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Assign whatever book you actually teach.
Did Apple make the exact same mistake that I worried about yesterday morning? It’s hard for me to tell as I didn’t get enough time online yesterday to figure out precisely what it was that they...
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Textbooks as instruments of oppression.
My first job was at Whitman College in Walla Walla, Washington. I went from a graduate program that was dominated by graduate students in American History (Go Badgers!) to a college where American...
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Jonathan Franzen is right about e-books (but for the wrong reason).
Unless you’re the only book lover in the world who lives under a rock, you know that earlier this week the novelist Jonathan Franzen denounced e-books as “damaging for society.” I haven’t seen the...
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Blowing up the history textbook and putting it back together again.
I hate history textbooks. They’re too long. They’re usually about as bland as possible because they’re written by committee. They give the illusion that they cover everything worth knowing, then leave...
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An open letter to the college textbook publishing industry.
Dear Textbook Publishers: I’m not surprised to read (via Neil Schlager) that students are increasingly uninterested in paying the high prices that you charge for your products. According to the Book...
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“Will you still need me, will you still feed me…?”
As a matter of fact, I do take requests. This one‘s for you, Phil: The Hewlett Foundation is sponsoring a competition: the goal is for somebody on the Kaggle platform to get as close as possible to...
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Why do administrators want to cut some college costs and not others?
Through some remarkable administrative foresight by our (sadly) ex-interim Provost, my department is filling two tenure-track positions this year. No, this is not the academic equivalent of turning...
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A wond’rous new machine.
“[F]or the purposes of helping somebody learn a complex concept or personalizing the learning experience – a book is a terrible device. It is, by definition, one-size-fits-all. It can’t be updated, it...
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Radio Ga Ga.
So yesterday morning, I was just sitting around enjoying the vacation part of my vacation, avoiding the weeds out back by reading a biography of Margaret Sanger. When I reflexively checked e-mail on...
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And so the world history MOOC madness begins…
While the class itself doesn’t start for a week or so yet, I just got my introductory e-mail for the Coursera world history course I’m taking. Therefore, I thought I’d begin down a path that’s already...
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