For my grump du jour about superfluous technology in the classroom, I need to talk about the actual consequences of that value-added bullcrap they shrink-wrap with textbooks. This semester I bought about half of my books from the Amazon marketplace, whose sellers often have new copies for the price the campus bookstore charges for used. Now, my chemistry textbook that I ordered from there did indeed come shrink-wrapped with a little cardboard “Student Access Kit” with a password that gives you access to additional features from the book publisher on the web, and I thought that was what I needed for access to the premium content on the prof’s site that’s the only way you’re allowed to submit homework.

But now I find out that the campus bookstore sells the book shrink-wrapped with two Access Kits: the one I have for the publisher’s website, and another one for the supplemental materials that form an extension of WebCT (the school’s own online work space). The latter is the one I need to do my homework, costs an extra twenty bucks to order separately, and, now that I’ve done so, will get to me a couple days after the first assignment is due. (I was actually going to stop by my prof’s office yesterday and show him the problems I was having logging in, as he’d invited me to, but I figured it would be pointless, since yesterday WebCT was…down.) Granted I should have resolved the problem earlier, but I didn’t understand that the resolution of the problem was ordering another product; to wax Rumsfeldian, the little yellow kit, instead of the blue kit I already had, was an “unknown unknown.”

I think it’s reasonable to speculate that these packaged Cracker-Jack treats are, at least in part, an effort on the part of the publishers to fight resales. It would be nice, though, if professors would stop encouraging them by requiring the damn things to pass the class, and if the publishers wouldn’t tempt them with products and packages that lend themselves to this use.

Anyway, a skein of geese just flew past the window, so I’m happy again.

Tags: Classes