1.- Disadvantages of text books.
- 1. The teacher’s professionalism
is limited to their capability to search solutions to the problems on the book.
- 2. Textbooks have
lots of problems.
- 3. Children read
those books as they were a bible, so they think that they should believe all of
what they are reading.
- 4. They suppose a
great economic cost. The editorials have earned 900 million euros, and also it produces
a big waste as paper for the world.
- 5. Textbooks have
a lack of contents.
- 6. They have mistakes
on the pages.
- 7. Textbooks are a
business; editorials decide the content of textbooks influenced on the government
politics, so teacher lose their autonomy.
- 8. Textbooks contain
lots of ideas that we transmit to our students in order to make perfect
students, without having in mind the student´s diversity in the classroom.
2.- Advantages of using new technologies in class.
As we have been able to perceive, Technology is the
future, so since children, teachers must guide their education on it. They need
learning the skills to know how to get on with them. Moreover, nowadays we are
in a globalized world where there are a lot of cultural factors that can affect
on learning, so children need to have a broad range of experiences to they can
know every cultures.
Technology allows us it. Thank for technology, the
access at the culture is free and fast. We can find innumerable information son
you are not reducing your knowledge at all. Moreover, it is more flexible, in
other words, a personalized learning. Given that it can be adapted at level of
each student so these kinds of things assist the inclusion.
The use of technology in the classroom facilitate the
class´ dynamic we can see it when teachers use whiteboard, tablets, audiovisual
tools, apps, etc. when you use it, you have more liberty due to the lack of
some impediments, so your creativity, autonomy, critical thinking and maturity
will be developed faster and before.
For example, if we use the whiteboard to teach maps,
and besides we use an application that it allows moving maps, watching it on 3D,
children will learn maps at the funniest and most interesting way.
Other example, if children learn water cycles by an
app that allows constant interaction between children and the concepts, their
learning will be more effective, direct, lively and productive. Moreover, it
could be a broad range of exercise that children are doing according their
cognitive learning and their acquisition of the contents.
Technology let us, among other things, to incorporate
new elements which can do our learning more productive, funny and interesting. So
it is so necessary that we use it, we must not reduce our opportunity to learn
in a text book.
3.- The broken market.
The wide market of textbook does not operate in a similar manner for all
the consumers. For instance, the students who are selected consumers are not
able to select the product; in addition the faculty or teachers do not buy the
product, therefore they are not able to fix prices with publishers, and that is the main reason why the named
publishers increase the prices dramatically. Therefore this is the main reason
why the prices are overrated.
The Broken Market term appeared in the James Koch analysis, he is an
economist and he was asked from the behalf of the Advisory Committee on Student
Financial Assistance to research in this tendency.
The lack of competition is due to the fact that in the last decades the
amount of companies that were betting on text books have been increasingly
dwindled, so that there are not as much competition as it used to be time ago.
To settle nowadays a textbook company requires a huge investment, and that
fact, due to the actual crisis, keep new candidates out of the competence. As
we can see, lately the cost of school books is a rip off money, and added to
the fact that there are big unemployment rates, so less income entering into
the houses, the effort made by parents is as terrific, as well as sad. Not only
because they have to renounce to creating a good life quality for the whole
family, in order to provide their children with cultural capital which is the
best investment we as parents can do, but also the sad part of it, is because
investing more money that they did before buying textbooks, they have at the
same time to take off some of the extra activities of their children, such as
particular classes of English, as well as music, artistic, sports among others.
But parents know that the pursue to success for their kids depends mainly on
these textbooks, so as sadly as it might seem, in a democratic country they are
obliged to buy them and make these handful of companies richer.
As students grow and are getting aware of the problem they come out with
new strategies such as purchasing their assigned materials in spite of the fact
of the concern that their grades will provide them, so in a survey made among
teenagers students 65% of them prefer to copy the books because they said that
books were far too expensive. They also know that not buying them can help them
to pass the grade, but they
did though.
And 82% said that they will master the grades as long as they are
provided with new strategies such as if the textbooks were available free
online, and buy a hard copy were up to the students. This fact with avoid that
textbook companies were as prompt as they are now to raise their percentage in
their social capital with such as exorbitant prices as they make now.
Even though there are a lot of steps carried out to avoid the high costs
in the marketplace and the exclusiveness of textbooks, high textbook prices
will still continued to harm students economy unless the new editions of school
and college textbooks dwindle.
http://www.uspirg.org/reports/usp/fixing-broken-textbook-market
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Textbook
http://www.uspirg.org/reports/usp/fixing-broken-textbook-market
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Textbook
4.- New editions and the used book market.
Many students often buy books used for a especial reason, which are
much cheaper than a new book, selling used books has become commonplace among
students especially in these times of crisis, a used book has the same use a
new book costs less money and contributes to the recycling of paper. Most times
publishers take to market new editions of the same book but without the aim of
improving it, for economic reasons, that
is, often the new edition of a book is 80 % the same as the previous edition
only 3 years ago, in this fact is to increase or maintain high prices have the
books. In this way a business is created with a very important resource for
students as they need to use books and publishers often create agreements with
the government to sell their books. On the other hand there are electronic
books that today are common, but they also have their disadvantages , yes they
are cheaper than physical books , but once completed they can not use or can
not be sold. Therefore the used book sale and reuse of books is an outlet for
many students who need money (and sell books that wont use more) or theuy do
not have much money to buy books and materials (buying used books or that is
the same second hand books). Textbooks must be produced and priced to be as
cheap as possible without sacrificing educational value.New editions of
textbooks should occur only when educationally necessary .Editors should
provide more information on the price of each book, the expected duration of
stay in the market and the differences in the substance of issues
anteriores.los studiangtes should have easy access to all products lnformation
Publisher , inexpensive formats , etc .All books should be available at a real
low cost edition that has a similar content in a format low cost . Information
on these options should be easily acceso.Los governments, schools and
universities should give preference to the lower cost options when choosing
their books. There must be many ways for students to access books used,
including rental programs , and bookswaps online bookstore buyback .
http://www.studentpirgs.org/reports/exposing-textbook-industry
http://www.uspirg.org/reports/usp/fixing-broken-textbook-market
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Textbook - New editions and the used book market
5.- Price disclosure.
If there is a solution why we let the publisher do whatever they do? We have Founf on http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Textbook something interesting about price diclosure, I didn't know before about this kind of regulations but I didn't know neither that publishers don't care about rules. Have a look below and get your own opinnion.
The problem of
high textbook prices is linked to the economics of the
market, requiring publishers to disclose textbook prices to faculty is a
solution pursued by a number of legislatures.By inserting price into sales
interactions, this regulation will supposedly make the economic forces operate
more normally.
No data suggests that this
is in fact true. However, The Student PIRGs have found that publishers actively
withhold pricing information from faculty, making it difficult to obtain. Their
most recent study found that 77% of faculty say publisher sales representatives
do not volunteer prices, and only 40% got an answer when they directly asked.
Furthermore, the study found that 23% of faculty rated publisher websites as
“informative and easy to use” and less than half said they typically listed the
price.
Another nice web to contrast the information abobe about price disclosure is
http://www.studentpirgs.org/resources/textbook-price-disclosure-law Where you can find few more interesting things.
"Price disclosure. Publishers are required to disclose prices and revision information when marketing textbooks to professors. This law helps counteract the "broken market" at the root of high textbook prices by providing all of the information professors need to identify and consider lower cost options."
6.- “The future of the books”.
I have found a pdf where Jordi Adell and Lolanda
Bernabé explained the future of text books, here I give you a summarize about
this document and the link.
The text book is a potent regulator in the work of a
teacher and a big business for publishers that have influence in the educative
politics of the governments. The innovation, the change and the improvement quality,
suggest find theoretical and practical alternatives in the development of the
curriculum. Nowadays the technological problem is social economic and legal.
The new technologies are questioning the manner who text books are produced,
distributed, market and used actually. A change in the material of the books
could end with the model of the actual business.
Computers and internet, each day are more frequently
at schools and houses “computerize the education”. Persons who follow the
technology said that in each desk must have a computer and each house the same.
Replace totally with internet text books.
And technology has a role very important for teacher:
incorporates means of audio, video, develops projects…
To sum up, new technologies are our future and it will
be used in our futures classrooms.
This is a video where shows a high school without text
books. It is very interesting.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UB2RXPqFgdI
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