Seth Godin on textbooks

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Seth on why the textbook industry deserves to die {from edu.blogs.com}.

Seth Godin (author of Tribes, among others…) writes an interesting argument favoring the disappearance of textbooks. Yes, textbooks, as those used in classes, he says, by lazy professors! Read this:

The solution seems simple to me. Professors should be spending their time devising pages or chapterettes or even entire chapters on topics that matter to them, then publishing them for free online. (it’s part of their job, remember?)  When you have a class to teach, assemble 100 of the best pieces, put them in a pdf or on a kindle or a website (or even in a looseleaf notebook) and there, you’re done. You just saved your intro marketing class about $15,000. Every semester. Any professor of intro marketing who is assigning a basic old-school textbook is guilty of theft or laziness.

This industry deserves to die. It has extracted too much time and too much money and wasted too much potential. We can do better. A lot better.

Well, what do you think?

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About Antonio Vantaggiato

Professor, web2.0 enthusiast, and didactic chef.
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