Textbooks' Coming of Age

Image via WikipediaI have been teaching for over 25 years and one of my biggest frustrations is textbooks. Not only are they costly for the student but they are almost out of date by the time they are printed and not a valuable reference to the student after graduation. New academic textbooks are a $4.5 billion industry and the used textbook market is pegged at $4 billion.

A new company called BookRenter.com is trying to capture some of that market by making books available to students who send them back after they are done. Not a bad idea but there is still the problem of the currency of the materials. The only way to go is digital. With digital books, students will be able to read materials that is more relevant, the prof can select part of one text and part of another, and there is no paper to waste which should keep the tree-huggers happy. It's a win-win all around.

Digital book, newspaper and textbooks have been slowly making their way into our lives. Currently you can get a digital copy of your daily newspaper, your favorite best seller and an e-copy of an academic textbook usually accompanies the physical copy. I think that print media is slowly disappearing and evolving into digital content. Steven Ballmer said that he believe print media will disappear in 10 years. Futurist Ross Dawson said that newspapers will cease to exist in the US within seven years followed by Britain and Iceland in 2019, and Canada and Norway a year later.

I think we have an obligation to teach students how to read digital content. It involves a different set of skills than reading printed text. Modern kids are considered digital natives because they are in tune with FaceBook and Twitter but that does not mean that they know how to use digital technologies to educate themselves.

Related articles

• The End of the Textbook as We Know It - Technology (chronicle.com)
• Colleges May Start Forcing Switch To eTextbooks (news.slashdot.org)

The Dangers of Social Networking

There has been much talk in the media lately about privacy issues with regards to social media but there are many other risks associated with this Internet phenomenon. There is no doubt that social media sites can be fun and are a great marketing tool but just as in real life, these sites attach those who would like to illegally profit or hurt users for their own gain or for misguided motives.

Image via CrunchBaseWhat also seems to be emerging is a couple of stigma's associated with being a Facebook user. Two recent studies have found that students who use Facebook have lower grades than non-users. One study was performed by a psychologist at the Open University of the Netherlands found that Facebook users have 20% lower graders as compared to non-users. Another study at Ohio State University found similar results claiming that Facebook users have significantly lower grade then non-users. As with all research, I'm sure that there was some confounding variables in these studies and both make the statement that Facebook was probably not the direct cause of lower grades but the distraction of playing games, chatting with users and reading updates could have distracted students from their studies.

And then there's a study from the University of Toronto that found Facebook users to be narcissistic. The study examined 100 students and found a direct correlation between the amount of time someone spends on Facebook and how narcissistic he or she is. What the study was  unclear on is whether narcissistic people are more likely to use Facebook or if Facebook plants narcissism into their personalities. The study also found that many Facebook users have low self-esteem. What this indicated that Facebook users are not getting the attention they want in the real world so they turn to Facebook for acceptance. I hope some one does a similar study on Twitter and I'm sure that the narcissism scale would be through the roof for most Twitters.

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• Narcissists and people with low self-esteem more active on Facebook (newstatesman.com)
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Twitter is Starting to Make Sense

I used to be quite critical of Twitter, not understanding its purpose. I thought most of the post I read were quite egotistical and self-centered. Then I came across an article that made me realize that there could be some useful ways to use Twitter. It is called "Don't tweet that: How not to be a Twitter dork." It explains better ways to use Twitter and then it all made sense to me - it's not the tool I did not understand, it was the way most people are using it that does not make sense to me. I'm sorry but I don't care if you have going for a walk or watching TV. Why are you using precious bandwidth for such useless and personal trivia?

The article made me realize that the power of Twitter is to make connections between people of common interest or concern - to get feedback - to start a dialog - to ask questions. The problem with Twitter is that everything goes to every follower, much of it is not of interest to every follower. Yes, I am interested in hearing about conference discussions and finding out about interesting Web sites and articles, but the same people who post those also post about their dogs, their daily habits and other bits of personal information I am definitely not interested in reading.

Microblogging can be a useful tool, but the posts should be meaningful and directed to the subject at hand, not personal quips meant only for the Twitterer and their psychiatrist.

Twitter's Flatline

Twitter's not growing. It peaked in July of 2009 to 29.2 million users and then dropped to 23.6 million unique users by the end of last year. I've tried to understand the Twitter rage but I just don't. I guess others are losing the need to tweet as well. Although it can be used as a marketing tools, the posts I've seen have had more to do with useless information. Do I really care if you are enjoying a cup of coffee? Do I really care that you like to have all kinds of bowel movements? (I did not make that up).

I Don't Tweet and Therefore I Live!

I came across a recent online article by Brian Solis entitled "I Tweet Therefore I Am". Does that imply that because I don't tweet, I am not? I doubt it. I can assure you that I live my life rather nicely, thank you very much. I still don't get it. I have tried to understand the Twitter phenomenon but I just can't. Maybe it's the people I follow. Maybe it's the lack in social relevance I see in Tweets such as "I'm home now" or "I enjoyed my shower". According to Solis, "Twitter users reveal the state of all things captivating attention and inspiring action" - can someone tell me how? Certainly I can see how Twitter can be used as a marketing channel but for me, for someone to capture my attention requires more that 140 characters. Twitter is more like sign graffiti or a protest sign or a sandwich board. To propel me to action would require to hear a position statement longer than a few characters. The statistics listed in the article are interesting but the one that stood out for me was 7% of Americans use Twitter; granted that translates to 17 million people in the US, but I would not call it a social movement.


As a colleague once told me - "I don't waste my time Tweeting about my life, I live it". If some can help me understand how Twitter can enlighten my life, I would very much appreciate it.