[the reading revolution seminar]

I'm home now (whew!) after an amazing time at Penguin headquarters on The Strand. I was one of 5 speakers and my brief was to talk about how teens are reading today (i.e. vis-a-vis digital technologies).


I spoke last and I think my presentation worked well as a summary of thoughts and questions that had been raised at the beginning of the session. Sue Horner speaking as Head of Standards and Assessment Policy, QCA noted that for the first time ever the National Curriculum includes the word "multimodal." Sue explained it was one small step but it's certainly in the right direction. Second to speak was Josh Beasley, the voice of a "young person" as the seminar flyer eloquently described him. While he admitted that he doesn't use the 'net as much as some of his friends he certainly IMs and texts (that helped support some of what I said in my presentation). Cally Poplak, Director of Egmont Press, the third speaker, gave an optimistic talk on reading from a publisher's point of view. Unlike the Digitise or Die session in April, here we enjoyed the refreshing optimism about digital reading. While Cally reminded us that she loves books (don't we all) and called herself a luddite (but she did have a powerpoint!) her enthusiasm for the future of digital literature was palpable. She made an interesting point; a book is just a method of production, it's the content that's important. I bet quite a few people would argue that a book is a book is a book because of it's touch, smell, the whole experience but great to hear a publisher look beyond that. Although let me remind readers that I personally don't forsee (not desire) the demise of the book and in it's place the rise of a bland and cold e-book reader. But technology will develop thus making the digital reading an experience of its own. Following on from Cally came Paul Duffield, a Manga Artist interested in making Shakespeare ("The Tempest" in this case) more accessible to young people (grr arg, that was the term for the evening and now it's really starting to bug me). He showed some lovely images, his own drawings, and walked us through a reading of a panel. Fascinating stuff. Then there was me. I began with an audience survey (raising hands) to get an idea of how people in the room (teachers, librarians, policy makers, book lovers, editors, publishers, education consultants, etc...) use social media. I was pleasantly surprised to see almost everyone had watched youtube videos but only one person had a facebook account (at least only one admitted to it). I concluded my presentation by following in Sue Thomas's footsteps and played Michael Wesch's The Machine is Using/Us Video; a good way to sum up in general terms what's happening to reading and writing thanks to certain kinds of technology.

The question period/panel discussion swept past much too quickly but I was very pleased to be able to address questions during the final networking (a.k.a. drinks) session. Quite a lot of people came over with joyous praise for the idea of transliteracy (are you reading Sue?!) and I'm booked in to a few places (already) to share my view of translit. in an online environment and pedagogical sense. How do we teach our students to be transliterate? Good question.

A few issues that seemed to keep cropping up (especially during the networking session):

1) age - there seemed to be a worry that the digital divide was actually an age divide. I was put on the spot about this but voiced my personal opinion that I do *not* think it's an age issue at all. It's about personality and wanting to try new things and wanting to adapt. Not all 18 year olds want a Facebook account, age isn't a guarantor of desire to use new media NOR does it suggest a capacity to understand that media (i.e. critical literacy). In fact, John Dolan, head of library policy at the Museums, Libraries and Archives Council brought up the age question and adamantly agreed that age doesn't really figure into the equation in this sense.

2) copyright - creative commons came up but of course with publishing it gets very tricky. Where's the business model that guarantees authors payment for something that is freely available on the 'net (I know Kate, Chris, and Ian are wondering about this too).

3) how might libraries become webby - I was directly posed this question...I don't know. It'll take a lot of effort and time. The main thing, I suppose, is to use social media technology within the library environment, provide access to things kids are doing at school or at home. When the librarian shows students around the library for their first visit (here are the oversized books, here are the paperbacks etc...) why not tour library thing and have a facebook page (like Toronto's Ryerson University) where updates of the latest acquisitions are posted etc...?

My thanks go to Debbie Hicks, Ruth Harrison, and Jenny Warner from the Reading Agency. They were all fabulous and extremely helpful (especially Jenny with all the techy worries at the beginning!). Thanks to Sammy for the use of his laptop which enabled my presentation to run and connect to the internet.

Thanks also to the audience who was extremely receptive and welcoming.

Quite a few people asked for my presentation (including someone from Florida who is visiting England)so here it is via slideshare: