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debate

The Great eBook Debate – launch of Isobelle Carmody’s Greylands as an ebook

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Reposted from Melbourne High School Library blog.

A brilliant idea to build up to a launch of any sort is to make something happen before it. Even more brilliant is to bring all sorts of interesting people to the party and allow them to say something as creatively as they wish. Open this up to everyone else and you have The Great ebook debate on a website that was designed to self destruct within a month as an elaborate countdown to the launch of Isobelle Carmody’s much loved Greylands.

Isobelle explains:

An online launch seems to me the most divinely apt way to relaunch Greylands as an eBook. It was always one of my personal favorites among the books I have written, for reasons you will discover here, as the days pass, but it was out of print. Now books have always gone out of print and authors have always accepted they must, unless they rose into the heavens as classics. But in this brave new world of eBooks, there is no longer any need for any book to go out of print. Cyberspace is the library of the infinite.

In a strange twist of fate, following Isobelle’s gracious contribution to my students’ blog, I was honoured as one of the people contributing to the ebook debate. I pulled out my grandmother’s gorgeous autograph book, falling apart but full of exquisitely drawn illustrations and original poetry in Russian and German, and mused on what we’ve lost and what we’ve gained in terms of physical and digital resources. You can read it here if you are so inclined.

What is definitely worth reading is the line-up of authors and other interesting people who have unique perspectives about ebooks versus traditional print books. Guest writers are featured each week, and the resulting discussions in the comment sections are worth reading. But why read when you can contribute your views and enter into the debate yourself.

This week’s guest blogger is Gary Crew whose post is entitled The Storymaker. Hot off the press and already attracting comments, Gary joins the list of writers which includes Judith Ridge, Virginia Lowe, Paul Collins, Richard Harland, Nick Bland, Sophie Masson – to name only a few.

The only thing I don’t like about this whole enterprise is the fact that it will disappear very soon. It’s such a shame when there’s so much good stuff which should really be published, perhaps even as hardcopy, or even as an emagazine – what do you think?

Go on, have a look before it’s too late.

Thanks Isobelle.

[vimeo http://www.vimeo.com/43377736 w=400&h=300]

21st century learning, Collaboration

Writing for an authentic audience, being real. Thanks Isobelle Carmody.

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Nick and I are very excited about the way our Year 9 blogs are developing. But before I go any further – Isobelle Carmody has visited us in a guest post!! Isobelle has been very gracious and has taken the time to write down her thoughts for our boys. I would like to share her entire post with you:

I was never much for diaries, and then I read the Diary of Anne Frank, and it was so vivid and real and it felt so true, that I have on and off again over the years, tried to write diaries. I was never very good at them, perhaps because I was the only audience and it seemed to me that I poured the best of myself, the truest words I could write, into my books. You might smirk at this, given I am captive in the fantasy genre corral (save when I can jump the fence and go for a midnight roam in the other paddocks or even out into the wild, where there are no rules or fences). But I don’t see the best fantasy as escapism. I see it as an attempt mostly to try to look at human existence from the outside. To get outside of ourselves, because reality always feels like I am too close to the mirror to see properly. You know when someone shows you something and they hold it too close?  For me right from the age of 14 when I first started to write, I was striving to get some distance, some breathing and thinking space, and fantasy and science fiction allowed this. For me it is a very philosophical genre – it allows me to grapple with the great questions of human existence. Why am I here?  What is the nature of existence?  Am I (are we) FOR anything? Why are humans capable of such wonderful and dreadful extremes of behavior? etc
When Ms Sheko asked if I would like to post on your site, I came to visit to see how I would fit in there. I was immediately taken by the techno-beetle, and then that lovely quote from Thomas Mann had me hooked. It was also timely because having resisted blogging as I resist all new things that force me to pay attention to the world and hence to neglect the worlds I am building in my imagination, I was asked by the State Library blog for a month Inside a Dog. I was intrigued and agreed before I could stop myself. So, ten days and five posts in, I am really fascinated and interested in the process, because it seems to me like a diary and yet it does have an audience and feeling that, it causes me to treat the material I want to talk about differently. Unlike books, it does exactly what Mr Fairlie talks about in your site – it allows me to try out ideas on paper (well, cyberpaper) for an audience that may or may not read me, but they might, and so I have to take their presence seriously. It allows me to find out what I think about things- that in fact is what I think all writing should be about. Writers figuring out the world for themselves.So, good luck to all of you and take full advantage of this site. It really does help you to think better.

Oh, and if any of you would like to visit me, either send me a friend request on Facebook or better still, come visit me this month on Inside the Dog– it is a lot less unsavoury than it sounds. Here is the link to the latest blog and you can read down and back from there. There are lots of other fabulous blogs too, and you gcan get to all of them.http://www.insideadog.com.au/blog/short-story-pt-1

best wishes

Isobelle Carmody

I particularly love this section of Isobelle’s post

I am really fascinated and interested in the process, because it seems to me like a diary and yet it does have an audience and feeling that, it causes me to treat the material I want to talk about differently. Unlike books, it does exactly what Mr Fairlie talks about in your site – it allows me to try out ideas on paper (well, cyberpaper) for an audience that may or may not read me, but they might, and so I have to take their presence seriously.

Having an audience, even a potential one, apart from the teacher and outside the classroom, sets the boys in a completely different space. I know that because I’ve been writing blogs for a few years, and although I’m never sure who will read my writing, I have a sense that somebody out there might, and so I write for that somebody. That’s entirely different to writing a prescribed piece of writing you know your teacher will read – not for pleasure, but in order to give a mark.

Amazingly, Nick has already seen evidence of this awareness in our boys within a very short time –

They are all really experimenting with voices. I love the difference in voice between the first and subsequent posts. They very often go over the top, and mimic what they think is an adult voice. This is so much better than what they usually produce, which is the voice they think is the ‘right’ one (bland and devoid of personality).

I’m overwhelmed by what is happening in these blog spaces within such a short time. The boys have demonstrated some excellent philosophical thinking. In the second task they have reflected on what constitutes learning, whether this happens in or out of school and about their ideal learning context. They have been reading each others’ posts and have started to have meaningful discussions. This is a far cry from the banal commenting which is often associated with teenage social media environments. This is high quality writing, reflection, evaluation and interaction.

Most of all, the boys are feeling their way into their blog spaces. They are starting to feel comfortable in their blogs and are finding their authentic voices. As Nick has observed, the quality of their writing has increased noticeably. Some are using images to complement their writing. It hasn’t taken long at all.

Who says deep learning isn’t possible within social media?

Take a look at the boys’ blogs, their online conversations. Please come in here and leave a comment.