- Textbook prices are an injustice
- Philosophy teachers have a professional duty to create and use free online textbooks
- This duty is best fulfilled using what I call the Open Office model
At the conference, a lot of people were talking up concept mapping software, xmind in particular. So the night before the talk I decided to give xmind a whirl by making a concept map for my talk. this is what I came up with. I think I made the whole thing too big. It is hard to figure out what the print area of these diagrams are.
This is the handout, which lists free textbooks and course materials databases along with little descriptions and recommendations.
2 comments:
What a coincidence. I'm teaching a 270-student intro course this fall without requiring a textbook. Instead there is a recommended textbook and they will have lecture notes and outlines from me. Required reading is free or low cost (2 trade paperbacks). I have no idea if it will work or not. I've had one mid-career professor tell me he's done the same... and one nearly retired professor tell me she thinks it's a horrible idea bound to fail.
I never hewed very close to the textbook anyway and based exams on lecture notes, so I thought this alternate format was worth trying.
The concept also reminds me of the calculus and lab "manuals" we had at SJC.
I think the free textbook has to be more than bound lecture notes. The textbooks I am working with are genuine textbooks, with exercises and chapter reviews and sidebars and all the stuff that helps ease novice students into the material.
Of course it I am just teaching philosophy at the intro level. Things might be different in history and certainly are different in higher level courses.
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