Cambridge University Press

My school purchased a VCD version 3 textbook 'teacher resource package'. To all of the team's disappointment it did not come with a digital version of the book. Fancy that? Cambridge seems a little out of touch with the work that teachers do in teaching students in the digital age. If Cambridge supports teachers in their work by providing a ‘Teacher Resource Package’ then they would understand that teachers will use the textbook to project and show information to students on a projector or screen to teach and logically teachers would also need a digital copy of the textbook. Maybe they think we sit around talking and getting students to turn to this page and that? In my experience, having used many textbooks from Cambridge in the past that a digital copy was always provided and the assumption that a teacher package which promises so much, should at minimum include a digital version of the textbook. And not to mention that the teacher package is $199.95, it would cost them literally nothing to add it on. Then the irony is students get it for $85 dollars. And certainly, the teacher resources which promise so much are frankly underwhelming. When you do download the teacher resource it is so poorly organised with folders in folders, badly labelled, no structure, no real supporting material to speak of with some irrelevant activities and no examples to support teachers. Quite disappointing and not worth the extra $115. It's a joke really.

Cambridge has made an error in their thinking and strategy about how to market their books for teachers and students. Did anyone think that teachers need to know how the interactive book students use in the $85 version worked? Nope, they did not as the deluxe teacher resource package does not have that either! So that they can understand how students are engaging with the textbook and how to support them? There is a real disconnect between what Cambridge think they are doing and what they are actually doing