In this book, Antonín Langhamer brings to life the whole depth and breadth of Czech glass achievement. The book covers its entire history, not only artistic, but technical, economic and commercial. His exhaustive glossary at the back is more than just a place to look up terms, but an illuminating narrative on every aspect of glass, from ancient times to the present. The work is illustrated with lush photographs created by outstanding photographers who specialise in capturing the breathtaking beauty unique to glass. In Langhamer's narratives on early times, readers will find fascinating parallels with the behaviour of modern people, nations and industries. Despite its early origins, Bohemian glass took considerable time to reach prominence. Beginning in obscurity, Bohemian glassmakers produced wares that for a long time were good, but not exceptional. Bohemia's history has been turbulent, and readers can draw inspiration from the ingenuity and persistence of those glassmakers who succeeded against overwhelming odds. While World War II was raging, in the midst of shortages of every imaginable material and fuel, a Czech entrepreneur built himself a little glass furnace. Raw materials were hard to come by, so he made do by re-melting crushed bottles. This book is full of many stories of human valour and weakness, the development of technical and artistic marvels, legal harassment, sex discrimination, industrial espionage, and the triumph of ambition over adversity. But it also tells of ordinary people doing their ordinary work throughout their ordinary lives, and thereby achieving something magnificent. Glass affects everyone's life, and everyone's life, in some small way, affects the evolution of glass. Readers will never see glass in the same way again.

At a time when more and more of what people learn both in formal courses and in everyday life is mediated by technology, Learning Online provides a much-needed guide to different forms and applications of online learning. This book describes how online learning is being used in both K-12 and higher education settings as well as in learning outside of school. Particular online learning technologies, such as MOOCs (massive open online courses), multi-player games, learning analytics, and adaptive online practice environments, are described in terms of design principles, implementation, and contexts of use. Learning Online synthesizes research findings on the effectiveness of different types of online learning, but a major message of the book is that student outcomes arise from the joint influence of implementation, context, and learner characteristics interacting with technology, not from technology alone. The book describes available research about how best to implement different forms of online learning for specific kinds of students, subject areas, and contexts. Building on available evidence regarding practices that make online and blended learning more effective in different contexts, Learning Online draws implications for institutional and state policies that would promote judicious uses of online learning and effective implementation models. This in-depth research work concludes with a call for an online learning implementation research agenda, combining education institutions and research partners in a collaborative effort to generate and share evidence on effective practices.

A Guide to Czech & Slovak Glass is the first resource book ever written on a nation's glass industry. In 208 pages it outlines the artists, factories, associations, museums, schools, shops, and history of Bohemian glass. -- Amazon.