CATCH UP WITH CURMUDGUCATION + ICYMI: What Day Is This Edition (3/29)

CURMUDGUCATION: ICYMI: What Day Is This Edition (3/29)

What Day Is This Edition (3/29)

I feel like retirement gave me a head start, but yes-- after a while, the days kind of blend together. Still, we have some reading from the week. Remember, share safely.

The Biggest Obstacle To Moving America's Public Schools Online
Susan Adams, my editor at Forbes, takes a look at some of the problems with just tossing school onto the interwebz.

Baghian and Vallas candidates for LA state ed chief job
The indispensable Mercedes Schneider shows us once again that there is no failure that some of these reformsters can't walk away from, their reputations and careers intact and rising. Why the hell would anyone hire Paul Vallas? It's a mystery.

Misreading the main idea about reading
God bless Paul Thomas for repeatedly wading back into the current iteration of the reading wars, and thank heavens he's willing to add his expertise to the conversation.

What do we need to teach now?
A reminder from Deborah Cohan at Inside Higher Ed that we shouldn't get so distracted by the challenging how of the current situation that we lose sight of the what.

Where left and right agree on civics education.
From Education Next, a fairly well-balanced look at where the left and the right do and don't disagree when it comes to civics education.

Physical distance, social collective mourning
A personal dispatch from the JLV in NYC, where pandemic death has already hit the education community in the gut.

Online education is not winning over college students
One of the seventy-gabillion notes this week that some folks do not love the computer fed education life. From Hechinger Report.

Online Privacy Concerns
From EdWeek, a compendium of the many privacy concerns being raised as everyone rushes hook students to screens.

How about a national teacher plan?
Nancy Flanagan and friends with some important thoughts about this crisis-forged moment of opportunity. If we could rebuild from scratch, what would we build...?

Real learning in a virtual classroom is difficult 
Chris Lee, writing for Ars Technica, opens with a quote from his wife, a high school English teacher: "Remote teaching sucks. It's yucky, and it's not the future of education." He ends with a quote from one of his kidfs-- "I fucking hate it." In between some pretty thoughtful stuff about why this is not the future.

CURMUDGUCATION: ICYMI: What Day Is This Edition (3/29)

CATCH UP WITH CURMUDGUCATION

AND DON'T FORGET PETER GREENE ON FORBES CLICK HERE 

Why Teach Literature Stuff: #4 Books Versus Video

by Peter Greene / 22h

When I was teaching, and I had extra time on my hands, I would reflect on the work--the whys and hows and whats. So in solidarity with my former colleagues, I'm going to write a series about every English teacher's favorite thing-- teaching literature, and why we do it. There will be some number of posts (I don't have a plan here). Also, it would be nice to write and read about something positive

When Tech Makes Educational Decisions

29by Peter Greene / 1d

"The internet is a bad place. Young people really shouldn't use it at all." The speaker was not some cranky parent or enraged luddite. It was the guy in charge of maintaining the network in my high school. In other words, the guy responsible for making sure it was possible for our students to access the internet. This was many years ago, but it slapped me upside the head with the realization that

MAR 27

Business and Humanity (When People Tell You Who They Are)

40by Peter Greene / 1d

It has been a central conflict in education for decades now. Should education be organized around the needs of the business world, guided by the invisible hand in service to The Economy. We've heard it over and over again. Business is the customer for the product created by schools, so schools should be organized around cranking out the kinds of meat widgets that corporations want . And while we'r

MAR 26

Why Teach Literature Stuff: #3 Knowing Stuff Is Useful

54by Peter Greene / 2d

When I was teaching, and I had extra time on my hands, I would reflect on the work--the whys and hows and whats. So in solidarity with my former colleagues, I'm going to write a series about every English teacher's favorite thing-- teaching literature, and why we do it. There will be some number of posts (I don't have a plan here). Also, it would be nice to write and read about something positive

MAR 25

Where Is Teaching's Dr. Fauci?

300+by Peter Greene / 3d

There are Dr. Fauci fan clubs already thriving around the country, in honor of the physician who has managed to thread the thorny needle that is being a nation's medical guide in these challenging times. He's a trusted voice, an expert in his field. He's a reminder that "leading US physician" is a thing, like the Surgeon General is a thing. So where is the Dr. Fauci for teaching? This came up in a

Why Teach Literature: #2 Humanity

61by Peter Greene / 3d

When I was teaching, and I had extra time on my hands, I would reflect on the work--the whys and hows and whats. So in solidarity with my former colleagues, I'm going to write a series about every English teacher's favorite thing-- teaching literature, and why we do it. There will be some number of posts (I don't have a plan here). Also, it would be nice to write and read about something positive

MAR 24

Protecting Students In The Screen Age: An Action Tool For Parents And Teachers

28by Peter Greene / 5d

It has been just a month since this piece ran at Forbes.com, but what a month. In some ways, the protections for students regarding screens are even more important. It has been a decade since I was introduced to the idea of a 1:1 classroom—a school in which every single student carried a computing device—and I never regretted it for a moment. Having those tools always at my students’ fingertips w

MAR 23

Why Teach Literature Stuff: #1 What Is It?

21by Peter Greene / 5d

When I was teaching, and I had extra time on my hands, I would reflect on the work--the whys and hows and whats. So in solidarity with my former colleagues, I'm going to write a series about every English teacher's favorite thing-- teaching literature, and why we do it. There will be some number of posts (I don't have a plan here). Also, it would be nice to write and read about something positive

The Ed Tech Vultures Circle

47by Peter Greene / 5d

Some ed tech companies and their investors are busily imagining that the coronaviral hiatus may be their Katrina. Natural disaster plus government botch job equals the board being swept clean, allowing players a golden opportunity to move in and clean up. I see folks on Twitter wondering where Betsy DeVos is, why the USED isn't offering more guidance to schools as they navigate this mess. Could be

MAR 22

Virus and Vouchers

35by Peter Greene / 6d

US education has essentially ground to a halt. Districts have announced that no work done distantly will count, largely out of fear that they cannot properly serve IEP students and therefor distance schooling would be illegal (aka "likely to prompt a lawsuit from a special ed family's lawyer). Where distance learning is occuring, the gap between haves and have-nots is being highlighted as it grows

ICYMI: Stay In Place Edition (3/22)

by Peter Greene / 7d

Well, here we all are, in place (except for some of you who think this is a fake and some of you who think nothing should interfere with spring break). Frankly, the reading this week has been a bit....well, repetitive. But here are some things to peruse while you're holding down your couch. An Open Letter To Seniors Louisiana's teacher of the year has some thoughts for high school seniors, whose b

MAR 21

AI Is Not Going To Drive Trucks (Or Your Classroom)

32by Peter Greene / 8d

From Jalopnik, we get this report from the world of self-driving truck s. Mark it the gazillionth cautionary tale for folks who believe that AI will be able to take over critical human functions any time soon. The article takes a look at Starsky Robotics, a company that was in the business of producing unmanned semis for public highways. Now it's just in the business of shutting down. The co-found

MAR 20

Don't Ever Forget How Much Some Folks Hate Public Education

30by Peter Greene / 8d

Interesting piece this week in the Washington Post , penned by Stuart Stevens , a GOP non-Trump fan consultant with a book coming out. The whole piece, about how the GOP has morphed into the kind of party ripe for something like 

CURMUDGUCATION - http://curmudgucation.blogspot.com/

Shawgi Tell: Education Cannot Solve Poverty and Inequality | Dissident Voice

Education Cannot Solve Poverty and Inequality | Dissident Voice

Education Cannot Solve Poverty and Inequality

One of the long-standing stubborn myths about education in American culture is that education is “the great equalizer” and that education is the way to overcome poverty and inequality at the individual and societal levels.

The facts show, however, that poverty and inequality are generally increasing every year despite the fact that there are more college-educated people than ever. Indeed, many people with college degrees are unemployed or underemployed. And many are stuck in jobs that have little to do with their degrees. Never mind the massive debt load oppressing many students, college graduates, and their families. In 2020, millions of college educated people are starting out life at a great disadvantage.

In the realm of K-12 education, when mass state-organized education started in the mid-1800s, only a small number of youth attended school. Today, 50 million young people are enrolled in 100,000 public schools across the country. More youth than ever are schooled. But this has not stopped poverty or inequality; both keep growing despite many “reforms.”

Poverty, unemployment, inequality, and insecurity are rooted in the outmoded capitalist economic system. This outdated system, with or without education, guarantees poverty, unemployment, inequality, and insecurity. Such problems are not some aberration or accident of the system, they necessarily arise from CONTINUE READING: Education Cannot Solve Poverty and Inequality | Dissident Voice

CURMUDGUCATION: When Tech Makes Educational Decisions

CURMUDGUCATION: When Tech Makes Educational Decisions

When Tech Makes Educational Decisions

"The internet is a bad place. Young people really shouldn't use it at all."

The speaker was not some cranky parent or enraged luddite. It was the guy in charge of maintaining the network in my high school. In other words, the guy responsible for making sure it was possible for our students to access the internet. This was many years ago, but it slapped me upside the head with the realization that thanks to technology, a lot of educational choices were being made by folks who were not actually educators.

Okay, maybe we shouldn't have let him drive...

Plenty of teachers remember the worst of the early days of school internet connections. Inadequate infrastructure and bandwidth because nobody in IT actually asked teachers what they thought they would do with the internet once it was hooked up. Clunky hardware running crappy software that had been purchased without talking to any classroom teachers. And when teachers were consulted, it largely took the form of, "This is what we're going to do unless you convince us it's a terrible idea in the next day or two." (Note that this approach does not allow for the possibility that it's a mediocre idea and that many better ones exist.)

Oh, and internet access. Schools and their IT departments were afraid of the dark corners that students would wander into, and the various tech grants required filtering. So in many locations, the default was that pretty much everything on the internet was blocked unless someone in IT decided that there was a good reason for teachers to have access to a particular site. Teachers may have been given access to a form that would allow them to make their case.

Conditions improved, but the tension between teachers and techs is probably destined to be eternal. In my school, teachers initiated adoption of Moodle as a learning platform, but after a few years the tech department determined that it was too expensive and troublesome to maintain, so CONTINUE READING: CURMUDGUCATION: When Tech Makes Educational Decisions

CURMUDGUCATION: Why Teach Literature Stuff: #4 Books Versus Video - http://curmudgucation.blogspot.com/2020/03/why-teach-literature-stuff-4-books.html

EdAction in Congress March 29, 2020 - Education Votes

EdAction in Congress March 29, 2020 - Education Votes

EdAction in Congress March 29, 2020

Congress heeds educators’ pleas to put people first, but still needs to do more

The $2 trillion CARES Act was passed by the U.S. Congress this weekend. It is the third legislative package to address coronavirus crisis and addresses many—but not all—of the urgent needs of our students, educators, schools, and communities. Key provisions include:

• Immediate stimulus checks for most households—up to $1,200 per person and $500 per child
• $30.7 billion Education Stabilization Fund to help fill expected state budget gaps and prevent educator layoffs
• Expanded unemployment insurance
• Six-month suspension of federal student loan payments
• Tens of billions of dollars to help prevent housing insecurity

Welcome as these provisions are, Congress needs to do more. NEA’s top priorities include closing the “homework gap” experienced by students who don’t have internet access at home; helping states address revenue shortfalls that could lead to cuts in education funding and educator layoffs; and ensuring access to the ballot box in 2020 elections—the $400 million the CARES Act provides is a start, but not nearly enough.

NEA President Lily Eskelsen García said, “We thank Congress for leading this bipartisan agreement but also want to be clear while it is another step forward, much more will be needed. We call on Congress to work together quickly on the next package and meet the growing needs in communities.” READ MORE

Cheers and Jeers

Reps. Angie Craig (D-MN), Jared Huffman (D-IL), and Pete Stauber (R-MN) led a bipartisan “Dear Colleague” letter asking for additional IDEA funding during the COVID-19 emergency.

EdAction in Congress March 29, 2020 - Education Votes

Critical Thinking in the Post-Truth World | Live Long and Prosper

Critical Thinking in the Post-Truth World | Live Long and Prosper

Critical Thinking in the Post-Truth World

In 2012 Donald Trump claimed that climate change was a Chinese hoax.

Donald J. Trump

✔@realDonaldTrump

The concept of global warming was created by and for the Chinese in order to make U.S. manufacturing non-competitive.

67.3K

12:15 PM - Nov 6, 2012

Twitter Ads info and privacy

109K people are talking about this

Once he took office, the Trump administration began to dismantle science-based policy in the US.

The Trump Administration Has Attacked Science 100 Times … and Counting

The Trump administration’s unprecedented record on science will harm people across the country, especially the most disenfranchised. While the sheer number of attacks on science is shocking, what a lack of science-informed policy means for our country is even more shocking. The administration’s rollback of protections from exposure to dangerous chemicals means that more people will become ill, develop chronic diseases or die from encountering these hazardous substances.

A good example comes from an early 2018 issue when Trump administration officials blocked the Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry (ATSDR) from publishing a draft toxicology report on a class of potentially hazardous chemicals commonly found in drinking water and groundwater

Science Under Attack: How Trump is Sidelining Researchers and Their Work

Political appointees have shut down government studies, reduced the influence of scientists over regulatory decisions and in some cases pressured researchers not to speak publicly. The administration has particularly CONTINUE READING: Critical Thinking in the Post-Truth World | Live Long and Prosper

First Focus Legislative Scorecard - SEE THIS YEAR’S CHAMPIONS AND DEFENDERS

First Focus Legislative Scorecard

THE FIRST FOCUS CAMPAIGN FOR CHILDREN LEGISLATIVE SCORECARD

Our nation’s children face an array of problems, including poverty, violence, abuse, neglect, hunger, education inequity, poor nutrition, homelessness, lack of health coverage, infant and child mortality, and family separation in mixed immigrant households. These issues demand attention, policy solutions, political will, and action that make children a priority.

Unfortunately, kids are far too often an afterthought in Congress. The problem is that children don’t vote and don’t have Political Action Committees (PACs) that garner and demand attention.

Consequently, children are facing a variety of problems that are impacted by federal policy, including:

• Declining Federal Investments in Children: The share of investments in children has declined from 7.98 percent of the federal budget in FY 2015 to 7.21 percent in FY 2019. The President’s FY 2019 budget proposal elimination of 44 children’s programs and real cuts of $20 billion in spending on children would have caused funding for children to drop to just 6.45 percent of the federal budget.
• Rising Uninsured Children: After two full decades of decline since the enactment of the Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP) in 1997, the uninsured rate has grown for each of the last two years, including by more than 10 percent in 2018.
• High Child Poverty: Although child poverty has been dropping in recent years, 11.9 million children (16.2 percent) lived in poverty in 2018, which is 54 percent higher than for adults. The U.S. rate of child poverty is the 2nd highest among 29 developed countries with rates highest among the youngest and most vulnerable children. A landmark report from the National Academy of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine released last year estimates that child poverty is costing the nation over $1 trillion annually.
• Rising Child Suicide Rates: The suicide rate nearly tripled for children aged 10-14 from 2007 to 2017 and increased 76 percent for people aged 15-19. Suicide is now the 2nd leading cause of death for children in both age groups.
• Increasing Child Abuse and Neglect: After years of decline, there has been a 10 percent rise in the number of children placed in foster care largely due to increased levels of substance use, including but not limited to opioids. Furthermore, between FY 2013 and 2017, the fatality rate for children from abuse and neglect increased by 11 percent.
• High Infant Mortality: The U.S. rate remains far higher than in countries with comparable Gross National Product (GNP). According to the Peterson Center on Healthcare and Kaiser Family Foundation, the U.S. infant mortality rate is 71 percent higher than in comparable European nations.
• High Rates of Food Insecurity: In 2017, 12.5 million children lived in food-insecure households, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture. The Department’s report finds “food security to be statistically associated with various outcomes involving health, nutrition, and children’s development….”
• Rising Child Homelessness: The number of identified and enrolled students by the U.S. Department of Education as experiencing homelessness at some point during the school year increased 7.3 percent, from 1.26 million students in school year 2014-2015 to 1.36 million students in school year 2016-2017.
• Mistreatment Children of Immigrants: Federal policy should ensure that the “best interest of the child”, but federal agencies are separating migrant families, placing children in detention centers for lengthy periods, failing to provide basic health and safety protections to children, and compounding the trauma facing immigrant and migrant children.

Now, more than ever, children need policymakers to be their Champions and Defenders who are willing to focus on, support, raise their voices in support of, and attach their name to legislation that would improve the lives of our nation’s children. They also need lawmakers to actively oppose legislation or regulatory and administrative actions that would harm kids.

In an attempt to recognize and thank those lawmakers in the first session of the 116th Congress who actively worked to make children a greater priority in the halls of Congress, we are pleased to present our 2019 First Focus Campaign for Children (FFCC) Legislative Scorecard.

DOWNLOAD THIS YEAR'S REPORT

NYC Educator: I Won't Walk the Line

NYC Educator: I Won't Walk the Line

I Won't Walk the Line

I'm not sure exactly what prompted me to go back for that last week with my colleagues. I think it had a lot to do with my being chapter leader. I felt I had to. Looking back, I don't think I was very smart. Anyone could have taken off, no questions asked, and all if would have cost was a day from the bank.

A lot of people did, and in retrospect they'd thought things out better than I had. I still find the news so upsetting that I won't watch it on TV very long. After five minutes it's just more and more of the same thing.

Nonetheless, it's remarkable to read that Donald Trump thinks we should just go back to work by Easter. Even more remarkable is to read Bill de Blasio sputtering out much the same nonsense. I'm not sure what I was thinking two weeks ago, but given everything I see and read, that's nothing short of insane. It was surely not a good idea to go back for those last three days, but the school was pretty quiet, and social distancing was at least a possibility.

The school in which I work, though, is over 200% capacity. That's just fine with Mayor de Blasio, because he works from a spacious office somewhere and doesn't actually have to walk the halls with double the number of people who belong there. That, of course, is the exclusive privilege of the 4500 kids and 500 staff about whom Bill de Blasio does not give a fiddler's fart.

The thing I keep going back to is Broadway. If it's too dangerous for well-heeled theatergoers to sit through an $800 performance of Hamilton, how is it okay for 5,000 people to push their way through Francis Lewis High School? And let's not forget there are over a million other students wandering through the halls of the buildings Bill de Blasio has neglected these CONTINUE READING: NYC Educator: I Won't Walk the Line

Schools, the Coronavirus, and the Near Future (Part 1) | Larry Cuban on School Reform and Classroom Practice

Schools, the Coronavirus, and the Near Future (Part 1) | Larry Cuban on School Reform and Classroom Practice

Schools, the Coronavirus, and the Near Future (Part 1)

I recently received a note from a colleague asking about what happens after the pandemic virus’s effects ebb, Americans return to work (if their workplace has not closed), schools re-open, and “social distancing” becomes an unwelcome memory. My colleague asked if at such a time would school reform sweep across the nation as it did for New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina in 2005.

In that city all public schools were closed, teachers were fired, and within a few years, state-driven reforms created a new district that contained mostly charter schools enrolling 93 percent of students, the highest number among the nation’s districts.

I told my colleague that such an outcome–spread of charters–for the U.S. after the coronavirus ebbs was highly unlikely.

My knowledge of school reform movements in the past century tilted me more toward what happened to schools after the 1918-1919 influenza pandemic that killed millions across the globe and around 675,000 Americans (ten times more than died in World War I). While that pandemic occurred, U.S. schools and businesses were closed, crowd gatherings were banned, and other similar responses to the coronavirus pandemic occurred.

Schools eventually re-opened after the influenza pandemic (Olympia, Washington closed its schools October 11, 1918 and allowed students to return on CONTINUE READING: Schools, the Coronavirus, and the Near Future (Part 1) | Larry Cuban on School Reform and Classroom Practice

Sheltering in Place: Children, Parents and Teachers Coping With (What Could Be) the New Normal | Ed In The Apple

Sheltering in Place: Children, Parents and Teachers Coping With (What Could Be) the New Normal | Ed In The Apple

Sheltering in Place: Children, Parents and Teachers Coping With (What Could Be) the New Normal

My phone “pinged,” time to confirm my reservation for the April Board of Regents meeting: not this month. Governor Cuomo just extended the state-wide school closing until April 15th, and probably for a lot longer.

Online, or remote learning, has completed its first week in New York City. The enormous undertaking is incredibly complex. I spoke with a supervisor, Zoom meetings with teachers, with the school leadership team, with the superintendent, checking on teacher lessons, contacting parents; the city is using Google Classroom. I asked a teacher: who are the kids who are participating?  S/he said, “About half the kids, others are having trouble getting online, and the kids were a cross section, the high achievers and others.” A start: hopefully it will improve over the weeks or months ahead. Not surprisingly, in addition to an opportunity gap there is a technology gap, the NY Times has a scathing article. (“Locked Out of the Virtual Classroom”)

In one online fifth grade class the teacher began with a yoga session and moved on to research assignments, “What is an endangered species?”  “How do species become endangered?” “How can we protect endangered species?”  How many students are fully engaged?  How long should the kids be online? How much homework? We’re all exploring a new world.

The questions from teachers and parents keep rolling in, CONTINUE READING: Sheltering in Place: Children, Parents and Teachers Coping With (What Could Be) the New Normal | Ed In The Apple

Yong Zhao; Does it Work? The Most Meaningless Question to Ask about Online Education - Education in the Age of Globalization

Education in the Age of Globalization » Blog Archive » Does it Work? The Most Meaningless Question to Ask about Online Education

Does it Work? The Most Meaningless Question to Ask about Online Education

An extended version of this post will be published in the journal of ECNU Review of Education.

Judge a man by his questions rather than by his answers. ? VoltaireThe scientist is not a person who gives the right answers, he’s one who asks the right questions.? Claude Levi-Strauss

One of the most frequently and persistently asked questions about online education is “does it work” or “is it effective.” It is a legitimate question for it is only natural and reasonable for anyone faced with the decision to undertake online education to want to know if it works. But this seemingly reasonable question is not only meaningless but also dangerous.

The question is meaningless because there cannot be any definitive answer for a number of reasons. First, online education (and its variants such a online instruction, online teaching, distance education and distance learning) is a big umbrella that covers a wide array of different practices, which vary a great deal in terms of quality. Comparing the effectiveness of online education with face-to-face education has been the most common research approach to examine the effectiveness of online education. And the answer has been, for a long time, that there is no significant difference between the two. This answer, however, does not mean online is effective or not, it simply means there are plenty of effective and ineffective programs in both online and face-to-face education. In other words, the within variation is larger than the between variation (Zhao, Lei, Yan, Lai, & Tan, 2005). This is why after tens of thousands of research studies, the best answer one can get about whether online education works is that there is no significant difference from face-to-face education. Is “no difference” the same as effective? Does it mean it works or not?

Second, another reason that there cannot be a definitive answer to this question is the diversity of stakeholders in online education. While the typically assumed stakeholder is the student, hence most studies are about educational outcomes for students, but there are many other stakeholders. Teachers, online education providers, technology suppliers, families of students, tech support personnel, facility CONTINUE READING: Education in the Age of Globalization » Blog Archive » Does it Work? The Most Meaningless Question to Ask about Online Education

CURMUDGUCATION: Why Teach Literature Stuff: #4 Books Versus Video

CURMUDGUCATION: Why Teach Literature Stuff: #4 Books Versus Video

Why Teach Literature Stuff: #4 Books Versus Video

When I was teaching, and I had extra time on my hands, I would reflect on the work--the whys and hows and whats. So in solidarity with my former colleagues, I'm going to write a series about every English teacher's favorite thing-- teaching literature, and why we do it. There will be some number of posts (I don't have a plan here).

Also, it would be nice to write and read about something positive, and I don't know anything much more positive than what teachers do and why they do it.

You may have read the first three installments and thought (or imagined your students thinking) "Heck, I can get all that by watching tv or videos." Here's why I disagree.

For non-fiction, video can be useful. An afternoon of Crash Course on YouTube is pretty educational. I will even credit the medium with making the speaker's voice plain, so that bias is readily visible and identifiable. But video, because it's way more linear than text (you are compelled to watch the frames in a particular order) and because it demands steady and constant focus, is severely limited. There's a reason TED talks are short, that educational videos are super-brief. You can only watch for so long. That in turn limits the depth that can be covered. To turn a great work like Ron Chernow's Hamilton biography into a visual medium resulted in a stage show that takes a few hours to watch and still cuts corners from Chernow's original work.

Video is simply too limited to do any heavy lifting in the non-fiction world. Factoids, juicy tidbits, isolated items-- sure. But no more. There will always be more there there on the printed page than in any other medium.

With fiction, those advantages of print are even greater.

Movies and television have become more sophisticated over the years, but tv in particular features CONTINUE READING: CURMUDGUCATION: Why Teach Literature Stuff: #4 Books Versus Video