Electronic textbooks. We have adopted these new textbooks for our language courses which come with an e-book, an e-workbook, an online testing system, an online homework assigning system, and a myriad more digital gimmicks. And I hate them all with a fiery passion. I also resent all of the obnoxious attempts to make me use these things.
I have developed my own system of teaching the language and have developed a huge number of original activities to go with it. I work on these activities all the time, changing, improving, adding, modifying, etc. I also record grades in a paper gradebook and ask for handwritten homework because that’s the only way to obviate Google Translate.
I know I sound like a Luddite but, believe me, I love technology. I always work surrounded by my two laptops that are always on at the same time, my tablet, my iPod, and my cell phone. (I don’t buy all this stuff, of course. I get it for free.) Still, I don’t see the need to make technology part of teaching. At my school, we have all these workshops on how to use apps, tablets, clickers, and God knows what else in teaching but I avoid them like the plague. If you are a lousy teacher, no amount of gimmicks will change that. And if you are good, then you don’t need to bring anything but yourself to the classroom.
Clarissa's Blog 
Wanted to share 2 interesting new links:
http://scholar-vit.livejournal.com/342250.html
I too wonder about the last question he asks. May be, as somebody from elite university, you know the answer.
Google has won a resounding victory in its eight-year copyright battle with the Authors Guild over the search giant’s controversial decision to scan more than 20 million books from libraries and make them available on the internet.
http://gigaom.com/2013/11/14/google-wins-book-scanning-case-judge-finds-fair-use-cites-many-benefits/
That’s wonderful for most people, isn’t it?
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For a lawyer, the most important thing is to know people, have connections. This is what people who go to the Ivies can contribute to a law firm. Other than that, I have seen no differences between students anywhere. There are cultural differences with students from different countries but in terms of universities, they are all the same. I don’t mean this in a bad way, just that this is a certain generation of young people and they have a lot in common. My current students are very limited by their lack of traveling and knowledge of the world. But my Yale and Cornell students were just as limited by their affluent backgrounds.
As for the quality of education, I said many times that the education that I received at Yale was abysmally poor to what I got at McGill, which is a less prestigious school.
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For not Russian speakers, the 1st link talks about:
Starting Salaries for Attorneys Are Pretty Weird
http://www.motherjones.com/kevin-drum/2013/11/starting-salaries-attorneys-are-pretty-weird
Guess, that’s what attoneys, who go to elite universities, really pay for.
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I…ask for handwritten homework because that’s the only way to obviate Google Translate
That’s placing a bet that a student who would use Google Translate would not just type it all into Google Translate, and then hand-write the Google translation to be submitted as part of the homework.
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Of course, that is what is going to happen in many cases. But writing something out by hand still is a much more active process than copy-pasting. This, at least, gives them an opportunity to retain something from what they are copying.
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Thank you thank you thank you. And you probably know that our students know better and don’t believe in that technology crap.
My department requires the use of a e-activity book. So:
Me to a student: So… did you complete the e-assignments?
Student: No. I have to be honest with you: I hate these online assignments.
Me: Me too. Don’t do them.
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Yes, I am yet to see anything useful to come out of these e-assignments. Today, for example, I created this activity based on Cortazar for my intermediate 1 class. It addresses the specific lacunae in knowledge of this specific group. I’m not using it for my other section of this course because those students need something completely different.
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Next semester I will refuse to use that e-book version for a class. My tenure is on the line, but I just can’t assign these activities anymore.
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I know what you mean. I’m pretending I use all this crap but in reality I never do. I just say yes to everything and keep doing my own thing. The students love my teaching and this is my best argument in defense of my system.
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“I just say yes to everything and keep doing my own thing”
That is just _so_ eastern european (and it’s what I’ve learned to do too!)
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It is a very productive strategy. 🙂
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Now imagine that the author of the e-book that you use is your colleague, and that said colleague is on your tenure committee.
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Oh God, if that’s your situation then you don’t have a choice but to exuberantly love the e-book.
The chair of my tenure committee is a professor of statistics says that he is unlikely to look kindly on tenure dossiers that don’t have graphs and charts. “I can’t see how good your student evals are unless you give them to me in a graph,” he says.
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Statistics prof? Do not put the quote that you posted a couple of weeks ago in your tenure dossier.
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Are the e-books just kindle versions of print textbooks? If so, I am not understanding the problem. My pet peeve is that students do not keep their textbooks as part of their permanent personal library. I know that I cannot teach everything in the textbook so I choose textbooks which students will find to be useful references later on.
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No, they are this huge system that they are supposed to use for everything. Homework, lab, communication with the professor, grading, everything. I’m not even sure about everything it does because I’m avoiding it.
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this lust for technological aids can just be part of a healthy experimental attitude. but doesn’t it often seem like it stems from desperation? as if the thought is, well things are not working, there must be a way to make them learn more, or better, or something… what if an ipad will do it?? what if they will like watching youtube videos at home??!
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I agree completely! It does feel quite desperate when people go for all this gimmicky stuff.
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I’m pro-tech, but only for what I want to use it for. That should be the criterion for its use.
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I understand the convenience of e-books but there are things I can do with a paper book that no technology can replicate. You know the vague feeling when you’re looking for something in a book but don’t know where to find it? In fact, sometimes you don’t even know if it’s in the book or not. Not talking about exact words or phrases (which are searchable), but concepts. Experienced readers, I think, just have this instinct where they can quickly flip through hundred pages and zone in on what they’re looking for.
I wouldn’t even call it ‘flipping’ pages. More like how you riffle a deck of cards. The whole process takes 20-30 seconds, if that. An e-reader makes it impossible for me to have this experience. I have to plod through the book sequentially, it takes longer, and I don’t get that magical ‘aha’ feeling when I finally find what I’m looking for (or confirmation that it’s not there).
Am I alone in this?
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Totally with you, Stringer Bell.
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” An e-reader makes it impossible for me to have this experience. I have to plod through the book sequentially, it takes longer, and I don’t get that magical ‘aha’ feeling when I finally find what I’m looking for (or confirmation that it’s not there).”
– This is precisely why I always buy paper copies of books I discuss in my articles. Even if I first read the book in the e-format, I need the physical copy of the book or I will not be able to work with it. The physicality you describe is crucial for my thought process.
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You are absolutely not alone, Stringer Bell. Furthermore, you are absolutely correct.
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