Blurts

Textbook costs and open-source alternatives is one theme that pops up here frequently. Here is a blog post (business1001) commenting on the California initiative to make open source textbooks available.

Contained within the post is a link to an initial evaluation of some options. Here is the summary for for the submissions from different publishers. I find it interesting to actually review the products (I tend to look at the biology resources because that is the area in which I was originally prepared to teach on the secondary level). Download the 600-700 page e-books.

Here is an interesting analysis from MacWorld focused on the cost of wireless services. The cost of data plans for smartphones and some netbook devices is critical in proposals that hand-held devices offer equitable educational opportunities.

iTunes has a back to school sale this week (maybe longer). Most movies fall (loosely) under the heading of schooling – some frivilous (School of Rock) and some challenging and thought provoking. One of my favorites, Good Will Hunting, was on the $5 list, but I already own it. My favorite, Finding Forrester, was on the $10 list. I own that one too.

I did purchase The Paper Chase. I always wanted to be a Prof like professor Kingsfield, but I am not certain how his gruff, confrontational style would go over at UND (or I am guessing at Harvard for that matter).

If you are unfamiliar with the movie, it is well worth $5. The movie describes the first year of Harvard law and focuses on the experience of students in the Contracts class of Professor Kingsfield. I have decided Kingsfield is a constructivist, but his methods and has demands for mastery of the book material might challenge many educator’s notion of what constructivism is. If you have watched the movie, there is a segment about 5 minutes in that contains some memorable quotes.

We use the socratic method. Why not just give you a lecture? Through my questions you learn to teach yourselves.You teach yourself the law, but I train your mind. You come in with a skull of mush and leave thinking like a lawyer. There is always another question.

I could start by purchasing a bow tie.

This from “all about law school“.

Digital textbooks remain a nascent business and a tough market to enter. At an average cost of $100, textbooks command the highest cover prices in publishing, outside of only some art and coffee table books. Demand is artificially inelastic as students are indentured to cost servitude at the whim of college professors who blithely assign titles a student must own if he or she hopes to do well in a given course. Now, multiply that by 4,5, or even 6 courses per semester and you are talking big bucks.

Wired online has an article on the open textbook company Flatworld Knowledge.

Allow my to address comments made in the quote above. The $100 thing is what generates fodder for the blogs and is what students tell mom and dad. Books are resold to bookstores and the used book market. The actual cost to the students for the new book is thus $50 and $25 the first time the student buys a used book.

The difference is what one might describe as “beer money” – hence it is worth perpetuating the myth.

The major internet carriers are not your friends and not attemping to provide broader access. This piece from the Washington Post describes apathy of carriers in taking advantage of stimulus money to improve access.

Their reasons are varied. All three say they are flush with cash, enough to upgrade and expand their broadband networks on their own. Some say taking money could draw unwanted scrutiny of business practices and compensation, as seen with automakers and banks that have taken government bailouts. And privately, some companies are griping about conditions attached to the money, including a net-neutrality rule that they say would prevent them from managing traffic on their networks in the way they want.

This live from Grand Forks. Hail storm in progress.