'tention 'fessers...

[tubaguy9]

1/ College and university computer labs are readily available for your use and have all programs installed that you will need to complete your assignment. Many are open (and staffed) for 24 hours a day, seven days a week. Of course, you are welcome to purchase any materials that you feel the need to, but these resources are included in your (exorbitantly high) tuition. Please take advantage of them. Alternatively, download any freeware that you think would be helpful to your studies. No, we probably do not use it on computers in our offices because we are often limited to installing software given to us by the campus computer cops.

Uh, nope. Try again. Sure, maybe some colleges are open, MAYBE staffed 24/7, but at the college I was at, you could not get into the computer lab on weekends, or in the evening. My girlfriend's college had only one on her entire campus that was open 24 hours a day, and it was unstaffed, just had a student sitting at a desk.

2/ Lots of you like pretty pictures and prefer that faculty give you or post online the notes you should have taken in class. As a result, many faculty have chosen to use a program called PowerPoint to convey graphical and textual material to you that you should have received in class. While PowerPoint may seem obtrusive to many, the program is installed on most (if not all) of the computers on campus referenced in point 1 immediately above. PowerPoint slide shows can easily be converted into a .pdf document using the program itself or any other number of "freeware" programs. Converting a .ppt slideshow to .pdf will allow you to view the slideshow without having to install PowerPoint. Ask the computer lab staffers how to do this. These resources are included in your (exorbitantly high) tuition.

But it is up to the professor to decide if they want to cave in to these requests. Some professors can use Powerpoint well, some can't. Not all of us are lazy.

3/ Textbooks are expensive. Most of us would rather not force you to buy the $125 20lb tome, but according to the curriculum developers, we are required to use this in our class. Also, sorry about the whole pay-per-semester website thing. Apparently, the new generation of students ("the millenials") demands instant access, instant feedback, lots of colorful pictures, and instant gratification. The only way we can provide these instant resources for you is to require you to use the website of the publisher.

But, shouldn't it also be required that you are familiar with the website as well, so that you are able to tell whether it will actually help or do any good to the students?

4/ If you can find a better price for the textbooks we require you to use, by all means buy the textbook at the lower price. Just tell us during the first week of class that your textbook (which you purchased for less than half of what the university bookstore is selling it for) hasn't arrived yet. We'll be more than happy to let you photocopy (at the cost of your time and expense, and only when it is convenient for us) the necessary pages out of our book until yours arrives. This does not, however, mean that you can just "borrow" our copy indefinitely.

I've had a professor that wouldn't do the copy thing, and was getting impatient about waiting for the book to arrive while she knew that I had it on order. Additionally, this professor had done good ol' bloke's #4.

5/ Publishers can really suck some times. Please don't blame us when the publishers of a text book come out with a new version. We really can't do anything about it.

But you as the professor should be familiar enough with the book to know what the changes are, if there are any significant changes in the book. We shouldn't have to buy a new book JUST BECAUSE THE PAGE NUMBERS CHANGED, addition of these "pretty pictures" you claim that we like, or just because the pictures did change.

I graduated in '09 from college and my girlfriend is currently in college. Neither of us really care about these "pretty pictures" you claim we do. And I've gotten highly frustrated with the change of books that the class does just for the heck of it. The books that I had to buy in college, I haven't even touched since college, save for my woodwind repair manual, but I actually find that book useful. Every other book I had to use in college would barely be useful to line a bird cage. When I went to sell my useless books back to the bookstore worth $$$ each new, they would only buy one back and only gave me $ for it.
so uh...many things, in my experiences, that SRanney said aren't necessarily true.
tubaguy "who just finished koledge and has a girlfriend in kolej" 9

[SRanney]

Uh, nope. Try again. Sure, maybe some colleges are open, MAYBE staffed 24/7, but at the college I was at, you could not get into the computer lab on weekends, or in the evening. My girlfriend's college had only one on her entire campus that was open 24 hours a day, and it was unstaffed, just had a student sitting at a desk.

"Many" is not defined as all but generally means "some number less than the whole". Bummer that your college didn't have 24/7 computer labs, but by your own admission, you and your girlfriend still had the resources available to you.

But it is up to the professor to decide if they want to cave in to these requests. Some professors can use Powerpoint well, some can't. Not all of us are lazy.

You inferred laziness from my post. The vast majority of the students in the millenial generation have an expectation that things should be handed to them with little effort on their part. It's not laziness; it's an expectation. You're right in that many faculty members are inept when it comes to presenting information effectively in PowerPoint. Many use it quite well. Rather than complaining about using PowerPoint, ask the professor if they'd convert it to .pdf before they post it online.

But, shouldn't it also be required that you are familiar with the website as well, so that you are able to tell whether it will actually help or do any good to the students?

You must not be familiar with the concept of curriculum. Many classes are the basis for future courses. As a result, faculty must be able to make it through the required curriculum. Trying to get students to actually LEARN the required material would take much more time than is available in a given semester. Thus, faculty resort to using the "gimmicks" that most current students demand.

I've had a professor that wouldn't do the copy thing, and was getting impatient about waiting for the book to arrive while she knew that I had it on order. Additionally, this professor had done good ol' bloke's #4.

Bummer. That sure does suck. Not ever professor is as sneaky as bloke (and you, apparently) thinks.

But you as the professor should be familiar enough with the book to know what the changes are, if there are any significant changes in the book. We shouldn't have to buy a new book JUST BECAUSE THE PAGE NUMBERS CHANGED, addition of these "pretty pictures" you claim that we like, or just because the pictures did change.

So professors should be familiar with every change in each new addition of a given textbook? Wow. The content in an introductory biology or general chemistry course won't change, but to ask every faculty member to know the changes in textbooks from edition to edition is pretty ridiculous. Even faculty members get upset when editions change. Just when they get to know the book, the publisher changes it. Page numbers and end-of-chapter homework problems change. That's about it. You don't have to buy a new book; you can use the old one and recognize that it may take you longer to find the "correct" page number or you can rent a book from a number of different companies.

Neither of us really care about these "pretty pictures" you claim we do. And I've gotten highly frustrated with the change of books that the class does just for the heck of it.

Congratulations. You're not representative of the millenial generation. Edition changes are not just for the heck of it. Publishers generally buy the books back that they don't want to sell in order to force universities--not professors--to use their new editions.

The books that I had to buy in college, I haven't even touched since college, save for my woodwind repair manual, but I actually find that book useful. Every other book I had to use in college would barely be useful to line a bird cage.

I still use lots of my textbooks from my MS degree and even a few from my undergraduate degree. Granted, I was taking biology, chemistry, and statistics courses so I use these textbooks mainly as references on an (almost) daily basis.

When I went to sell my useless books back to the bookstore worth $$$ each new, they would only buy one back and only gave me $ for it.

Welcome to capitalism. Buy low, sell high.

so uh...many things, in my experiences, that SRanney said aren't necessarily true.

You and I obviously have different experiences. Hence, they were true for me but not for you.


duty_calls by steven.ranney, on Flickr

tubaguy "who just finished koledge and has a girlfriend in kolej" 9

Congratulations!

[Donn]

Like it or not, many schools have standardized on Word if not the Office suite.

That doesn't compel an instructor to distribute materials in a Microsoft proprietary format, it only provides a (poor) excuse for doing so.

[Biggs]

Don't like college? Don't go.

The systems at work in higher academia are far from perfect, but instead of complaining about them, I got by, using them to my advantage when I could. I speak only for myself and from my experience.

[tubaguy9]

Uh, nope. Try again. Sure, maybe some colleges are open, MAYBE staffed 24/7, but at the college I was at, you could not get into the computer lab on weekends, or in the evening. My girlfriend's college had only one on her entire campus that was open 24 hours a day, and it was unstaffed, just had a student sitting at a desk.

"Many" is not defined as all but generally means "some number less than the whole". Bummer that your college didn't have 24/7 computer labs, but by your own admission, you and your girlfriend still had the resources available to you.

But it is up to the professor to decide if they want to cave in to these requests. Some professors can use Powerpoint well, some can't. Not all of us are lazy.

You inferred laziness from my post. The vast majority of the students in the millenial generation have an expectation that things should be handed to them with little effort on their part. It's not laziness; it's an expectation. You're right in that many faculty members are inept when it comes to presenting information effectively in PowerPoint. Many use it quite well. Rather than complaining about using PowerPoint, ask the professor if they'd convert it to .pdf before they post it online.

But, shouldn't it also be required that you are familiar with the website as well, so that you are able to tell whether it will actually help or do any good to the students?

You must not be familiar with the concept of curriculum. Many classes are the basis for future courses. As a result, faculty must be able to make it through the required curriculum. Trying to get students to actually LEARN the required material would take much more time than is available in a given semester. Thus, faculty resort to using the "gimmicks" that most current students demand.

Yeah, some classes are "guinea pig" classes, and some are not, but what I was thinking, is that maybe the teacher should know the site well enough to be able to know what it would cover and what it doesn't...one of my classes required a webcode thing we didn't even use that basically made me buy the book from the bookstore for $$$ rather than $$ online...

I've had a professor that wouldn't do the copy thing, and was getting impatient about waiting for the book to arrive while she knew that I had it on order. Additionally, this professor had done good ol' bloke's #4.

Bummer. That sure does suck. Not ever professor is as sneaky as bloke (and you, apparently) thinks.

I will have to admit, I did HATE that professor, and for reasons other than that, feel free to PM me if you'd like to discuss it more...

But you as the professor should be familiar enough with the book to know what the changes are, if there are any significant changes in the book. We shouldn't have to buy a new book JUST BECAUSE THE PAGE NUMBERS CHANGED, addition of these "pretty pictures" you claim that we like, or just because the pictures did change.

So professors should be familiar with every change in each new addition of a given textbook? Wow. The content in an introductory biology or general chemistry course won't change, but to ask every faculty member to know the changes in textbooks from edition to edition is pretty ridiculous. Even faculty members get upset when editions change. Just when they get to know the book, the publisher changes it. Page numbers and end-of-chapter homework problems change. That's about it. You don't have to buy a new book; you can use the old one and recognize that it may take you longer to find the "correct" page number or you can rent a book from a number of different companies.

Hey, sorry, a bit of a bad on my part, what I was meaning is that they should be familiar with any major changes...and thinking over things this morning, I wish that the publishers would actually tell you what they changed in the "new" edition...that way, you as a professor could end up making a better decision of whether to change the book or not

Neither of us really care about these "pretty pictures" you claim we do. And I've gotten highly frustrated with the change of books that the class does just for the heck of it.

Congratulations. You're not representative of the millenial generation. Edition changes are not just for the heck of it. Publishers generally buy the books back that they don't want to sell in order to force universities--not professors--to use their new editions.

The books that I had to buy in college, I haven't even touched since college, save for my woodwind repair manual, but I actually find that book useful. Every other book I had to use in college would barely be useful to line a bird cage.

I still use lots of my textbooks from my MS degree and even a few from my undergraduate degree. Granted, I was taking biology, chemistry, and statistics courses so I use these textbooks mainly as references on an (almost) daily basis.

yeah...too many of my classes were basically high school level due to being at a technical community college...and I knew the material well enough to be only a single point away from testing out...

When I went to sell my useless books back to the bookstore worth $$$ each new, they would only buy one back and only gave me $ for it.

Welcome to capitalism. Buy low, sell high.

so uh...many things, in my experiences, that SRanney said aren't necessarily true.

You and I obviously have different experiences. Hence, they were true for me but not for you.


duty_calls by steven.ranney, on Flickr

and, I will have to admit, I haven't been able to see it from both sides as you likely have.

[MartyNeilan]

But it is up to the professor to decide if they want to cave in to these requests. Some professors can use Powerpoint well, some can't. Not all of us are lazy.

You inferred laziness from my post. The vast majority of the students in the millenial generation have an expectation that things should be handed to them with little effort on their part. It's not laziness; it's an expectation. You're right in that many faculty members are inept when it comes to presenting information effectively in PowerPoint. Many use it quite well. Rather than complaining about using PowerPoint, ask the professor if they'd convert it to .pdf before they post it online.

Again, just download a free (Phree, for the new gen) PowerPoint viewer.

[bort]

Don't like college? Don't go.

The systems at work in higher academia are far from perfect, but instead of complaining about them, I got by, using them to my advantage when I could. I speak only for myself and from my experience.

Ditto. It all seems like a big deal now, but I've long since recovered my costs from buying books and software. If you don't get to make the rules, all you can do is follow them or remove yourself from the situation.

[Micah Everett]

Hey, sorry, a bit of a bad on my part, what I was meaning is that they should be familiar with any major changes...and thinking over things this morning, I wish that the publishers would actually tell you what they changed in the "new" edition...that way, you as a professor could end up making a better decision of whether to change the book or not

One thing that I think is still being missed in this discussion is that professors aren't always given the choice to not change the assigned text to the new edition. Whether I like it or not, I have to make textbook assignments through the university bookstore. One time I tried to keep the older (and better) edition of a text and I was forced to change to the new edition. While I could care less if students buy books from the university bookstore or anywhere else, I still have to use their system to assign textbooks, and that system demands moving to new editions every time one is issued.

At least I still get away with making literature assignments for applied lessons outside of the "system." Man, they'd never figure that one out....

[TMurphy]

Back when I was in college, I remember buying the latest and greatest Norton Anthology of Western Music for a music history class, only to have the Professor, on the first day of class, tell us to return it (which I was able to do for a full refund) because we won't be using it...apparently, the book store neglected to not that different sections of the class required different texts. Instead, he gave us a pair of handbooks he had put together, for $10 each (which, I imagine, only just covered the costs of making the very thick handbooks). He also distributed 16 different CDs worth of listening examples throughout the semester, for free. I only wish more professors had taken that approach.

[Captain Sousie]

Maybe it's just my copy of OpenOffice but I can open all forms of Microsoft files from Word or Powerpoint. OpenOffice can even save in the school district required formats using a handy little thing called "save as". So, while I do not like that my district requires these formats, I can still fulfill my duties using a free program and not have to worry about buying anything. As for college, my last prof for my grad work still doesn't know my "word documents" were created on something other than word.

Sou

[Todd S. Malicoate]

I just received a request from the department head for the author, title, and number of copies to order regarding a textbook for my spring semester jazz improvisation class. I returned it with "No book needed, thanks" in a rather large font.

[Michael Bush]

Went to the dark side (administration) 2 1/2 years ago. Still teach two or three classes a year, though.

I don't care what program students use to write their work. Notepad is fine. TextEdit is fine. OpenOffice is fine. Whatever. But if they don't want a zero, they have to turn in something Word can open. They can even turn it in handwritten, if they don't care whether they can read my comments or not. And it has to conform to the institution's formatting requirements (which I did not create or make the law of the land, by the way.)

Basically that means they can't use WordPerfect unless they know how to save the file as RTF. (Not hard.) Other than that, I don't give a flip about any of those other issues. They can do whatever they want.

(Professors really are not as powerful as you think. My guess is your beef is really with the Provost, the Dean, or the IT department. We also don't set the days and times of our classes, just in case you've ever heard someone bellyache about that issue.)