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Textbook manifesto (2016)

greenteapress.com

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Re: Textbook manifesto (2016)

#81

Post by arcticfox »

sitkack wrote: post #23
pcmonk wrote: post #3

A lot of people tend to harp on the "textbooks are too expensive" issue, and I think this correctly identifies one of the problems: textbook price is not an issue to many professors. Unfortunately, there's no actual solution to that presented. > If you can’t find one, write one. It’s not that hard. I've used three or four textbooks written by my professor, and I can't say the quality was all that great. Considering t…

> there's no actual solution to that presented I think you missed this part > All of our books are available under free licenses that allow readers to copy and distribute the text; they are also free to modify it, which allows them to adapt the book to different needs, and to help develop new material. Along with the source to all the books, https://github.com/AllenDowney We need to find a way to make 100 more Allen…

Fortunately, from first-hand experience, Allen is churning them out himself in the form of students. He's a truly amazing professor, so while not exact, the clones are effective.

Many of his students are even involved in education in some way (incl. me, I make software for university bookstores).

Re: Textbook manifesto (2016)

#82

Post by mattnewton »

supremesaboteur wrote: post #73
taeric wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Being opposed by elected officials is one thing. What truly baffles me is being opposed by the very people that are adversely affected. Many policies are literally convincing poor families that it is in their best interests to help support the frail legacy of billionaires. How!?

Poor people are lifted out of poverty when they get jobs. Jobs are created by incentivizing job creators.

One of the biggest job creators is the government, with their massive budget and public needs. Yet we are often lead to believe that we need to coddle billionaires so that they feel comfortable enough to lay a few more jobs, and starve the federal government of revenue and responsibility.

Re: Textbook manifesto (2016)

#83

Post by tedmiston »

> Students: You should go on strike. If your textbook costs more than $50, don’t buy it. If it has more than 500 pages, don’t read it. There’s just no excuse for bad books.

This is bad advice.

You need the book for reference or at least will do better with the book most of the time. If you want to stick one to the publisher, buy used.

Textbooks need a "microservices revolution". And not with these crappy interactive DRM-ridden e-textbooks with exercise codes... the experience with most of those is markedly worse than print books. We need more open content like webpages and journal articles. O'Reilly does it best. Textbooks authors should follow / adapt their model.

Re: Textbook manifesto (2016)

#84

Post by tedmiston »

pcmonk wrote: post #3

A lot of people tend to harp on the "textbooks are too expensive" issue, and I think this correctly identifies one of the problems: textbook price is not an issue to many professors. Unfortunately, there's no actual solution to that presented. > If you can’t find one, write one. It’s not that hard. I've used three or four textbooks written by my professor, and I can't say the quality was all that great. Considering t…

> I think this correctly identifies one of the problems: textbook price is not an issue to many professors. Unfortunately, there's no actual solution to that presented.

Several of my professors solved it by supporting the last couple editions of the book vs just the latest. Works for everyone.

Re: Textbook manifesto (2016)

#85

Post by tedmiston »

AllenDowney wrote: post #63
pcmonk wrote: post #3

A lot of people tend to harp on the "textbooks are too expensive" issue, and I think this correctly identifies one of the problems: textbook price is not an issue to many professors. Unfortunately, there's no actual solution to that presented. > If you can’t find one, write one. It’s not that hard. I've used three or four textbooks written by my professor, and I can't say the quality was all that great. Considering t…

I understand that "just write a book" might come off as glib, especially for profs who teach 3+ classes per semester. So I don't mean that everyone has to, or should, but 1. Writing 150 pages that are targeted for your class and your students is easier than writing "the bible" for your field. 2. The quality of the first draft might not be great, but if you are getting feedback and constantly improving, it's not long…

This is too disaligned with the criteria that are important to having a successful career as a professor. The problem isn't doing the work, it's that it takes a lot of time and is generally not a priority for the university and department vs research.

I've had some professors create fully self-contained slide decks for their course with references. Other professors teaching the same course often shared slides. Occasionally a textbook emerges from this material, but not most of the time. I think this is an approximation of your idea and probably the closest we'll get in practice.

Edit: Okay, I see in another child comment that you are a CS professor — how do you make the time to do both?

Re: Textbook manifesto (2016)

#86

Post by AllenDowney »

tedmiston wrote: post #85
AllenDowney wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I understand that "just write a book" might come off as glib, especially for profs who teach 3+ classes per semester. So I don't mean that everyone has to, or should, but 1. Writing 150 pages that are targeted for your class and your students is easier than writing "the bible" for your field. 2. The quality of the first draft might not be great, but if you are getting feedback and constantly improving, it's not long…

This is too disaligned with the criteria that are important to having a successful career as a professor. The problem isn't doing the work , it's that it takes a lot of time and is generally not a priority for the university and department vs research. I've had some professors create fully self-contained slide decks for their course with references. Other professors teaching the same course often shared slides. Occas…

That's true. I have the good fortune to work at a college (Olin College) that recognizes that my work developing textbooks is aligned with the mission of the institution, and can have as much external impact as research. But you are right -- most places give professors zero credit for writing textbooks.

Re: Textbook manifesto (2016)

#87

Post by tedmiston »

AllenDowney wrote: post #86
tedmiston wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is too disaligned with the criteria that are important to having a successful career as a professor. The problem isn't doing the work , it's that it takes a lot of time and is generally not a priority for the university and department vs research. I've had some professors create fully self-contained slide decks for their course with references. Other professors teaching the same course often shared slides. Occas…

That's true. I have the good fortune to work at a college (Olin College) that recognizes that my work developing textbooks is aligned with the mission of the institution, and can have as much external impact as research. But you are right -- most places give professors zero credit for writing textbooks.

We could use a few more schools that think like that!

Re: Textbook manifesto (2016)

#88

Post by dctoedt »

supremesaboteur wrote: post #73
taeric wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Being opposed by elected officials is one thing. What truly baffles me is being opposed by the very people that are adversely affected. Many policies are literally convincing poor families that it is in their best interests to help support the frail legacy of billionaires. How!?

Poor people are lifted out of poverty when they get jobs. Jobs are created by incentivizing job creators.

> Jobs are created by incentivizing job creators.

Which of course leads to the question: Which job creators are most effective at providing sustainable (and, ideally, scalable) employment for the available talent pool?

Re: Textbook manifesto (2016)

#89

Post by a3n »

mattnewton wrote: post #82
supremesaboteur wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Poor people are lifted out of poverty when they get jobs. Jobs are created by incentivizing job creators.

One of the biggest job creators is the government, with their massive budget and public needs. Yet we are often lead to believe that we need to coddle billionaires so that they feel comfortable enough to lay a few more jobs, and starve the federal government of revenue and responsibility.

Indeed. The government, like poor people, spend every dollar they take in, which allows that money to circulate. To use a cliche, a billionaire can only buy so many yachts, pieces of art or gold bricks; at some point, the excess is going to land in an offshore account or otherwise be underutilized.

Billionaires grudgingly create jobs.

Re: Textbook manifesto (2016)

#90

Post by harry8 »

Richard Feynman's adventures in textbooks 50 years as told in "Surely you're joking" ago are still instructive. It's pretty embarrassing that it is still so bad. More power to Downey, support him. Perfect is the enemy of good and the ally of the status quo, which is horrible.
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