So… a couple of days ago I posted about the high costs of textbooks for university and college … and several people responded with ideas about mitigating those costs; thank you - I love it when people participate, and especially try to help others who are going back to school.
Today in our paper, the Toronto Star , there was a big article about one strategy that some students have been using to try to keep their costs down. Not a particularly good one though, I think …but I can certainly understand the temptation.
They are increasingly finding ways to get textbooks photocopied - for a whole lot less than it would cost them to buy the book. In at least one case, a shop actually has the books and sells photocopied and bound versions for a fraction of the cost of the text.
Not cool.
Of course it is not cool. But!
The article includes a bit from a publisher’s point of view, going on about how the additional resources that are provided to professors teaching from the textbook are part of the high costs of the book - sorry, but that struck me as a huge pile of malarky. Yes, there are a bunch of additional resources that are provided to me as an instructor - but honestly, they are pretty near useless to me. I have yet to teach using a textbook where the resources provided suited me in any way, really.
Even the solutions to the exercises in the textbooks I teach from are usually not helpful. The example syllabus they provide is invariably crap; the lecture notes are mere outlines that suit me not at all, and the online components that are offered to my students, while mildly useful and entertaining (we can do crossword puzzles, or play bastardized versions of popular tv game shows - hmmm… I wonder if they pay for that priviledge - or use flash cards to review concepts) - surely do not require - or justify - adding a huge mark up to the cost of each textbook.
They provide PowerPoints that are essentially crap - boring and, from one who also teaches PowerPoint, poorly done. And Blackboard cartridges that contain ~stuff~ like those PowerPoints that, if one makes the mistake of uploading them to an active course, take HOURS to fix and adjust to hide those components that you don’t want, and move things to where you want them, etc. I generally do upload them - to an inactive course shell - and then just move what I want from there to my active shells - but honestly, I rarely find anything much I want.
And the tests they provide! ACK! I teach computers - relational database, right now. The test banks they provide me with, at least right now, SUCK. I can not imagine a situation in which I would ever use them. You can not, in my opinion, test computer knowledge in any meaningful way, using multiple choice tests. And I refuse to waste my students’ time having to teach them 47 ways to do the same thing because in order to pass the multiple choice tests they need to know all 47 ways. As far as I’m concerned, hands on testing is the only reasonable way to evaluate their abilities - and even though it takes a heck of a lot more time and energy to develop and mark good hands on tests that relate directly to their particular field, it is worth it. My students either know their stuff when they do their tests - or they learn that they don’t know it and are motivated to fix that through those tests.
I could care less if they have memorized 47 ways to do a task. I want them to be able to sit down at a computer and solve their (or their employer’s) problem. With the help files, with their texts in front of them, and yes, even with Google.
Apparently, my particular publisher’s company is working on providing a way to do hands on testing in an online lab environment. I missed the preview session we were offered, as I was busy at Trent. But honestly, I very much doubt that it is going to work for my guys, as the likelihood that they are going to offer testing situations targeted to any particular field is slim to none. And if they do, they will use that to justify higher prices? I don’t think so. I consider test development and marking my job. Is that not why student’s pay tuition? So that they have teachers who can adjust the course to their field of study - and to each particular class if needed?
And sorry - but in addition to my role as a teacher and student, I have also done a whole lot of programming and web development - give me a BREAK! None of that stuff needs to cost the kind of money the article suggests it does - and if they are paying that much, they are SO getting ripped. Seriously.
Anyway - for students to take matters into their own hands and go photocopy the book rather than buying it is wrong …but when they can do that for under $50 as opposed to paying $300 or more for a text, can you really blame them?
What do you think?
Well - it’s nowhere near as entertaining as 
Actually, right now, I’m closer to thinking I can’t… that trying to make sense of any more of the references I am using to write my fiction/nonfiction paper is clearly going to cause my head to explode.
