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Where is My Textbook for the Course?

Where's My Textbook for the Course?textbooks.jpg

The powers that be have gotten the message--higher education is getting too expensive, especially for students struggling with parenting and working or both. Many in higher education, including myself, believe that online education can help reduce costs and increase the availability of higher education for different types of students. Nonetheless, online education is in its infancy with no single direction clearly in sight. However, the idea of using open online resources in lieu of textbooks has taken a firm foothold, and that's how I have formatted this class. In other words, you will access online all the resources for the course, including music examples. This saves money--about $175 per student for this course--which is what students were paying for the text and music CDs prior to my switching over to open educational resources (OER).

Now a word about potential downsides to this approach. The quality of online materials differ. Traditional textbooks published by reputable companies go through a rigorous adjudication process to ensure quality and accuracy. This kind of rigor does not get applied to most OER. Yes, I do evaluate all the materials ahead of time before you see them. I have a pretty good handle on all that, but I am not an authority in every aspect of music. Also note, that as a last resort--when I cannot find suitable online articles to cover a particular topic--I resort to Wikipedia, which as you know as its strengths and drawbacks as well.

 

Advertising in Education: Don't Get Me Started            pet rock.jpg

I hate even having to address this topic, but it keeps coming up. Without a traditional text and having to rely on OER, some sites will promote advertising, especially when I link you to You Tube videos, which is the best source for many musical examples. My personal opinion is that in our consumerist society we have way too much advertising that bombards us, plays with our minds, and instructs us to buy, buy, and buy some more. That gets you to buy stuff, which is supposed to increase manufacturing (but the USA does not manufacturer much anymore), and keeps the economy going. So that is the rub of the grain, and it is a big tradeoff. Be patient with the advertising for now. Hopefully, the direction of online education will steer away from this in the future. For now, we have to put up with some of it. I have tried to keep it to a minimum.