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E-textbooks Offer The Next Wave Of Academic Technology

Guest Author: Heather Hefner, Largemouth Communications, Inc

If you’ve never used an e-textbook, you may not be aware of what it can do. You may even be under the impression that an e-textbook is nothing more than a massive PDF file. Not quite. You may also think that e-books require a special reader in order to be viewed. Not really. In fact, the e-book platform of choice among academic publishers, VitalSource Bookshelf is PC and Mac compatible. It is also free and full of functionalities designed to enhance the learning process. E-textbooks loaded on Bookshelf allow you to:

Highlight your digital copy with multiple colors of virtual markers for color coding.

Take digital notes.

Share notes and highlights with classmates by building a network of friends in your class who are also reading a copy of the e-textbook. This is done directly on the e-textbook’s page, thanks to the platform’s social networking technology.

Rank your classmates’ notes for easy access to the most useful annotations (make sure you befriend the guy at the top of your Philosophy class…).

Create folders directly on Bookshelf where you can place not only books but also materials from the Web or other applications such as Word or PowerPoint. You can add a link to the folder by simply dragging the hyperlink to the folder, and you can drag files from your computer to folders also.

Access e-textbooks, notes, folders content, etc. online or offline.

Copy-paste text and have the bibliographical information automatically generated.

Perhaps most relevant to final exam season is these e-books’ search capabilities. They allow you to search for a concept, name, topic etc. within your notes, a specific classmate’s notes, a book, even your entire digital library.

Here’s a demo from VitalSource, the technology company that developed Bookshelf, that can help bring to life what I’ve just described:

http://downloads.vitalbook.com/images/flash_demo/

One of the reasons why this platform is so powerful is it was originally developed as a research project focused specifically on textbooks. It was meant for students and was refined to take into consideration feedback from students and professors who adopted the technology early on. Today, approximately one out of three dental schools in the US are using VitalSource e-textbooks. Some colleges have migrated the entire curriculum to the platform and gone 100 percent digital. Such is the case of NYU’s College of Dentistry.

As you may already have noticed at campus bookstores, more publishers are making textbooks available in electronic format. When Fall comes around you will likely seen dozens more titles for sale in e-book format – McGraw-Hill, Pearson Education and other top publishers are investing heavily in this space. What’s more, these editions will likely be offered at a discounted price, making them an attractive alternative to new and even used textbooks. E-textbooks can be purchased online, at campus bookstores and other retailers nationwide.

Why Midterms Are Just What You Needed Halfway Through Your Semester

Just when you started getting comfortable in your semester and feeling like you had all the time in the world...midterms strike.

For many students this word causes rolling eyes, panic attacks, and an overall kink in an otherwise profitable social calendar. Midterms are like mini-finals. It's the halfway point in the semester and many professors are wanting to take the pulse of the class by finding how much they know up to this point.

But midterms don't have to be ALL bad. In fact, you can use this time to your advantage or at least view it from a positive perspective.

1. Save all of your notes, quizzes and previous tests.
One of the best ways to study for a midterm is to go back through every test you've taken up to this point. If it was important enough to put on the first test, it will probably show up somewhere on the comprehensive midterm exam.

2. Use midterms as a wake up call.
If you've been enjoying your semester a little too much - not letting academics get in the way of your education, then it's probably time for a kick in the pants. Midterms are like an alarm that goes off and reminds you that you are in college to learn and helps you see how well you're actually doing that.

3.Your midterm becomes a great study tool for your final.
It is a great summary of everything the professor thought was important from the first half of the semester. Plus it gives you some excellent insight into how the professor composes comprehensive exams.

4. Midterms show you where you're completely missing it.
You may have developed some blind spots and the midterm exam will reveal those. Yes, it may cost you a low grade to discover this, but it's better to find out in the middle of the semester than on the last day during the final. If you do blow it on the midterm, you still have a few weeks to get the help and assistance you need to bring your grade up.

5. A good midterm grade may cushion the blow of a bad final grade.
Most times, these comprehensive exams are worth more than other exams. If you do really well on your midterm, it will buffer some of the effects from a bad grade on something else. So put everything you can into being successful on your midterms and it can help you later on in the semester.

6. Some organizations use midterm grades as qualifications for involvement.
I know at our institution, we do a midterm grade check on all of our student leaders. This helps us to see if there are any red flags. If a student is below our minimum GPA required for involvement, that student will be placed on probation. If those grades don't improve by the end of the semester, the student leader may lose the opportunity to serve in that position.

7. Get organized.
If you completely missed it on your midterm exams, it may be time to look at your organization skills. You were given the dates of this exam back at the beginning of the semester on your syllabus. There's no reason to be surprised here. If you chose to try and study for a half-semester, comprehensive exam the night before it was offered...you just set yourself up for failure. If you try the same strategy when it comes to the final exam - you'll probably get the same results.

How are you getting ready for midterms? What strategies or insights can you share with others that can turn this tense time into a productive time?

Seeing Professors Clearly

By Guest Author: Michael Leddy

As a college freshman in 1975, I took up the now-vanished practice of turning in postcards with final exams so that my professors could send me my course grades before university grade-reports were tabulated and mailed. One postcard came back with a semester grade (A) and the words "With a little help from my inability to do higher mathematics!"

That postcard confirmed my sense that my professor was a nasty, sarcastic man. He was after all the same professor who had criticized my writing all semester, pointing out my dangling participles, my pointless rhetorical questions, and my constant use of the word this to begin sentences. And now he was intent on somehow souring my A for the semester!

But I couldn't have been more wrong in my thinking. As a junior, I took two more courses with James P. Doyle and began to realize that he was the most generous, most inspiring teacher I would ever know. When I was a freshman though, hugely insecure about my ability to negotiate academic life -- and hugely insecure about everything else -- I couldn't see what now seems plain: my professor was making a joke when he wrote that postcard. He was an English teacher, after all, joking about his own inadequacies, and trusting that I was smart enough to get the joke. I wasn't.

Now that I get to think about these matters from the front of the classroom, I count five misconceptions that often make it difficult, even impossible, for college students to see their professors clearly:

1. "Professors have you figured out from your first grade."

Most professors are happy to recognize improvement in a student's work. I sometimes see students go from Fs and Ds to Bs and As in the work of a semester. Seeing a student begin to take interest in a class and improve her or his work makes almost any professor feel a bit happier and a bit more successful. The student who feels categorized by a first grade might be the victim of a self-fulfilling prophecy: if you feel that you're never going to do better than, say, a C+, there might be little reason to try to do better.

2. "Professors give grades based on whether they agree with you."

Most professors are more than willing to acknowledge that multiple interpretations or points of view are possible and plausible. Professors are much more interested in your ability to develop and support an argument than in agreeing with that argument. They are likely to admire an effort to develop a position that gives them something to think about and, perhaps, argue with. And by the way, professors don't "give" grades. Your work is what earns them.

3. "Every professor wants something different."

Most professors value clear, cogent, well-informed reasoning and writing. Different expectations are often a matter of different disciplines, not different professors. The wordplay that wins respect in Creative Non-Fiction might not go over well in Business Communication. The single-sentence paragraphs appropriate in Intro to Journalism won't work in Intro to Literary Criticism. But that's because different standards apply in each field, not because professors are insisting on their own idiosyncratic recipes for good writing. And while different professors might place more or less emphasis on various writing errors, that doesn't mean that comma splices are sometimes okay and sometimes not, only that some professors might be paying more attention to your writing than others.

When professors do want things their way, it's likely to be about relatively modest matters-- paper clips rather than staples, serif rather than sans serif fonts. If you were reading hundreds of essays, you'd probably get a little particular too.

4. "Professors don't care whether you come to class."

Some don't. Most do. But professors recognize that it's a student's choice to show up or not, to take notes or not, to follow a discussion or lecture or drift away in inner space. It's unlikely that a professor will extend a favor to a student who has frequent unexplained absences or whose presence in class does nothing to help the cause of learning.

5. "Professors are obstacles on the way to a diploma."

This misconception, unlike the first four, is rarely articulated. It's pervasive nonetheless among students who practice various forms of educational gamesmanship -- reading plot summaries instead of novels, plagiarizing essays, cheating on exams, concocting phony excuses for late work and absences. Students who see their professors as obstacles would do well to consider that their own attitudes are the real obstacles to graduation, impeding any possibility of genuine learning.

You may encounter a professor who will confirm every misconception I've described: someone who does decide semester grades early on, who allows no disagreement, who is arbitrary and idiosyncratic and oblivious, and who really does make life miserable. When you encounter such a professor, run -- if that's possible. Such professors betray not only their students but the very idea of learning. Most professors are better than that -- if your eyes are open enough to see them.
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CollegeStudentsRule! was sooo excited when Professor Leddy agreed to write an article for this site. Michael Leddy teaches college English and has published widely as a critic and poet. He is the author of "How to e-mail a professor" and blogs at Orange Crate Art.

How To Write A Term Paper: A Trail-Blazing Guide

By Guest Author: Joanna Young

Got a paper to write, deadline to meet and no idea where to start? Get on top of the task by shifting the way you think about it.

Don’t get hung up thinking about your paper as an important piece of academic writing: you’re likely to waste time and energy worrying about writing style and grammar rules – and put off getting started.

Instead try thinking about your writing as as a path that will take your reader – your teacher - quickly and easily from A to B. Here’s how:

1. Organize your stuff. Just like going on a hike, make sure you’ve got everything you need before you start – reference materials, notes, mind-maps, sources, the question.

2. Check your instructions. Are you clear what you’re expected to come up with? Take some time before you start checking out the question or title (are you sure you know what it means?), the word limit, referencing guidelines, what style of language is expected (how formal or academic). Sticking to these guidelines can help you get better grades.

3. Know where you’re going. It’s easy to get lost in a flurry of words. Think before you start about where you’re heading – what’s your main argument? Where do you want to end up?

4. Get started. This is often the hardest part of writing a paper. If you’re agonizing over the introduction, start a little way in then go back and write the intro later. It might save you hours of procrastination.

5. Make a clear path. You want to write the paper so it’s easy for your teacher to follow on.  Think about it like a path or a trail that you're leaving behind, showing how you’ve got from A to B – and how someone else can get there too.

6. Remove obstacles. Writing the paper’s only half the battle – then you need to go back and edit it. Look out for obstacles that trip your reader up: long sentences, unwieldy paragraphs, lots of jargon, academic language that even you can’t understand – and you wrote it! Break up long sentences (and paragraphs) and make them shorter. Swap complex words for plain English wherever you can.

7. Avoid detours. We develop ideas as we go along, so you might find that you took a few detours when you wrote the paper. When you edit it you’ll need to think about whether they get to stay or not. Do they help you to develop your argument or just make things more confusing? What would happen if you swapped the order round a bit?  Think about the path you’re creating – make it as clear as you can.

8. Use signposts. Headings and bullet-points help to break up the text, make it easier for your teacher to scan as well as close-read your work, and to signpost where you’re going. They can help you to write and organize your work too, as they map out the different sections of your material.

9. Check your trail. You might not have ended up where you thought you would – especially if your ideas have developed as you went along. No worries. Just go back and check there’s a path that goes from A to B. Edit the introduction if you need to so the whole thing makes sense.

10. Make your path stand out. Don’t forget that your teacher’s going to be reading a lot of papers. You can make your work stand out by making it clear and easy to follow – and by adding bit of ‘you’ into the mix. Your own words and ideas, your conclusions and perspective. It’ll make your paper stand out from the crowd.

Flickr Photo Credit: Troy Mason

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Joanna Young is a writing coach from Edinburgh (Scotland).  She coaches people to write with confidence – including free writing tips and a weekly podcast at the Confident Writing blog.

If you’ve got a question or comment about how to write a paper just leave it in the comment box below.  Joanna will do her best to answer your question there, or pick it up and develop it in a follow up post at College Students Rule!