I have been watching and reflecting on e-readers, e-texts and education for several years. The time has come, as per the walrus (Carroll, 1872), to bring together my reflections, make concrete my reflections and test my ideas in the pool of public opinion.
My larger goals are to at a minimum provide a foundation document for those who teach. The document, a proto-guidebook, will explore issues in using and creating e-texts and e-readers for education.
The situation is still too murky for a clear map, but we know enough to point out major landmarks, both mountain passes and areas of avalanche danger. We are perhaps at the age of Magellan with great discoveries still to be made but we can be confident at the general outlines.
Electronically the goal document has been on its own journey. Of course a new explorer starts with the familiar, and I have a pile of books about books, journal documents, newspaper articles, handwritten notes and other representatives of the print and paper age.
But I've also wandered the digital realm, using FreeMind concept mapping software, pdfs from online sources, epublications from major retailers, Word documents and now a blog. I am purposefully feeling the shape of this murky thing, all along the edges, inside and out, trying out kinesthetically and organically the forms these words are taking.
My goal for this blog is to help express those sensations, to articulate them in rough form before placing them in the guidebook. As with any project I expect to uncover deadends, half thoughts, side issues and place them here along with the major issues, insights, and implications because, of course, one can never tell which is which at first. Setting them all out here to ferment (foment?) in the sun will help me spot those that need to be fondly bade farewell and those that just need polishing to be made formally presentable.
Perhaps my audience will identify themselves and tell me who is interested. I'm told that authors today should focus on their niche and not worry about the larger audience (Writer's Digest July/Aug 2012).
Of course vanity says that everyone is impacted by changes in knowledge production and dissemination, that now it is within the reach of anyone to become an author, that we all are storytellers at heart and have been since the first auroch was painted on a cave wall by flickering fire, the first handprint pressed onto the wall proclaiming "I".
But honesty tells me I must attempt to define those to whom I am speaking or I shall surely fail to speak to any"one."
I most want to speak to those on the front line of education -- the teachers. Of that genus I am most familiar with college faculty having worked in higher education for 25 years, most of that with faculty on their concerns and dreams for teaching. As it stands today, they will be my first focus.
However, my mother was an elementary school teacher, my sister and two 2nd cousins middle and high school teachers. I don't presume to understand all of the issues for this group but I hope to write so that what I say is of use to any level of instruction.
I expect to attract the support tier for instructors...librarians, faculty developers, instructional designers, instructional technology persons. I welcome their insights gained from seeing across teaching situations and I believe my reflections will be of use to them, but not directly targeted to them other than as a tool that may be useful.
I may also find administrators in my reading group trying to make decisions about large-scale programs. I'll try to address some of those issues as I proceed as well.
So, goals set, audience described...what's next?
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