Author Archives: Matt Boelkins
Reflections at 1/3-term
Each of the past several weeks has started with “write new post” high on my to-do list. With 90 students in 3 classes, working on new sections for the second semester of Active Calculus, and the usual laundry list of … Continue reading
Textbook Inflation
A recent US News and World Report article focuses on the high rate at which textbook costs have been rising and explains how the costs are divided among bookstores and textbook companies. While overall inflation is currently low, not so … Continue reading
Is Calculus MOOCable?
There’s been lots of discussion in higher education regarding the emergence of MOOCs: Massively Open Online Courses. These courses are free to anyone interested and are taken in an entirely online format; they are typically taught by well-known professors from … Continue reading
Opening Week
(This post was originally titled “Opening Day.” Given that the entire week rushed by before I could post it, I updated.) Classes started this past Monday at GVSU. It has been the usual whirlwind getting things organized and started for … Continue reading
Existing Free (or Very Low Cost) Calculus Texts
One of the overwhelming things about the Internet (to me, at least) is just trying to keep track of what’s out there. With this post, I invite readers to contribute to a list of free (and where fitting, open) calculus … Continue reading
A different challenge to publishers
From Insider Higher Ed, an interesting article on the startup “Boundless Learning”, which endeavors to provide text-like materials to students free of charge. “It does so, essentially, through reverse engineering — identifying widely used textbooks in certain fields (three last … Continue reading
The cost of calculus texts
As fall semester begins and students return to campus, I can’t help but reflect on the cost of textbooks, and challenge myself to think about how this affects my students and me. Data from the Conference Board of Mathematical Sciences … Continue reading
Initial Public Offering: Differential Calculus
[Update in January 2013: in addition to an updated version of the differential portion of the text, I’m pleased to publicly share four additional chapters for integral calculus. See the download page at my GVSU site and/or this post here … Continue reading
Posted in Publicity, Publishing, Resources, Text Files
Tagged activities, calculus, free, online, resources
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Open Textbooks
At Mathfest, I had the pleasure of meeting Rob Beezer and having some extended conversation with him. Rob is a longtime proponent of free and open textbooks, as well as the author of one himself. After my talk he said … Continue reading
Keith Devlin on Self-Publishing
“The procedure is so ridiculously straightforward, I can see no reason why anyone should ever publish another textbook a different way, given the huge expense of textbooks.” Read the whole thing: http://devlinsangle.blogspot.com/2012/08/the-future-of-textbook-publishing-is-us.html
