Week 13: Review and Conclusions

Week 13: Review and Conclusions

Narratives can be published in various online ways: 

• Voicethreads
• Skype
• Blogs
• Wikis
• Social Bookmarks/Folksonomy
• Diigo
• Evernote
• Flickr
• Netvibes
• Twitter
• E-mail
• Google Pages
• Facebook

Anyone Can Publish

A timely example of how even the youngest learners can demonstrate transliteracy (http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/3-little-pigs/id357980333?mt=8). Henry Dewey created his own illustrations to interpret “The Three Little Pigs” and then with the assistance of his father, created an iPhone app for people to read his version of the story, which includes Henry’s narration of the tale.

Henry Dewey is a typical 8-year-old. He loves to build with Legos and annoy his little sister, hoping to someday own a reptile to terrorize her with.

The first-grader at Trinity Episcopal School in Rollingwood is also doing some nontraditional things: Henry just released his first iPhone application, an e-book version of the folk tale “The Three Little Pigs.”

Using pen and ink, Henry spent the entire fall semester creating the illustrations for his book during an after-school art program at Trinity.

“I like being creative, making bobbleheads on paper,” Henry said.

Early in the process, he decided he wanted to transform his project into an iPhone application to provide more options on the gadget for children.

He told his father, Mark Dewey — himself an iPhone application developer — about his idea. When Henry finished the illustrations, the drawings were converted into a digital format. Then his dad helped turn the project into the application, rewriting the story and having Henry narrate it.

“At a young age to know you can be a creator, in the mainstream of American culture, that can be powerful,” said Mark Dewey, whose digital media company, Geoki, published the app. “We hope that carries on through his growing and his life.”

Books Without Paper and Libraries Without Walls

Of the readings, three are the jumping off point for this posting. Bobbi Newman writes that people need libraries to take on the task of helping them become transliterate (" Libraries and Transliteracy Slideshow," 2009). In her blog posting, Strange says “libraries provide ACCESS and COMMUNITY [Strange’s emphasis] to those who want it. And neither of those things, along with learning, are dependent on a technology, a medium, or a casing” ("Why we should stop caring," 2010). Finally, Charlotte Abbott poses the question as to whether e-books will destroy libraries ( 2010).

Libraries, in the meantime, appear to be stepping up to the challenge of the 21^st century, offering a range of digital and traditional services. Edmonton Public Library (EPL), for one, appears to have invested heavily into its online presence at epl.ca; it also is expanding its physical presence in communities such as Millwoods. People seem to be responding; in  2009, a population of 80,000 in that community generated 600,000 visits (“8278503222012045507648.PDF,” n.d.). In addition to its online presence and making e-books available to readers, the library is also lending e-readers (Unknown, 2012). It seems EPL’s wraparound approach isn’t limited to the provision of traditional offerings. A social worker has recently been hired at the downtown library to work with its regular users who have mental health and social issues. As the EPL says, “libraries act as community cornerstones that can help prevent and resolve societal challenges including drug abuse, crime and illiteracy that marginalize segments of the population” (“EPL receives over $600,000 for downtown community safety program,” 2011).

E-books, Digital Media and Publishing

Last fall, Teresa Sturgess (MACT 2011) and I thought we'd focus on e-books and publishing as the topic of an assignment in Comm 505. We didn't realize we were jumping into a huge topic that would introduce us to people like Robert Darnton, just about the most erudite librarian you're ever likely to meet who writes extensively on the history of the book, EPUB 3.0, XML, the future of academia and the technology behind a touchscreen. Besides wrinkling my brow trying to come up with a definition for an object as ubiquitous as 'book' and then realizing that others were also struggling, the essay was a wonderful jumping off point for New Media Narratives. I'm really looking forward to your comments, not least because we will be presenting this paper at the Media Ecology conference this June and need the practice answering questions about what we meant when we said x, y and z.

In my Delicious stack, I've provided a link to the blog on my webpage where you can find our paper "The Emerging Importance of the E-book and its Impact on Publishing." 

The second link is to a podcast interview by Trebor Scholz with Kathleen Fitzgerald, editor of the Media Common and an academic who invited online reviews of her latest book before publishing it. She argues that academia needs to change how it views academic work and reach "across the border between the academy and the public."  

The third reading is one recommended by Andy Campbell of Dreaming Methods. "Publishing and the Digital Revolution" is by Edward Picot delves deeper into many of the issues that Teresa and I touch on in our paper, including the crisis traditional publishers find themselves in and the merging platforms for e-books.  Picot also provides an interesting overview and examples of new media writing.



E-books, Digital Media and Publishing
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