Lately it appears as though Twitter has become my new home, rather it seems that I am spending so much time on Twitter that it is starting to feel like home.
If you want to follow us on Twitter I invite you to do so, my Twitter handle is @wecomparebooks

I want to take this time to tell you about a few of the new friends that I’ve made on Twitter in the past week. All of these sites have much quality information and I hope that you find them as useful as I did.

I recently ran across a site, Gradversity/ this is a very neat site run by Trevor Wilson, that is dedicated to helping college students enter the workforce after graduation.  This site is a great resource for any student who is graduating and looking for a job.

Recently I also met Jessica Kunkel on Twitter. She is the owner of the Truth About College blog.  This is a really cool blog that has some reaslly cool tips on college. I am sure that every college student will find this blog to be useful.

One thing that is very important for college students is getting a job. There are a ton of career websites around that help students get jobs, here is a cool career site that I’ve recently ran accross through Twitter

If you like cakes, and you like to bake cakes, than check out one of my latest friends on Twitter Little Lady Cakes. This site is really cool and has some creative cake recipes!
You can also Tweet this site @littleladycakes.

Recently I met a very nice guy on Twitter, @buyerdude. He runs a website, dedicated to listing deals on a variety of productsclick here for deals.

Integration and innovation with the help of the internet and new communications technology is changing the way we do everything nowadays. The realm of education is no exception. From online training courses to e-conferencing to complete degrees done online, education and career training are becoming more convenient and crafted to fit the individual.

WeCompareBooks.com recently came into contact with Knowledge Delivery Systems, a site which offers online development training courses for teachers and educators. In their own words:

“Knowledge Delivery Systems provides K-12 educators with award-winning, convenient online professional development. Educators can take KDS courses to earn the credits they need to meet state Department of Education licensing requirements, to increase their salary through district-approved in-service, or to earn the graduate credits they need to advance their careers.”

The cool thing about KDS is that many of the courses offered are interactive, with ideos and are taught by very interesting professors.

The courses available are broken up depending on which state you live and work in, as each state has different requirements and acceptance of KDS courses. Certain courses are available through partnerships with colleges, universities and school districts to help education students and teachers develop the skills necessary to become the quality educators we need and to help them realize their own professional goals.

KDS’s newest course delves into teaching English language learners and the principles of language acquisition. The course goes into extreme detail, from basic communication skills to fundamentals that apply specifically to second language learners.

If you are an educator or an education student, you can request information on their website to find out if your district or school offers KDS courses.

We are proud to announce that We Compare Books is now much faster than before. Most searches now take less than one second, and comparison speeds have also been boosted. If you haven’t used WCB in a while, give it a try, we guarantee you will notice the difference.

(From the editor)

Choice, we live in a world in which we all have many choices, starting from the 100′s of varieties of bottled water we can choose from, (all of which are basically the same) to the choice of which electronics store where we choose to purchase the latest gadget at (and of course the choice of the gadget itself).  We often make dozens of choices a day, and typically, given competition, and the marketplace, these choices do not end up costing us more money (most bottled water, regardless of the brand costs the same, as for gadgets, they tend to fall in a price range, where we pay more to get more).  The point I am trying to make is that our daily choices do not end up costing us money; additionally, if we had to choose from 2 items, both identical, but with a price difference of $50, most of us would obviously choose the cheaper item (this is commonsense!).  When dealing with textbooks this is the exact scenario that you are faced with: you can choose to go to the bookstore and pay the full price for the book, or you can choose to go to your favorite online bookstore and pay a slightly lower price, but if you want to get the true lowest price on the book your best bet is to use a service that is designed to compare prices, and is guaranteed to save you money, a service like, We Compare Books

I recently asked our intern to do a study, I told him to pick a semester of courses he had, and to pretend that he was going to buy books for said courses now, and to compare the difference in price  between the university bookstore, and We Compare Books, below is what he found.

Here’s a little experiment I did. I went on to my alma mater’s website and did a course search of a typical 15-credit semester course load in my major, International Relations. After compiling the listed prices for the books from the school bookstore, I then did a search for the books on WeCompareBooks to find the lowest price. I even included the estimated shipping costs. You can do the search yourself to verify.

Essentials of International Relations by Karen A. Mingst

ISBN: 0393928977

-         Bookstore price: $61.50

-         WCB lowest price (plus shipping): $33.99

Understanding International Conflicts by Joseph Nye

ISBN: 0321472012

-         Bookstore price: $61.75

-         WCB lowest price (plus shipping): $47.23

¡Dímelo Tú! by Francisco Rodriguez

ISBN: 1413031609

-         Bookstore price: $211.00

-         WCB lowest price (plus shipping): $39.00

Western Civilizations by Judith G. Coffin

ISBN: 9780393926996

-         Bookstore price: $90.25

-         WCB lowest price (plus shipping): $4.24

A Pocket Guide to Writing in History by Mary Lynn Rampolla

ISBN: 9780312247669

-         Bookstore price: $20.50

-         WCB lowest price (plus shipping): $4.24

World Religions: A Historical Approach by Solomon A. Nigosian

ISBN: 9780312442378

-         Bookstore price: $48.00

-         WCB lowest price (plus shipping): $24.00

Total bookstore price: $493.00

Total WCB price: $152.70

In this instance, you would save $340.30 or 69%! This proves that if you really want to save money on your next textbook purchase, use We Compare Books. Please take note, though, that prices change on a daily basis and that the prices you get may vary slightly.

If you are in college already you know the cost of textbooks can be quite outrageous. Each year they seem to get more and more expensive, and the textbook companies continue to introduce superfluous new editions that really don’t change that much.

There is one group (I mean there is one group besides We Compare Books) – or rather a collection of groups – that is trying to “fight against the machine”, http://www.maketextbooksaffordable.com. This site is dedicated to addressing the problem of escalating textbook costs and advocating solutions. They are a collection of student PIRGs (Public Interest Research Groups) from across the nation that want to address the concern of ever rising textbook costs. Their preamble reads:
“The cost of college textbooks has become a major affordability issue for low and middle income students, adding to the potential that these students will either drop out, take on additional loan debt to pay for textbooks, or undercut their own learning by forgoing the purchase of textbooks.
Textbook publishers have not responded adequately to these concerns, but have continued to exacerbate this problem by raising prices and employing practices such as unnecessarily issuing new editions of textbooks.
Faculty and students both share a concern about textbook affordability and its impact on student success.
We must address this problem without undermining the academic freedom of faculty to choose course content.”
Their website is full of useful information about why the textbook industry is broken, how it takes advantage of students, and what students can do to educate themselves and try to fight back. They also have a sign-up page where you can add your signature to the cause to increase their numbers and influence. I definitely recommend every student check it out.