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Month: June 2014

Weeknote 24/2014

Posted on by Doug Belshaw

This week I’ve been:

  • Co-chairing the kick-off meeting for the Badge Alliance working group on Digital / Web Literacies. You can find the recording here.
  • Figuring out Web Literacy ‘Maker’ badges with the help of Matt Thompson, Michelle Thorne and Laura Hilliger. This has taken longer than you’d think, but I’m pleased with what we’ve agreed upon. More on this soon.
  • Helping out Laura Hilliger and Amira Dhalla with partnership training for Maker Party.
  • Celebrating the launch of the wonderful Mozilla Discover project with this blog post.
  • Planning for the launch of my e-book The Essential Elements of Digital Literacies on June 27th.
  • Replying to comments on my latest DMLcentral post entitled Reclaiming the Web for the Next Generation.
  • Moderating this week’s #TeachTheWeb community call. You can catch up here.
  • Thinking through how different parts of the Webmaker ecosystem fit together with regards to pathways.
  • Choosing an updated version (from Cassie McDaniel‘s options) of the Web Literacy Map’s competency grid. Sweet.
  • Moving my personal email away from GMail to a self-hosted solution. I’ll blog about it soon.
  • Approached for a couple of bits of consultancy work, which I’ll probably take on as they’re interesting.
  • Invited to speak at the Indie Tech Summit – which I was planning to attend anyway!

Next week I’m at home again all week. I’m getting into quite a routine…

Old photo of Morpeth (where I live) from Tyne & Wear Archive & Museums

Reclaiming the Web for the Next Generation [DMLcentral]

Posted on by Doug Belshaw

Reclaiming the Web for the Next Generation

My 20th post for DMLcentral has now published. Entitled Reclaiming the Web for the Next Generation, my aim was to point out a fundamental problem with the way we ‘pay’ for our technology (i.e. through user data) and how that applies to education.

I’d love your comments on it – I’ve closed them here so you can do so over there!

Click here to read the post

 

Launch preparations for ‘The Essential Elements of Digital Literacies’

Posted on by Doug Belshaw

Introduction

Rocket
CC BY Steve Jurvetson

Over the past couple of years I’ve been working on an e-book entitled The Essential Elements of Digital Literacies. While charging for the book, I’ve worked in the open as much as possible using the OpenBeta process I came up with back in 2009. In a nutshell, the earlier people buy into the process of the book, the cheaper it is for them. In return, I get feedback.

So far, and with 18 days until the June 27th launch, some 297 people have bought into the book. I’m incredibly grateful for the encouragement, ideas, and copyediting I’ve received from a good proportion of that number.

In this post, I want to outline briefly my plans for what happens at v1.0 launch and afterwards. I’m very much making it up as I go along, so feedback is welcome!

v1.0 launch

The Essential Elements of Digital LiteraciesI’m launching v1.0 of The Essential Elements of Digital Literacies on June 27th, commemorating exactly two years since the my Ed.D. graduation ceremony in Durham Cathedral. My doctoral thesis, started while a classroom teacher and completed while working in Higher Education, was entitled What is digital literacy? A Pragmatic investigation.

To accompany the launch, I’m planning:

‘Nice to have’ for launch, and definitely available at some point this year:

  • Kindle version
  • ePUB version
  • audiobook version

The tricky question of money

As I’ve said before, the main reason I decided to charge for this e-book was not actually financial. I wanted to further test the OpenBeta model but, even more importantly, asking people to buy into the book led to at least three benefits:

  1. I had an existing audience to write for
  2. I established a means of gaining valuable feedback
  3. People (perhaps) value content more when they have to pay for it

The launch price of The Essential Elements of Digital Literacies will be £7.99. Purchasers – new and existing – will get every version that’s available in DRM-free formats. That includes the audiobook when it’s available, read in my sultry northern accent(!)

After launch, I’m going to reduce the price regularly (perhaps every six months) until, on 27th July 2016, it will be free and the e-book released into the Public Domain. Doing this will make it easier to integrate the book and the wiki in a similar way to the example shown by Yochai Benkler’s The Wealth of Networks.

Finally, on money, it’s worth saying that a proportion of what I’ve made so far – and what I will make – will go to good causes as part of our family’s planned giving.

Conclusion

I’ve very much enjoyed the process of writing The Essential Elements of Digital Literacies and nurturing a small community around it. I’m very much looking forward to the reviews from people like you and finding out how people use the e-book as a resource for practical action.

If you’d like to get involved in the launch, you’re very welcome to do so. Version 0.99 of the e-book will be available until June 20th, and ways you can help with the launch are detailed on this wiki page.

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