I don’t know if there’s going to be any people here going to college or that are going. But my recommendation is get a group of people/friends that are taking the same class, order one book or check it from the library. Proceed to scan/photocopy the sections that will be covered by the teacher. This process can also be sped up with a good camera mounted over the book, and you take pictures of the pages. This process is much faster than scanning, and if you’re savvy enough it can be run through software to parse the text into a word document or PDF. Though this may be more technical than most will ever bother with. It’s also pretty illegal so don’t let faculty know.
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Amazing how many textbooks are online somewhere…
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And teach kids that there’s such a thing as a personal life distinct from work? What kind of dirty commie are you?
But yeah, what you propose makes sense and, properly set up, can teach valuable lessons.
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Why does it matter which books you use? When I studied (Physics, Exeter Uni., '74-'77) I bought books only if I thought they would be useful and no one but me cared. There were set books but only in the sense that using them made it easier for lecturers and students to communicate by saying look in chapter so and so.
There are professors who will require you to use their book. As in the book they wrote and get royalties for. Surprisingly this is entirely legal.
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I had a lecturer whose entire course consisted of how to administer a particular set of proprietary neuropsychological tests.
Which were written by him, exclusively sold by a company he owned, and completely unsupported by any sort of empirical testing.
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The books may have slightly different content and exercises between editions, even though most of it is the same the differences are enough that someone with the wrong edition might miss something. I found it easier to borrow from the library instead
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That would not have worked legal or not when and where I was at uni., might be different in the UK now I suppose. Don’t students in the US have any power at all?
Perhaps it depends on the discipline you are studying. Quantum mechanics is the same regardless of which textbook you use. Ditto for Newtonian mechanics, etc.
Luckily I studied at a traditional English university that still used the tutorial system, and the degree awarded depended only on a final year experimental report and final exam. Which books you used and whether or not you attended lectures was up to you. Of course this is an expensive way of teaching and assumes that the student is keen to learn under their own steam. The great advantage over modular, continuous assessment schemes is that it is pretty much immune to plagiarism.
Well that’s the thing. In the US colleges and universities purposefully use the textbook edition thing to wring money from students. When i went to high school in Venezuela the particular textbooks didn’t matter as the teacher wanted and expected students to do research through multiple sources. And specific content would be provided by the teacher or school.
I remember doing research for a biology class over tropical diseases, and i went directly to some doctors with expertise at a hospital to get materials from them. I made a really baller presentation, still really proud of my self for that lol.
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I would never take that laptop home. I would leave it open and operating in the schoolroom every night. The any "hanky-panky by teachers or staff would be interesting viewing. No matter what they say, they cannot force you to take it home. If I couldn’t leave the school grounds without it, I would “forget” it on the nearest park bench.
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As a college lecturer, i have to tell you that this is sadly not going to work for much longer. Admittedly my field, Mathematics, is easier to automate, but what the students are really buying when buying the book is increasingly just access to a computer-based homework and quiz system for the term. In the case of my departments classes, they also have the option of just buying the online access (which comes with an online version of the book), which is nice, but i don’t doubt that most don’t know this until classes start.
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How the hell did the department see it’s way clear to letting that continue?
He was deputy head of the department.
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