eBooks and The Science Community

Carl Zimmer, Tom Levenson, David Dobbs, John Dupuis

Different perspectives. Author of ebook, someone writing an ebook, and librarian with books that don’t go up on shelves.

Carl Zimmer

·         wrote first book in 1998. eBooks were the future, but vanished with dot-com bust.

·         eBook graph is skyrocketing while publishing is used to slow gently declining graphs.

·         Smashwords: publish and distribute books.

·         Put together an ebook as just a book, text: OR put book together as an app.

·         David Eagleman – example of book with media

·         Marcus Chown – Solar System ebook

·         These super dynamic ebooks are not books, they aren’t linear, they are encyclopedias with articles.

Tom Levenson

·         “There’s nothing new under the sun.”

·         After Gutenberg invention there were millions of books, before there were only thousands.

·         Gutenberg Moment: explosion of data

·         Birth of book trade, birth of audience, new occupation of writers.

·         Becoming of the Books – recommended book on the growth of the book trade

·         Emergence of copyright law.

·         Half of books were religious, ten percent were law, and ten percent were science.

·         Each development in the media has unpredictable impacts on the genres and creative expression.

·         When you get cheap paper, you get newspapers and pulp novels.

·         What new genres will emerge from the ebook? ME: A hypertext document. Collection of quotes, links to authors and indexes.

·         Appbooks are a different medium. ME: But they are no different from websites.

·         Book isn’t dead. There are niche books. Cory Doctorow sells books in all different mediums.

·         We are at a Lumier Brother’s stage in app books, it’s enough to show simple tricks, but that won’t last, we need to go more substansive.

David Dobbs

·         Writing a regular book, but is also working on an app book version of it.

·         Slider to change gene varables to watch genes turn on and off.

·         Illustrations eliminate words. Books has words, which get eliminated in the app.

·         Different marketing versions of the book: basic ebook  $10, app book $15, cheaper modules $3

John Dupuis

·         Will spend $100,000 on ebooks this year, mostly computer science and engineering.

·         Authors and publishers are often suspicious of librarians because their job is to provide access to content to people who can’t afford it or won’t pay for it.

·         What is the ebook business model? It will go the same route as the music industry. People will still pay for books, but in an itunes model.

·         What’s the sharing model for apps? It works on your ipad now, but what will it work on 10 years from now. Will historians of writing be able to access the Elements a hundred years from now.

·         Apps allow monetizing every reading transaction, and that is evil.

Questions:

·         Nancy Schuler: writing ipad text for National Geographic, love you graphics designers

·         ME: Google Android version of books?

·         JA Konrath: making money with DIY publishing

·         Comment: I don’t want you wasting time working on apps if it detracts from your time spent crafting good writing.

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Various notes taken from the conference session on science education with Stacy Baker's biology students:

• Jack – into games, not many learning games out there. – homeVSschool technology use: what’s allowed in the different contexts, home is about socialization, school is about productivity, need to intersect the two. (Media needs to relate to him, technology, chemistry “New Social Network of Atoms Creates New Compounds”)
• Michael – into vlogs, recording things on a research boat – students want hands-on activities, looking for internships, homeVschool: school tumbler account and home personal tumbler account to distinguish uses of productivity and socialization. PLoS was a great resource.
• Carl – into Classroom blogs, likes tumbler sciokid.tumblr.com. Baker sends opportunities all the time and preparing for scio11. Was inspired by Baker showing him how people around the world were seeing her website
• Paul – into wikis, allow students to express themselves, science online wiki, Proj: you have to put yourself out there, read newspapers and follow links to find things, NYT and Wired, (Interest: be interesting enough and esoteric as well, be terse without complicated jargon)
• Naseem– into science literacy, how media , nature blog (Adult readers) rely on word of mouth for students to find the blog
• Samantha – encourage more student blogs, students communicate at  a level appropriate to other students, Green Science, global warming, (What about Adult readers) adults can still read her blog, but she is targeting her
• Alexandra – believer in personalizing education, more into humanities, used podcasts and youtube, youtube.com/vlogbrothers, - teenagers want to feel like they are doing something, they want to participate and contribute. homeVSschool: the more competitive college search gets, the more she uses her laptop at home for educational purposes, looking for opportunities to improve chances of getting into colleges, MSNBC, Google News for facts, This Week in Tech Podcast, Relatability (how something relates to me) is important for having something catch her eye, Carl Zimmer cut to the chase about Duck Mating by calling it Duck Sex
• Justin – blogging, using blogs in a variety of ways in science learning, frogs with the citric fungal disease and blogged it
• Rachel Ward – chemistry teacher, using online tools to make the classroom a more exciting place
• I’m A Scientist, Get Me Out of Here: imascientist.org.uk, website where students chat with scientsts and vote for their favorites, least votes get evicted, connected students in remote areas to scientists around the world, allows quieter students to participate more in class discussions, what about when scientists give wrong answers (they should say “I don’t know”), why isn’t there a USA version of this? (Kiome Jarrets: People need to complain. State by state engagement)
• Shanahan – research online science communication, science education professor, works to get students interested in science, reduce their fear, arsenic life story, had students choose a blog and follow it for a month and write a book report on what the blog was about and a lesson sequence for future classes on the blog, students found science blogs were interesting, easy to understand, students used blog the same way they used books and magazine-no engagement no using comments, need bloggers who will give students an interactive experience,
• Audience Comment: everone is trying to find balance between professional and personal technology use, separating and integrating.