totallyfreemath.com — "With the current price of a new algebra textbook approaching $110 and publishers bringing out a new edition every three to four years just to prevent students from selling their used books, we have decided to create a site where the textbooks are free."They only have one up right now but plan to add more, along with video and audio lectures.
Jul 29, 2006 View in Crawl 4
pbh101Jul 30, 2006Submitter
I tutor High School math myself and having a quasi-open-source book like this really helps with lesson plans and problem sets. I just grab clips with OneNote (very good software from MS, btw) and export into PDF with CuteWriter.
deschainJul 30, 2006
Brak: You're assuming that the teachers would be able to teach at all without a text book. No offense to the OP, but a good deal of the education majors I know, simply could not do it. I'd rather have the textbooks around without the creativity than no learning at all. It's a sad world.
drealothJul 31, 2006
My physics textbook in first year was the worst. Between editions, all that they did was switch the questions around - even the questions with mistakes in them.
whatsername990Jul 31, 2006
im so glad these guys came up with this...thanks for posting it. hopefully textbook companies will get the message that kids spend waaaay to much money on books they will probably only use for a year or two.
jimxugleJul 31, 2006
Yay. Algebra. Just what I like to do on my weekends. [/sarcasm]The Question is... how well does it burn?
bcrowellJul 31, 2006
Also:<a class="user" href="http://theassayer.org">http://theassayer.org</a><a class="user" href="http://textbookrevolution.org">http://textbookrevolution.org</a>
nekoJul 31, 2006
Yeah but what about the poor kids who can't afford a Intel viiv Vista-Ready laptop? You'd need some sort of $100 laptop available...
floydian23Jul 31, 2006
@nekoIn Mechanical Engineering at a major university, $500 in books a semester is not uncommon. That's 1000 or more a year, or about 1300 a year if you include summer school. Still think a digital experience would be tougher for those less fortunate. I mean, one could spend 1300 and get a very decent dell or mac laptop, at least decent enough to browse with wifi, download text and pdfs, show 3d charts and the like. You'd only have to do that the first year and then your next 3-4 years would be textbook free saving you at least 3000 bucks for the rest of school. That's savings I think we could all agree on! One main problem is the professors that make you buy their own book, so they can make money on all of their students. I even had a government prof who didn't tell the bookstore to rebuy her books, only to sell identical ones the next semester. That is a s**tty system for people who are unfortunate and need that money!
scottamusJul 31, 2006
I'm not sure how this helps college students. Won't you still have to buy the prof's book to get the homework questions etc? If you can take the class using this free book then hell yea it's awesome. The real trick would be to get the prof to use this free book to teach with. "but but my $150 book is a much better choice. Look at the pretty cover!"
cybernezumiAug 3, 2006
Oh, and one more...Common Errors in English by Paul Brians<a class="user" href="http://www.wsu.edu:8080/~brians/errors/errors.txt">http://www.wsu.edu:8080/~brians/errors/errors.txt</a>(or see the website <a class="user" href="http://www.wsu.edu:8080/~brians/errors/errors.html">http://www.wsu.edu:8080/~brians/errors/errors.html</a> for a more readable html version)
kaberfAug 17, 2006
I had to retake a math course after getting a low grade in spring, took the same textbook to my fall course and they said I had to have Edition 3 of the same text book. I compared the two books and they were IDENTICAL except the problems were renumbered.. which meant that my homework assignments couldn't be graded due to the fact that problem 3 in my old textbook is now problem 7, etc... Another $110 dollars for a book I already owned. Furthermore I couldn't sell back the old textbook because they bought this new edition and was selling it instead.This happens ALL THE TIME (I work for a College and have been concerned with this practice for some time now.) I know Congress had a hearing on this recently which addressed (primarily) the inflation of textbooks but I didn't notice it addressing the fact that colleges are 86'ing perfectly good textbooks in favor of new editions for no apparent reason. I've concluded it comes down to greed and laziness. Professors (who order the new editions when there's no real need), colleges (which markup the prices considerably and buy back/resale books at a disproportionate value), and textbook publishers (which are more than happy to push their new unimproved editions at colleges) are all responsible. Changes need to happen on all fronts. I'm so sick of the sky high prices and the practice which perpetuates this inflation.
kennedrwAug 27, 2006
I agree that wiki is not an appropriate reference or texbook replacement as mentioned above.But their are even more resources for places to find free textbooks online. For a realy good reference to where to find them check out:<a class="user" href="http://www.textbookpower.com">http://www.textbookpower.com</a>
bobcat2Aug 29, 2006
I know I was late to this party, but I have a lengthy post on Education Bazaar comparing and contrasting Open Content textbooks and courses, and one that looks at the textbook adoption process. Lots of links to textbooks are listed.There are differences between textbook resources that are "free", and those that are "open".I personally think that the most promising projects out there are those that allow for the collaborative construction of content, rather than closing off contributions to "vetted" sources.The most promising is probably Rice University's Connexions Project - Like MIT's OpenCourseware, but allows outsiders to contribute and construct courses in "modular" format. This is hot! Check out their concept mode.Connexions<a class="user" href="http://www.cnx.org/">http://www.cnx.org/</a><a class="user" href="http://www.teachers4schools.com/images/connexions_flow.gif">http://www.teachers4schools.com/images/connexions_flow.gif</a>Atomic Molecular Theory<a class="user" href="http://cnx.org/content/m12432/latest/Structure">http://cnx.org/content/m12432/latest/Structure</a> of an Atom<a class="user" href="http://cnx.org/content/m12433/latest/Music">http://cnx.org/content/m12433/latest/Music</a> of the Romantic Era<a class="user" href="http://cnx.org/content/m11606/latest/">http://cnx.org/content/m11606/latest/</a>There are some great starts on the Wikibooks site, too...and some that are at all levels of completion:Organic Chemistry<a class="user" href="http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Organic_chemistry">http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Organic_chemistry</a>United States History <a class="user" href="http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/US_History">http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/US_History</a>Trigonometry<a class="user" href="http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Trigonometry">http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Trigonometry</a>European History<a class="user" href="http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/European_History/Contents">http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/European_History/Contents</a><a class="user" href="http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/European_History/Challenges_to_Spiritual_Authority">http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/European_History/Challenges_to_Spiritual_Authority</a>South African National Curriculum - Moving their national curriculum documents to wiki format<a class="user" href="http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/South_African_Curriculum">http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/South_African_Curriculum</a>A promising SOUNDING project that is not out yet is the USC's Annenberg Center for Communication's "Sophie" initiative. Their site claims that Sophie (a month late on release) will offer a method of producing dynamic, open source content that replaces PDF type texbook resources in a networked environment, and which allows collaborative creation of documents.Sophie Project<a class="user" href="http://www.futureofthebook.org/blog/archives/2006/03/sophie_is_coming_1.html">http://www.futureofthebook.org/blog/archives/2006/03/sophie_is_coming_1.html</a>If anyone is really interested in this topic, you may have the stomach to slog through a couple long articles here:Is K-12 Ready for Open Content Textbooks?<a class="user" href="http://teachers4schools.com/open/?p=10">http://teachers4schools.com/open/?p=10</a>Room for Web 2.0 Tools in the Typical Classroom?<a class="user" href="http://teachers4schools.com/open/?p=11">http://teachers4schools.com/open/?p=11</a>
yankeeboySep 22, 2006
Actually, the typical revision cycle is 3 years, not 5. Plus, the cost of giving away free "desk copies" is already built into the book price. In fact, the book prices are typical determined by estimates of how many copies will sell, balanced against known costs. Thus, publishers take a bath on books that undersell and make a killing on books that oversell.(I worked for some 20 years for college textbook publishers. If I knew in my college years what I know now...)
yankeeboySep 22, 2006
As I mentioned in another post, I worked for college textbook publishers for 20 years. For many books (especially math), there is little difference from one edition to the next. Change the cover, maybe switch the order of chapters, and replace the problems or examples is about it.The concepts covered don't change, which is what makes this whole scam especially maddening. Students are better off with free online resources like <a class="user" href="http://pinkmonkey.com/">http://pinkmonkey.com/</a><a class="user" href="http://college-cram.com/">http://college-cram.com/</a><a class="user" href="http://sparknotes.com/">http://sparknotes.com/</a>
infobeat234Oct 14, 2006
know I was late to this party, but I have a lengthy post on Education Bazaar comparing and contrasting Open Content textbooks and courses, and one that looks at the textbook adoption process. Lots of links to textbooks are listed.There are differences between textbook resources that are "free", and those that are "open".<a class="user" href="http://qqbq.info/sitemap.htm">http://qqbq.info/sitemap.htm</a>
mothrogJul 3, 2007
"I firmly belive that text book writers and publisher should be held accountable for errors in the text."Do you realize how hard it is to catch every error in a book, particularly a book about anything technical? Getting the government involved isn't the answer.
mcmaster88Mar 30, 2008
<a class="user" href="http://www.textbooktorrents.com/">http://www.textbooktorrents.com/</a> much?
mustkaraApr 25, 2008
Yes. Agree. I have long time not buy textbooks from university college bookstore and instead I buy textbooks from online bookstores. For example, I buy all my textbooks for this semester from Cocomartini.com Online Bookstore. <a class="user" href="http://www.cocomartini.com/">http://www.cocomartini.com/</a> 70% off discounts textbooks and all are brand new textbooks. I save more that $300. That's great!!!!
EZReadFeb 23, 2011
Free books are great, especially for students
BookGenieJul 13, 2011
i still dont get why is that
BookGenieJul 13, 2011
i still dont get why is that
18953613130349Aug 12, 2011
add me