, CAI Courseware Review, Cashing In (getting started, publishing and distributing courseware, etc.), and The Future of Microcomputer CAI. The book ends with a 24-page glossary that is concise and relaxed; a prompt is described as "Any technique which is built into the lesson to help the student make the correct response."

The text itself is concise and relaxed, and breaks the verbiage into subheaded groups of several short paragraphs each, to make for easy reading, which is helpful because the entire text is typed. Yet the chapter names are set in MICR capital letters, sometimes difficult to read.

Anyway, the author does provide a great deal of material on developing CAI lessons, with many examples, and even includes advice on how to publish your own courseware. If you use microcomputers in teaching, or write CAI lessons, or want to get into CAI, you are bound to find useful material in this detailed book.

Review Grade: C