Perry Calls for Virtual Textbooks

I agree with my collegue Dave on his intake of “Perry Calls for Virtual Textbooks.” Last semester I took all online classes and promised myself I wouldn’t ever take another online class again. I had a 3.4 GPA prior and the semester I took all online classes I got all C’s so it was lowered quite a bit. The online courses consisted of buying access to course compass (which my math access was 70 dollars) and just because you paid to use the program you had to buy additional access to the E-book which was like 30 bucks. True it might cost nothing to publish an E-book but I think learning and scores would go down. I don’t know about you but I need to have the textbook in front of my because I like to highlight so when I go back I can re-read the important facts. I can’t explain the feeling for me but I feel like I didn’t do so hot in these classes because I didn’t have the book in front of me that I could highlight and go back to and also there’s no book to flip back and forth. Also, reading an E-book is not easy on the eyes, there is only so long I can sit in front of a computer screen before I am cross eyed. I'm sure this is the same in most cases.

I find it really interesting as well that textbooks are revised each year and turned into a new edition then sold for the brand new price which I might add is outrageous most times. I wondered the same thing this semester when I was looking on Craigslist for my books and people were selling the previous edition stating it was “almost identical to the new edition.” I didn’t believe it and even e-mailed all of my teachers to ask and found out yes, they are very similar and I could get by using the earlier edition. One of my teachers said no, so I looked at it just to be sure and it was pretty much the same as the prior edition. The only difference I could see just by grazing over it was that it had a new, different cover. I don't know if this is true or not but my boyfriend told me that professors get some kind of incentive to require and promote the new edition. I never looked into it but that would be one of the only reasons I would buy the current edition if I didn't know any better.