[Vision2020] Textbook and media prices (was: Professor Campbell)

[Donovan Arnold]

Thanks for being one of those teachers that doesn't require the extra textbooks. I did kept a lot of my textbooks from college because they would only pay me about 10 cents on the dollar to buy them back and craigslist for Moscow didn't exist then. 
 
The revised text is often a scam too, the new edition often only has one or two pages different or a diagram. They also put software in the books because you cannot sell it back because it is illegal to resell opened software because of copyright laws. 
 
Donovan Arnold

--- On Fri, 2/25/11, Dickow <dickow at turbonet.com> wrote:


From: Dickow <dickow at turbonet.com>
Subject: Re: [Vision2020] Textbook and media prices (was: Professor Campbell)
To: "Donovan Arnold" <donovanjarnold2005 at yahoo.com>
Date: Friday, February 25, 2011, 11:01 AM



And concerning the high price of textbooks, have there been any studies on the educational effects of this trend? I have found the following in my own experience with this trend:

(1) I can't get desk copies on request in many cases. The books are too expensive for the distributers to send out for free.
(2) The students don't keep their books as part of their personal libraries after the course is complete. I kept all my college texts and they often served nicely for references over the years, continuing my learning.
(3) In my courses I avoid requiring the accompanying workbooks, CDs and study guides and such that often are published along with the main text.
(4) In some cases I have created my own materials and do not require a text at all, to some degree in response to the trend in increasingly expensive texts and the publishers' trick of making frequent revised editions. 

Bob Dickow, troublemaker

> It seems to me that some people are trying to make unfair profit by raking advantage of poor struggling students when they charge so much for textbooks. What is sad is that part of the rip off is coming from people that are so-called pro-education and already doing well 
>  
> Donovan Arnold




      
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: http://mailman.fsr.com/pipermail/vision2020/attachments/20110225/5de8a030/attachment.html