When I review textbooks for my classes there are always additional teaching tools just "a click away." But for the ones I've reviewed in the sciences that come on a CD with the book or that are accessed via a website after buying the book - I find a lot of them very shallow as opposed to the curriculum I've developed from the very same textbook. I'm beginning to believe that publishing houses offer these extra curricular products just so you'll buy their textbook, as I don't see them putting a lot of time or thought into some of these offerings. Then I have the additional problem of allowing a publishing house to determine what is being taught to my students and how.
That said, I've also had talks with publishing houses that will take anything I want from different books they publish and combine it into one book just for me. Wow! Sounds terrific! The particular company I'm thinking about specializes in video components that go with their books. The problem for me was where they concentrated those videos. I looked at ones on phlebotomy techniques. Instead of showing the technique, their videos concentrated on how to treat the patient and then load the blood vial into a centrifuge. Absolutely nothing was shown on the technique. And so I have a personal problem with hiring instructors to teach online classes only to discover they tell their students to read chapters 1 and 2, do all the attached exercises (from a publishing house), and then take the quiz (also from a publishing house). I wonder where their contribution is versus being a "clearing house" between a student and his grade.
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