We weren’t very well prepared for the morning. I should have asked for questions earlier. Ah well. Elder Daughter returns to walk with me on the 100th episode.
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Nathan,
I teach online college Geology. I have noticed our textbook publishers going through mergers and acquisitions for the past 10 years, it has really intensified lately. Now they are pushing more ebooks for both instructor desk copies and students, I suppose to increase profits. I think this push to ebooks may bite them in the butt, I can foresee ebook software coming soon that will provide instructors a platform to easily write their own text, throw in their own custom graphics and photographs with results professional looking enough to put it in the classroom. I know some Prof’s publish their notes or write their own text for their classes but a “convenient” platform for “anyone” to self publish will have some very interesting consequences, perhaps a much broader peer review mixed with public review, more radical ideas coming to the forefront without lag-time. I’m sure many will be terrible at it, perhaps filling there text with opinion and faulty facts, but you know some may shine. Interesting times now for independent publishing and interesting times ahead for Textbooks. What do you think?
Textbooks are an interesting application. In technical fields — physics, computers, medicine — things are changing so fast that textbooks are obsolete before get thru the editorial cycle. The time-to-market is just too long. In my field, any text book that’s older than 20 minutes is nearly pointless except as historical reference. (Ok, I’m exaggerating, but only slightly.)
I’ve been thinking I need to write my own text on distance education. Reading this ancient Postman text (Technopoly), I’m pretty sure I can be at least as useful. 🙂
Truthfully, I stopped using texts in my course until the uni stepped in and said the students “needed to buy a book.”
Ok then.
“David’s Sling” by Marc Steigler was out of print and they balked at “Art of War” by Sun Tzu. Both of those seemed like better choices than the average “Distance Education Recipes and Formulas for Efficient Blackboard Usage” books that are out there.
But I’m like that 😀
Was that book _Wasp_ by Eric Frank Russell?
http://books.google.com/books?id=HjWiPHyh8zwC
Searching for it in google, the first link I find is a pdf of text version. Not sure if it is legal or not for 1957 book. Anyway, it looks like it can be purchased at Amazon for Kindlle as well.
YES!!
Thanks, Anita. That’s the one!
And it’s public domain (assuming that it wasn’t renewed in 1985 – nobody cared about that stuff then).
Remember the Serials from yesteryear Doc Savage, Perry Rhodan, then there was the short story, The Proud Robot by Henry Kuttner. Those were the Early S.F. that I remember reading. I also remember reading E.E.”Doc” Smith, Eric Frank Russel. The old Space Opera era. Along with several of the other authors you talked about.
I wish I still had my SF collection. I’d like to hear many of them anew via audiobooks. I would so much like to hear A Bertram Chandler’s John grimes stories.
Check Librivox – quality of readers is somewhat variable, but they’ve got a lot of that old-school stuff. The first two Skylark novels, at least, as well as several Murrey Leinster books…
The Doc Savage and Perry Rhodan serials, though, would be mondo cool! I remember finding nearly a complete run of the first 120 or so Perry Rhodan novels at a flea market one time. Got them for a song!
Thanks, they haven’t got to Chandler yet.
Nathan,
I am giving a talk next fall to my fellow faculty, I am discussing the technology I used to complete a project. My main concern is how most of the technology was obsolete a few month’s after completion. I liked your comment and would like your permission to include your above viewpoint in my discussion. Do you have more comments on any education technology blog? Thank you.
Help yourself, Paul
I have a lot more at http://durandus.com/phaedrus and http://durandus.com/cogdiss …
The first is my “teaching” blog but most of my older writings are at CogDiss.
I have to wonder if the instant obsolescence of technology means that we’re not getting the time to really understand how to use it best. It took a number of years after the introduction of first sound, then color, to movies for film makers to fully integrate how to use it to best effect. I wonder if we see some of that in educational technology, as well.
I think a larger part of the problem is trying to let research drive practice. By the time the research has been carried out, vetted, and published – it’s YEARS old.
With technology changing every 90 days, having a control structure that takes years is pointless.
It results in teachers not adopting technology and trying it to see what works because they’re waiting for somebody else to do the heavy lifting with it and tell them what to do. By the time that happens? The world has changed.
It is a sad truth. I am surprised at how many colleagues are not really interested in Tech, or teens who “dare I say it” don’t use the internet. I love it but I am a realist I know many do not really need nor want any more tech in their lives for various reasons. But then I know even a minimalist buddhist will use tech if they see a convenience. To each their own? Find Your Bliss!