[CITASA] are you teaching "It's Complicated"?
Many of you have mentioned in passing that you're teaching my new book in your fall classes (thank you!!!). If you are, I was wondering if you'd be willing to send me a copy of your syllabus? One other question: If you are teaching my book, are you encouraging students to buy it or are you sending them to the free version? (I'm fine either way but, as you can imagine, folks are asking me how giving away my book is impacting classroom adoption and I have zero clue.)
danah
My New Book: "It's Complicated: The Social Lives of Networked Teens"
"taken out of context / i must seem so strange" -- ani
http://www.danah.org/ || @zephoria
Replying to the whole list on this one: I've noticed quite a bit of push-back recently on buying monographs. For years, I've had an informal policy of assigning at least one monograph for each of my large undergraduate courses (and many of you have been the beneficiaries of this). But a recent experience with an "instructional designer" for an online course left me a bit sour - she said that students are not buying even inexpensive monographs for the online courses and balk at paying Amazon, itunes etc for a copy of a movie. Overall course material costs have plummeted - students no longer pay for course packs. But still I'm feeling a weird pressure to keep the monetary cost at zero. Anybody else?
Gina
Dr. Gina Neff
Associate Professor, Department of Communication
University of Washington
Senior Fellow, Institute for Advanced Study
Central European University
Twitter: @ginasue
http://ginaneff.com/
Author, Venture Labor: Work and the Burden of Risk in Innovative Industrieshttp://www.amazon.com/Venture-Labor-Innovative-Industries-Technology/dp/0262017482
From: CITASA [mailto:citasa-bounces@list.citasa.org] On Behalf Of danah boyd
Sent: Monday, August 11, 2014 2:13 AM
To: citasa@list.citasa.org
Subject: [CITASA] are you teaching "It's Complicated"?
Many of you have mentioned in passing that you're teaching my new book in your fall classes (thank you!!!). If you are, I was wondering if you'd be willing to send me a copy of your syllabus? One other question: If you are teaching my book, are you encouraging students to buy it or are you sending them to the free version? (I'm fine either way but, as you can imagine, folks are asking me how giving away my book is impacting classroom adoption and I have zero clue.)
danah
My New Book: "It's Complicated: The Social Lives of Networked Teens" http://bit.ly/dmbItsComplicated
"taken out of context / i must seem so strange" -- ani
http://www.danah.org/ || @zephoriahttp://www.twitter.com/zephoria
Gina:
Yes, same here. Combine the students' unwillingness to pay for materials (for what may be very good reasons) with the requirement that we select all required course materials at the time of enrollment (at our uni that's mid-March for a course beginning in August), and I too have experienced the zero-cost pressure. We work with it, but it can be frustrating. Graduate courses are a bit more tractable, in my experience.
Michelle M. Kazmer, Ph.D.
Professor & Associate Director
School of Information @ Florida State University: Florida's iSchool
Email: mkazmer@fsu.edu
Phone: 850.559.2421 sk/fb/tw/g+: @michellekazmer
http://mkazmer.org
On Aug 11, 2014, at 3:21 AM, Gina Neff gneff@uw.edu wrote:
Replying to the whole list on this one: I’ve noticed quite a bit of push-back recently on buying monographs. For years, I’ve had an informal policy of assigning at least one monograph for each of my large undergraduate courses (and many of you have been the beneficiaries of this). But a recent experience with an “instructional designer” for an online course left me a bit sour – she said that students are not buying even inexpensive monographs for the online courses and balk at paying Amazon, itunes etc for a copy of a movie. Overall course material costs have plummeted – students no longer pay for course packs. But still I’m feeling a weird pressure to keep the monetary cost at zero. Anybody else?
Gina
Dr. Gina Neff
Associate Professor, Department of Communication
University of Washington
Senior Fellow, Institute for Advanced Study
Central European University
Twitter: @ginasue
http://ginaneff.com/
Author, Venture Labor: Work and the Burden of Risk in Innovative Industries
From: CITASA [mailto:citasa-bounces@list.citasa.org] On Behalf Of danah boyd
Sent: Monday, August 11, 2014 2:13 AM
To: citasa@list.citasa.org
Subject: [CITASA] are you teaching "It's Complicated"?
Many of you have mentioned in passing that you're teaching my new book in your fall classes (thank you!!!). If you are, I was wondering if you'd be willing to send me a copy of your syllabus? One other question: If you are teaching my book, are you encouraging students to buy it or are you sending them to the free version? (I'm fine either way but, as you can imagine, folks are asking me how giving away my book is impacting classroom adoption and I have zero clue.)
danah
My New Book: "It's Complicated: The Social Lives of Networked Teens"
"taken out of context / i must seem so strange" -- ani
http://www.danah.org/ || @zephoria
CITASA mailing list
CITASA@list.citasa.org
http://list.citasa.org/mailman/listinfo/citasa_list.citasa.org
I agree, Gina. I quit assigning monographs to undergraduates because 98% of the class didn't read the assignment (I did an anonymous online survey). Increasingly, FSU students just purchase notes from a local vendor, which includes summaries of course readings. The amusing part, of course, is that often these poor quality notes exceed the costs of the books for the course.
Sigh...... Best, Deana
Deana A. Rohlinger, Ph.D.
Associate Professor
Department of Sociology
Florida State University
Book Review Editor, Mobilization
Social Movement Section Editor, Sociology Compass
From: CITASA [citasa-bounces@list.citasa.org] on behalf of Gina Neff [gneff@uw.edu]
Sent: Monday, August 11, 2014 3:21 AM
To: danah boyd; citasa@list.citasa.org
Subject: Re: [CITASA] are you teaching "It's Complicated"?
Replying to the whole list on this one: I’ve noticed quite a bit of push-back recently on buying monographs. For years, I’ve had an informal policy of assigning at least one monograph for each of my large undergraduate courses (and many of you have been the beneficiaries of this). But a recent experience with an “instructional designer” for an online course left me a bit sour – she said that students are not buying even inexpensive monographs for the online courses and balk at paying Amazon, itunes etc for a copy of a movie. Overall course material costs have plummeted – students no longer pay for course packs. But still I’m feeling a weird pressure to keep the monetary cost at zero. Anybody else?
Gina
Dr. Gina Neff
Associate Professor, Department of Communication
University of Washington
Senior Fellow, Institute for Advanced Study
Central European University
Twitter: @ginasue
http://ginaneff.com/
Author, Venture Labor: Work and the Burden of Risk in Innovative Industrieshttp://www.amazon.com/Venture-Labor-Innovative-Industries-Technology/dp/0262017482
From: CITASA [mailto:citasa-bounces@list.citasa.org] On Behalf Of danah boyd
Sent: Monday, August 11, 2014 2:13 AM
To: citasa@list.citasa.org
Subject: [CITASA] are you teaching "It's Complicated"?
Many of you have mentioned in passing that you're teaching my new book in your fall classes (thank you!!!). If you are, I was wondering if you'd be willing to send me a copy of your syllabus? One other question: If you are teaching my book, are you encouraging students to buy it or are you sending them to the free version? (I'm fine either way but, as you can imagine, folks are asking me how giving away my book is impacting classroom adoption and I have zero clue.)
danah
My New Book: "It's Complicated: The Social Lives of Networked Teens" http://bit.ly/dmbItsComplicated
"taken out of context / i must seem so strange" -- ani
http://www.danah.org/ || @zephoriahttp://www.twitter.com/zephoria
I wonder, are you all seeing this as an economic refusal (not wanting to
pay), or.more of a medium problem, ie, no desire to engage in monographic
forms of reading?
On Aug 11, 2014 8:08 AM, "Rohlinger, Deana" drohling@fsu.edu wrote:
I agree, Gina. I quit assigning monographs to undergraduates because 98%
of the class didn't read the assignment (I did an anonymous online survey).
Increasingly, FSU students just purchase notes from a local vendor, which
includes summaries of course readings. The amusing part, of course, is that
often these poor quality notes exceed the costs of the books for the
course.
Sigh...... Best, Deana
Deana A. Rohlinger, Ph.D.
Associate Professor
Department of Sociology
Florida State University
Book Review Editor, Mobilization
Social Movement Section Editor, Sociology Compass
From: CITASA [citasa-bounces@list.citasa.org] on behalf of Gina Neff [
gneff@uw.edu]
Sent: Monday, August 11, 2014 3:21 AM
To: danah boyd; citasa@list.citasa.org
Subject: Re: [CITASA] are you teaching "It's Complicated"?
Replying to the whole list on this one: I’ve noticed quite a bit of
push-back recently on buying monographs. For years, I’ve had an informal
policy of assigning at least one monograph for each of my large
undergraduate courses (and many of you have been the beneficiaries of
this). But a recent experience with an “instructional designer” for an
online course left me a bit sour – she said that students are not buying
even inexpensive monographs for the online courses and balk at paying
Amazon, itunes etc for a copy of a movie. Overall course material costs
have plummeted – students no longer pay for course packs. But still I’m
feeling a weird pressure to keep the monetary cost at zero. Anybody else?
Gina
Dr. Gina Neff
Associate Professor, Department of Communication
University of Washington
Senior Fellow, Institute for Advanced Study
Central European University
Twitter: @ginasue
Author, Venture Labor: Work and the Burden of Risk in Innovative
Industries
http://www.amazon.com/Venture-Labor-Innovative-Industries-Technology/dp/0262017482
From: CITASA [mailto:citasa-bounces@list.citasa.org] *On Behalf Of *danah
boyd
Sent: Monday, August 11, 2014 2:13 AM
To: citasa@list.citasa.org
Subject: [CITASA] are you teaching "It's Complicated"?
Many of you have mentioned in passing that you're teaching my new book in
your fall classes (thank you!!!). If you are, I was wondering if you'd
be willing to send me a copy of your syllabus? One other question: If you
are teaching my book, are you encouraging students to buy it or are you
sending them to the free version? (I'm fine either way but, as you can
imagine, folks are asking me how giving away my book is impacting classroom
adoption and I have zero clue.)
danah
My New Book: "It's Complicated: The Social Lives of Networked Teens"
http://bit.ly/dmbItsComplicated
"taken out of context / i must seem so strange" -- ani
http://www.danah.org/ || @zephoria http://www.twitter.com/zephoria
CITASA mailing list
CITASA@list.citasa.org
http://list.citasa.org/mailman/listinfo/citasa_list.citasa.org
Before I left my previous position as a technical liason, we were starting
to get into the miles of rhetoric of this question of cost for books /
student purchasing of texts for class. One thing we started to really look
into was the viability of e-text platforms. While this itself is a
troublesome topic given the gap between the level of technological adoption
to the level of technological literacy, it did provide some interesting
ideas.
I was routinely told by multiple e-text distribution company reps was that
for the most part, 40% of students in a class purchase the textbooks
required for that class. I don't know where this stat came from but it made
the products this reps were presenting seem pretty amazing so take it with
the required degree of mistrust. This gap of was blamed for the high cost
of textbooks.
As such, the CMS embedded etext distribution platform was that it could
guarantee 100% of all students get the required text 100% of the time
because it was part of tuition. As such, the cost per text per student
would range anywhere from 3.00 (for a book like "It's Complicated") to
20.00 (for a physiology class).
Take that as you will.
Nick
Nick LaLone
Penn State University
Information Science and Technology
ist.psu.edu
www.nicklalone.com
www.beforegamedesign.com
On Mon, Aug 11, 2014 at 7:37 AM, Michelle Kazmer mkazmer@fsu.edu wrote:
Gina:
Yes, same here. Combine the students' unwillingness to pay for materials
(for what may be very good reasons) with the requirement that we select all
required course materials at the time of enrollment (at our uni that's
mid-March for a course beginning in August), and I too have experienced the
zero-cost pressure. We work with it, but it can be frustrating. Graduate
courses are a bit more tractable, in my experience.
Michelle M. Kazmer, Ph.D.
Professor & Associate Director
School of Information @ Florida State University: Florida's iSchool
Email: mkazmer@fsu.edu
Phone: 850.559.2421 sk/fb/tw/g+: @michellekazmer
http://mkazmer.org
On Aug 11, 2014, at 3:21 AM, Gina Neff gneff@uw.edu wrote:
Replying to the whole list on this one: I’ve noticed quite a bit of
push-back recently on buying monographs. For years, I’ve had an informal
policy of assigning at least one monograph for each of my large
undergraduate courses (and many of you have been the beneficiaries of
this). But a recent experience with an “instructional designer” for an
online course left me a bit sour – she said that students are not buying
even inexpensive monographs for the online courses and balk at paying
Amazon, itunes etc for a copy of a movie. Overall course material costs
have plummeted – students no longer pay for course packs. But still I’m
feeling a weird pressure to keep the monetary cost at zero. Anybody else?
Gina
Dr. Gina Neff
Associate Professor, Department of Communication
University of Washington
Senior Fellow, Institute for Advanced Study
Central European University
Twitter: @ginasue
http://ginaneff.com/
Author, Venture Labor: Work and the Burden of Risk in Innovative
Industries
From: CITASA [mailto:citasa-bounces@list.citasa.org] On Behalf Of danah
boyd
Sent: Monday, August 11, 2014 2:13 AM
To: citasa@list.citasa.org
Subject: [CITASA] are you teaching "It's Complicated"?
Many of you have mentioned in passing that you're teaching my new book
in your fall classes (thank you!!!). If you are, I was wondering if
you'd be willing to send me a copy of your syllabus? One other question:
If you are teaching my book, are you encouraging students to buy it or are
you sending them to the free version? (I'm fine either way but, as you can
imagine, folks are asking me how giving away my book is impacting classroom
adoption and I have zero clue.)
danah
My New Book: "It's Complicated: The Social Lives of Networked Teens"
"taken out of context / i must seem so strange" -- ani
http://www.danah.org/ || @zephoria
CITASA mailing list
CITASA@list.citasa.org
http://list.citasa.org/mailman/listinfo/citasa_list.citasa.org
CITASA mailing list
CITASA@list.citasa.org
http://list.citasa.org/mailman/listinfo/citasa_list.citasa.org
My experience has been a bit different. I first encountered the
no-monograph idea in graduate school. The professor explained that she had
chosen only journal readings (in a humanities, feminist department) as a
matter of economic accessibility in a time when public school tuition keeps
climbing.
However, in teaching an undergrad class, I assigned two monographs with
reading responses and students did seem to a fair bit of the reading. (In a
previous class, though, a student complained that I didn't have an
assignment that forced him to do the reading so he wasn't reading. He
wanted me to force him to read. Blew my mind.) Informally, I've heard
students say that they find monographs easier to read that journal articles
because they often tell stories more accessibly.
On Mon, Aug 11, 2014 at 8:32 AM, Nick Lalone nick.lalone@gmail.com wrote:
Before I left my previous position as a technical liason, we were starting
to get into the miles of rhetoric of this question of cost for books /
student purchasing of texts for class. One thing we started to really look
into was the viability of e-text platforms. While this itself is a
troublesome topic given the gap between the level of technological adoption
to the level of technological literacy, it did provide some interesting
ideas.
I was routinely told by multiple e-text distribution company reps was that
for the most part, 40% of students in a class purchase the textbooks
required for that class. I don't know where this stat came from but it made
the products this reps were presenting seem pretty amazing so take it with
the required degree of mistrust. This gap of was blamed for the high cost
of textbooks.
As such, the CMS embedded etext distribution platform was that it could
guarantee 100% of all students get the required text 100% of the time
because it was part of tuition. As such, the cost per text per student
would range anywhere from 3.00 (for a book like "It's Complicated") to
20.00 (for a physiology class).
Take that as you will.
Nick
Nick LaLone
Penn State University
Information Science and Technology
ist.psu.edu
www.nicklalone.com
www.beforegamedesign.com
On Mon, Aug 11, 2014 at 7:37 AM, Michelle Kazmer mkazmer@fsu.edu wrote:
Gina:
Yes, same here. Combine the students' unwillingness to pay for materials
(for what may be very good reasons) with the requirement that we select all
required course materials at the time of enrollment (at our uni that's
mid-March for a course beginning in August), and I too have experienced the
zero-cost pressure. We work with it, but it can be frustrating. Graduate
courses are a bit more tractable, in my experience.
Michelle M. Kazmer, Ph.D.
Professor & Associate Director
School of Information @ Florida State University: Florida's iSchool
Email: mkazmer@fsu.edu
Phone: 850.559.2421 sk/fb/tw/g+: @michellekazmer
http://mkazmer.org
On Aug 11, 2014, at 3:21 AM, Gina Neff gneff@uw.edu wrote:
Replying to the whole list on this one: I’ve noticed quite a bit of
push-back recently on buying monographs. For years, I’ve had an informal
policy of assigning at least one monograph for each of my large
undergraduate courses (and many of you have been the beneficiaries of
this). But a recent experience with an “instructional designer” for an
online course left me a bit sour – she said that students are not buying
even inexpensive monographs for the online courses and balk at paying
Amazon, itunes etc for a copy of a movie. Overall course material costs
have plummeted – students no longer pay for course packs. But still I’m
feeling a weird pressure to keep the monetary cost at zero. Anybody else?
Gina
Dr. Gina Neff
Associate Professor, Department of Communication
University of Washington
Senior Fellow, Institute for Advanced Study
Central European University
Twitter: @ginasue
http://ginaneff.com/
Author, Venture Labor: Work and the Burden of Risk in Innovative
Industries
From: CITASA [mailto:citasa-bounces@list.citasa.org] On Behalf Of
danah boyd
Sent: Monday, August 11, 2014 2:13 AM
To: citasa@list.citasa.org
Subject: [CITASA] are you teaching "It's Complicated"?
Many of you have mentioned in passing that you're teaching my new book
in your fall classes (thank you!!!). If you are, I was wondering if
you'd be willing to send me a copy of your syllabus? One other question:
If you are teaching my book, are you encouraging students to buy it or are
you sending them to the free version? (I'm fine either way but, as you can
imagine, folks are asking me how giving away my book is impacting classroom
adoption and I have zero clue.)
danah
My New Book: "It's Complicated: The Social Lives of Networked Teens"
"taken out of context / i must seem so strange" -- ani
http://www.danah.org/ || @zephoria
CITASA mailing list
CITASA@list.citasa.org
http://list.citasa.org/mailman/listinfo/citasa_list.citasa.org
CITASA mailing list
CITASA@list.citasa.org
http://list.citasa.org/mailman/listinfo/citasa_list.citasa.org
CITASA mailing list
CITASA@list.citasa.org
http://list.citasa.org/mailman/listinfo/citasa_list.citasa.org
--
Lilly Irani
University of California, San Diego
Department of Communication
https://quote.ucsd.edu/lirani/ https://quote.ucsd.edu/lirani/
would hate to miss the reality check that faculty also, increasingly, have less time to hold students accountable to the materials. I could get students to read books when I had time to quiz them or collect weekly summaries on the readings. Much harder to motivate a range of students to read if they aren't held accountable in concrete ways.
best,
mary
Mary L. Gray
Associate Professor
The Media School
Adjunct Faculty, American Studies; Anthropology; Gender Studies
Indiana University, Bloomington
Senior Researcher Microsoft Research
On Aug 11, 2014, at 11:32 AM, Nick Lalone nick.lalone@gmail.com wrote:
Before I left my previous position as a technical liason, we were starting to get into the miles of rhetoric of this question of cost for books / student purchasing of texts for class. One thing we started to really look into was the viability of e-text platforms. While this itself is a troublesome topic given the gap between the level of technological adoption to the level of technological literacy, it did provide some interesting ideas.
I was routinely told by multiple e-text distribution company reps was that for the most part, 40% of students in a class purchase the textbooks required for that class. I don't know where this stat came from but it made the products this reps were presenting seem pretty amazing so take it with the required degree of mistrust. This gap of was blamed for the high cost of textbooks.
As such, the CMS embedded etext distribution platform was that it could guarantee 100% of all students get the required text 100% of the time because it was part of tuition. As such, the cost per text per student would range anywhere from 3.00 (for a book like "It's Complicated") to 20.00 (for a physiology class).
Take that as you will.
Nick
Nick LaLone
Penn State University
Information Science and Technology
ist.psu.edu
www.nicklalone.com
www.beforegamedesign.com
On Mon, Aug 11, 2014 at 7:37 AM, Michelle Kazmer mkazmer@fsu.edu wrote:
Gina:
Yes, same here. Combine the students' unwillingness to pay for materials (for what may be very good reasons) with the requirement that we select all required course materials at the time of enrollment (at our uni that's mid-March for a course beginning in August), and I too have experienced the zero-cost pressure. We work with it, but it can be frustrating. Graduate courses are a bit more tractable, in my experience.
Michelle M. Kazmer, Ph.D.
Professor & Associate Director
School of Information @ Florida State University: Florida's iSchool
Email: mkazmer@fsu.edu
Phone: 850.559.2421 sk/fb/tw/g+: @michellekazmer
http://mkazmer.org
On Aug 11, 2014, at 3:21 AM, Gina Neff gneff@uw.edu wrote:
Replying to the whole list on this one: I’ve noticed quite a bit of push-back recently on buying monographs. For years, I’ve had an informal policy of assigning at least one monograph for each of my large undergraduate courses (and many of you have been the beneficiaries of this). But a recent experience with an “instructional designer” for an online course left me a bit sour – she said that students are not buying even inexpensive monographs for the online courses and balk at paying Amazon, itunes etc for a copy of a movie. Overall course material costs have plummeted – students no longer pay for course packs. But still I’m feeling a weird pressure to keep the monetary cost at zero. Anybody else?
Gina
Dr. Gina Neff
Associate Professor, Department of Communication
University of Washington
Senior Fellow, Institute for Advanced Study
Central European University
Twitter: @ginasue
http://ginaneff.com/
Author, Venture Labor: Work and the Burden of Risk in Innovative Industries
From: CITASA [mailto:citasa-bounces@list.citasa.org] On Behalf Of danah boyd
Sent: Monday, August 11, 2014 2:13 AM
To: citasa@list.citasa.org
Subject: [CITASA] are you teaching "It's Complicated"?
Many of you have mentioned in passing that you're teaching my new book in your fall classes (thank you!!!). If you are, I was wondering if you'd be willing to send me a copy of your syllabus? One other question: If you are teaching my book, are you encouraging students to buy it or are you sending them to the free version? (I'm fine either way but, as you can imagine, folks are asking me how giving away my book is impacting classroom adoption and I have zero clue.)
danah
My New Book: "It's Complicated: The Social Lives of Networked Teens"
"taken out of context / i must seem so strange" -- ani
http://www.danah.org/ || @zephoria
CITASA mailing list
CITASA@list.citasa.org
http://list.citasa.org/mailman/listinfo/citasa_list.citasa.org
CITASA mailing list
CITASA@list.citasa.org
http://list.citasa.org/mailman/listinfo/citasa_list.citasa.org
CITASA mailing list
CITASA@list.citasa.org
http://list.citasa.org/mailman/listinfo/citasa_list.citasa.org
I agree, Mary. I have found that without homework assignments and/or
tests that require reading, whether monographs or journal articles, the
majority of the students are not reading. And the reading that is
done is specifically to respond to a particular assignment or a test
that covers A through C... I am finding that reduced requirements in
courses taken earlier in the program are having an effect on whether
students read or don't read. Every year I reduce the required readings
because I know students view anything more than 30 pages as too much,
and even 30 pages a week seems to be too much. This is all, of course,
a generalization: There are still students who read everything and more
(e.g., recommended readings).
All the best,
Alice
Quoting "Mary L. Gray" mlg@indiana.edu:
would hate to miss the reality check that faculty also, increasingly,
have less time to hold students accountable to the materials. I could
get students to read books when I had time to quiz them or collect
weekly summaries on the readings. Much harder to motivate a range of
students to read if they aren't held accountable in concrete ways.
best,
mary
Mary L. Gray
Associate Professor
The Media School
Adjunct Faculty, American Studies; Anthropology; Gender Studies
Indiana University, Bloomington
Senior Researcher Microsoft Research
On Aug 11, 2014, at 11:32 AM, Nick Lalone nick.lalone@gmail.com wrote:
Before I left my previous position as a technical liason, we were
starting to get into the miles of rhetoric of this question of cost
for books / student purchasing of texts for class. One thing we
started to really look into was the viability of e-text platforms.
While this itself is a troublesome topic given the gap between the
level of technological adoption to the level of technological
literacy, it did provide some interesting ideas.
I was routinely told by multiple e-text distribution company reps
was that for the most part, 40% of students in a class purchase the
textbooks required for that class. I don't know where this stat came
from but it made the products this reps were presenting seem pretty
amazing so take it with the required degree of mistrust. This gap of
was blamed for the high cost of textbooks.
As such, the CMS embedded etext distribution platform was that it
could guarantee 100% of all students get the required text 100% of
the time because it was part of tuition. As such, the cost per text
per student would range anywhere from 3.00 (for a book like "It's
Complicated") to 20.00 (for a physiology class).
Take that as you will.
Nick
Nick LaLone
Penn State University
Information Science and Technology
ist.psu.edu
www.nicklalone.com
www.beforegamedesign.com
On Mon, Aug 11, 2014 at 7:37 AM, Michelle Kazmer mkazmer@fsu.edu wrote:
Gina:
Yes, same here. Combine the students' unwillingness to pay for
materials (for what may be very good reasons) with the requirement
that we select all required course materials at the time of
enrollment (at our uni that's mid-March for a course beginning in
August), and I too have experienced the zero-cost pressure. We work
with it, but it can be frustrating. Graduate courses are a bit more
tractable, in my experience.
Michelle M. Kazmer, Ph.D.
Professor & Associate Director
School of Information @ Florida State University: Florida's iSchool
Email: mkazmer@fsu.edu
Phone: 850.559.2421 sk/fb/tw/g+: @michellekazmer
http://mkazmer.org
On Aug 11, 2014, at 3:21 AM, Gina Neff gneff@uw.edu wrote:
Replying to the whole list on this one: I've noticed quite a bit
of push-back recently on buying monographs. For years, I've had an
informal policy of assigning at least one monograph for each of my
large undergraduate courses (and many of you have been the
beneficiaries of this). But a recent experience with an
"instructional designer" for an online course left me a bit sour -
she said that students are not buying even inexpensive monographs
for the online courses and balk at paying Amazon, itunes etc for a
copy of a movie. Overall course material costs have plummeted -
students no longer pay for course packs. But still I'm feeling a
weird pressure to keep the monetary cost at zero. Anybody else?
Gina
Dr. Gina Neff
Associate Professor, Department of Communication
University of Washington
Senior Fellow, Institute for Advanced Study
Central European University
Twitter: @ginasue
http://ginaneff.com/
Author, Venture Labor: Work and the Burden of Risk in Innovative
Industries
From: CITASA [mailto:citasa-bounces@list.citasa.org] On Behalf Of
danah boyd
Sent: Monday, August 11, 2014 2:13 AM
To: citasa@list.citasa.org
Subject: [CITASA] are you teaching "It's Complicated"?
Many of you have mentioned in passing that you're teaching my new
book in your fall classes (thank you!!!). If you are, I was
wondering if you'd be willing to send me a copy of your syllabus?
One other question: If you are teaching my book, are you encouraging
students to buy it or are you sending them to the free version?
(I'm fine either way but, as you can imagine, folks are asking me
how giving away my book is impacting classroom adoption and I have
zero clue.)
danah
My New Book: "It's Complicated: The Social Lives of Networked Teens"
"taken out of context / i must seem so strange" -- ani
http://www.danah.org/ || @zephoria
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Thanks Gina and danah for starting this stimulating conversation.
In general, I don't assign monographs/books to students (undergrad and grad), but give them a list of articles/chapters from books for 3 reasons:
- An ideological reason - I believe that we (as teachers) should allow students free and open access as possible to materials. It will help to minimize some economic gaps that exist among students.
- A fabric of articles and chapters tailored for the purpose of the course, would suit the different teaching styles and goals that different teachers have.
- Finally, in many cases I find that one monograph/book doesn't cover all the complex facets of phenomena I teach. It is much more easier to get a more comprehensive picture by using articles with different narratives/writers/paradigms, and at the same time, it allows a better basis for academic debates on these topics.
Karine
Karine Nahon/Associate Professor/Information School/University of Washington/Author of Going Viral/eKarine.org
On Aug 11, 2014, at 2:21 AM, Gina Neff wrote:
Replying to the whole list on this one: I’ve noticed quite a bit of push-back recently on buying monographs. For years, I’ve had an informal policy of assigning at least one monograph for each of my large undergraduate courses (and many of you have been the beneficiaries of this). But a recent experience with an “instructional designer” for an online course left me a bit sour – she said that students are not buying even inexpensive monographs for the online courses and balk at paying Amazon, itunes etc for a copy of a movie. Overall course material costs have plummeted – students no longer pay for course packs. But still I’m feeling a weird pressure to keep the monetary cost at zero. Anybody else?
Gina
Dr. Gina Neff
Associate Professor, Department of Communication
University of Washington
Senior Fellow, Institute for Advanced Study
Central European University
Twitter: @ginasue
http://ginaneff.com/
Author, Venture Labor: Work and the Burden of Risk in Innovative Industrieshttp://www.amazon.com/Venture-Labor-Innovative-Industries-Technology/dp/0262017482
From: CITASA [mailto:citasa-bounces@list.citasa.org] On Behalf Of danah boyd
Sent: Monday, August 11, 2014 2:13 AM
To: citasa@list.citasa.orgmailto:citasa@list.citasa.org
Subject: [CITASA] are you teaching "It's Complicated"?
Many of you have mentioned in passing that you're teaching my new book in your fall classes (thank you!!!). If you are, I was wondering if you'd be willing to send me a copy of your syllabus? One other question: If you are teaching my book, are you encouraging students to buy it or are you sending them to the free version? (I'm fine either way but, as you can imagine, folks are asking me how giving away my book is impacting classroom adoption and I have zero clue.)
danah
My New Book: "It's Complicated: The Social Lives of Networked Teens" http://bit.ly/dmbItsComplicated
"taken out of context / i must seem so strange" -- ani
http://www.danah.org/ || @zephoriahttp://www.twitter.com/zephoria
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