Twirling elements on the iPad

One of the few technologies of late that offers blanket appeal to both young and old is the post-PC device, iPad. With applications like BusyCal, that offers calendar organization, or iStudiez Pro that simplifies homework schedules and timelines, the versatile iPad offers a multidimensional educational tool that engages uninspired students.

Even more exciting, is the idea of getting kids enthused about reading. While I hope there will always be a place for the traditional bound book, the e-book capability of the iPad offers an experience that may attract otherwise uninterested readers. Titles aimed at teens are selling extremely well. The Twilight series by Stephanie Meyer, Justin Bieberʼs autobiography, and I Am Number Four by Pittacus Lore have been near the top of most downloaded lists for OverDrive. Among the Top 150, as published by USA Today, are titles in the Hunger Games series by Suzanne Collins, the Percy Jackson series by Rick Riordan, and Kristin Castʼs vampire books. Seven of the top 25 bestselling e-books last week were books for youth, which doesnʼt take into account the many teens who read adult books as well.

As with any new technology, cost is always a factor. I am old enough to remember when the transition from typewriters to word processors meant a minimum $300 price tag, and that was is the late ’80s. That was a chunk of change for something that pretty much just “processed words.” And letʼs remember when purchasing a home computer meant exploring financing options.

Harry Potter app for the iPad

The iPad offers a multitude of fun, educational applications that can open a window of wonder to a child. Imagine reading exploring Harry Potter, as the pages come to life with color and movement. See in the mindʼs eye how classics like Mary Shelleyʼs Frankenstein, written nearly 200 years ago, can inspire young readers today to turn off the television and jump head first into an e-book.

If we want kids to read more, to have fun organizing their busy school schedules, and learn using a device that is both high-tech and cool—consider the possibilities offered by an iPad.

Presenters facilitated workshops, showed clips of films, passed around screenplays, showed selections of their work from online portfolios, and answered student questions as well as questions from their fellow presenters. Ooligan Press presented later in the day to a small but enthusiastic group of high school students, all interested in writing in some form. We gave an overview of how Ooligan works and its relationship to the graduate program at PSU and the wider Pacific Northwest community, then opened our presentation up to questions from the students. The students were awesome! They asked smart, focused questions and really listened to our responses, and we got into a great discussion towards the end of our presentation about the digital revolution in publishing, what it means to be a good editor, small presses vs. “the Big Six,” and why paper books still matter to readers, both young and old.

Despite the small turnout, we were happy to attend and look forward to doing so again next year.

While the books on our bookshelves are often considered to be keepsakes or even prized possessions, textbooks tend to become obsolete once their corresponding class has ended. My $65 Biology textbook, bought for a Gen. Ed. requirement of a single summer course, now sits in a box in my closet, emitting carbon dioxide. However, the frugal (and environmentally-conscious) student now has other options. The rise of the e-book is revolutionizing the way that we think about printing, and each year more and more colleges and universities are offering textbook rental in addition to sales.

Portland State University allows students the option to rent textbooks directly from the campus bookstore, returning the book at the end of the term. Independent rental sources, such as Chegg.com, Ecampus.com, and Barnes and Noble possess hundreds of titles that students can rent for a fraction of the price of purchasing: Chegg.com offers a $65 English Literature textbook for a $25 rental, and a $140 Biology textbook for only $40. Textbook rental websites offer rentals based on demand, so common middle and high-school textbooks, often costing $60 or more, are also available.

Currently, the Portland State Bookstore only offers rentals on textbooks that are used for multiple terms, which brings up another issue in the textbook discussion. Textbooks are very often re-released in new editions, creating more and more discarded copies, each with hundreds of pages or more. As a trade that works exclusively with paper, printing is in essence an unsustainable industry, and even the new phenomenon of textbook rental does not prevent the waste of tons of paper. In addition, the huge market for used books allows companies to make profit from books without the authors or publishers ever seeing a dime from each additional sale of their work. However, there is another option.

Enter the e-textbook.

E-Readers such as Amazon’s Kindle and Barnes and Noble’s NOOK give students the option to download textbooks for even less than the cost of textbook rental. Additionally, the use of e-textbooks reduces paper printing and prevents costly textbooks from sitting unused on a shelf long after they have ceased to be of use. Many companies offer teachers free digital samples of textbooks to encourage purchase for the classroom, and limitations on downloading prevent books from being resold at the expense of the author.

However, all good things come at a price, and the e-reader has its drawbacks as well. Many digital display devices, such as e-readers, are notorious for their relatively brief shelf lives, and discarded electronic devices can be even more detrimental to the environment than paper books—leaking toxins like lead, cadmium, and mercury. Much of the e-reader’s ability to be more sustainable than the traditional book depends on a complete shift from books to electronic devices: Environmentalgraffiti.com suggests that “e-readers have the possibility to offset their carbon emissions in one year, if used as a complete and total replacement of books. But, if people continue to use their e-readers along with traditional books and decide to update after a few years, no real good has been done.” Even so, the e-reader is still a relatively new device, and time will gauge its environmental worth.

The college student of today has in most instances (and with more possibilities to come) the option of purchasing hardcopy textbooks, renting hardcopy textbooks, purchasing e-textbooks, or renting e-textbooks. It is up to the student to weigh the pros and cons of each option, considering value, fair business practices, and environmental impact. Whatever the choice, today’s students are witness to the revolutionizing of the publishing industry, a revolution that will bring sustainability and practicality, in addition to affordability.

This assignment exposed the class to a real-life work experience, incorporating creative writing, drawing, cooperation, and imagination into a medium that is not often identified with education. It also allowed each student to experience being both leader and follower. The follow-up discussions to such an involved project are almost limitless. Teachers can discuss how important strong communication skills are, or continue dialogue on script-interpretation, strong character development, or creating visual art.

One great example of a comic that was written and illustated by a student.

And because the platform is so simple—create a comic book—it is easily adjusted for the needs of any classroom. This assignment can be completed in one day with limited editing, or it could be a term project cumulating with bound copies that can be shared with the school library and presented at parent-teacher night. It could be an assignment done early in the school year, serving as an icebreaker, and then again toward the end of year, using the first experience as a learning model for what to do differently the second time through.

Alternately, a group of students can work on one comic together, each being responsible for a different part of the final product: plot and writing, illustrations and color, editing, binding, presenting, and so on. It gives the students an opportunity to use their skills and take pride in a finished product. The content can even be subject specific; the assignment could be to research a science topic, and then create a science-comic book based on the research.

The applications are vast. What is so inspiring is that students are exposed to a real-world experience that encourages them to problem-solve within a group, and work towards a common solution. Teachers are able to take on the role of collaborators, and allow their students to assert different skills, from leadership to editing to illustration.

Classroom Publishing is full of ideas like the classroom comic book; check it out for more ideas on how publishing can enhance your classroom full of eager minds.

Having access to the Odin Ink POD machine at the PSU Bookstore was a huge step forward for my Book Design & Production students. Seeing a book bound and trimmed is one of the most rewarding and instructional moments in a designer’s education. It’s just so different from the proof pages we print on our office printers because the book is an actual 3-D object that has weight and personality. This new technology has allowed PSU’s publishing students to make that final step and bring their classroom projects into the real world. It gives them a tremendous advantage to be able to hand over a real book to a potential employer or client. The proof of their abilities is right there for all to see.

While students at professional schools and universities are using POD to develop more sophisticated portfolios, any student of classroom publishing can take advantage of this technology to see their hard work realized in actual book form. Traditionally, one would have to spend hundreds, if not thousands of dollars on print set-up before even one copy could be produced, but with POD a single copy can be printed for under ten dollars.

Offset Printing Machine (5-color)

In traditional printing, there is a substantial investment of time and energy to set up the print run. In order to make it cost effective, it is usually necessary to print a thousand copies or more. POD technology allows publishers to print as few copies as necessary, even if it’s just one. Preparation costs in off-set printing usually start around six hundred dollars, in addition to a per-unit cost. Before POD, the idea of printing a single copy, or even a hundred, made no economic sense. This is what makes classroom publishing now such an exciting adventure. With POD, classroom publishing is not just an academic exercise—it’s a real world, hands-on experience, giving students from elementary, middle school, and high-school the opportunity to produce a few copies of a book to keep in their school library, or make a hundred and sell them for a fundraiser.

A professionally printed and bound book from a Print On Demand machine

Looking back, Dipstick wasn’t much of a story. The protagonist was pretty one-dimensional, and it lacked any sort of conflict. But I got some laughs out of it, and went on to write a few sequels. I had caught the writing bug. That year I wrote a thriller about a homicidal shark, a murder mystery that took place during the Super Bowl, a poem about the Christmas Owl, a war epic starring my dog and my iguana, and an unofficial prequel to the original Star Wars movies that I have yet to receive any royalties for. To the Glendale-Feilbach Elementary School community, I was a hit. The confidence has never subsided.

Creative writing fell by the wayside during high school, to be replaced by admissions essays and academic rigor. It wasn’t until freshman English, in college, that a teacher who had seen Dead Poets Society a few too many times started encouraging me to write again with the same unbounded enthusiasm that my fifth grade teacher had. So I tried it again, and thought, Hey, I remember this. I like this. I’m kind of good at this! Four years later I got my first degree in writing. Now I’m in the PSU Publishing program. If I do anything quasi-successful, I think I’m going to have to cut my fifth grade teacher a check.

Classroom publishing, at least in my case, was a great way to help a young daydreamer focus his thoughts without stifling his imagination. And the earlier a child can give it a try, the more profound an effect it can have on him or her. Hopefully teachers will continue to use this site to find resources, tips, information, and insights to help engage children in writing and publishing at the elementary level. It’s important to inspire them at an early age. Because, as we get older, we risk losing that spark, being overly concerned with things like business and reason. And that’s how youthful fantasy turns into Star Wars: Episode I—The Phantom Menace.

The characteristics of what we will call “new models” (as opposed to “traditional models”) that are prevalent already in the field, and indeed seem prudent and desirable, can be summed up as following (this list is by no means meant to be comprehensive, rather, it is meant as a jumping off point in researching new models for publishing houses):

• They are more focused and integrated with digital media than traditional models.  As eBooks and the various devices that display them become more diverse and sophisticated, new models are taking this into account, designing with the digital platform in mind, or publishing solely in electronic format.  Smart-phone apps and online distribution and marketing also figure heavily in new models.

• New models use hybridized or non-standard business models.  Certainly this can mean a multitude of things, and emerging technology and the dynamic state of publishing as a whole admit more possibilities daily.  For our purposes though we can identify the following as some examples of what this might mean:

1. Non-profit corporation
2. Digital-only publisher
3. Teaching press, relying on students as non-paid employees
4. Print-on-demand publisher
5. Some combination of these and/or other traits

• New models are self-conscious of their status as players in a rapidly changing game, and they take a proactive approach integrating emerging technologies into their business model and work flow.  At the same time, they also seek to create new technologies or uses for it.  Basically, the new models are the movers and shakers.  They know the industry is being shaken up, and in fact they are counting on it and are trying to influence the path it takes.

By studying companies that embody the above traits, we might be able to gain greater insight into the forces that shape the ocean of modern publishing, and the ships that are best suited to sail it.  To those who would argue that all modern publishing houses do these things, and thus my proposed study is simply one of the publishing industry in general, I would say two things:

1.      Not all companies do these things in equal amounts, or have the ability to.  We need to study a company’s model in light of its size and sphere of influence.  This means narrowing our criteria for what it means to be a “new model,” while acknowledging that most companies are somewhere along the spectrum.

2.      Not all companies do these things equally well.  Some companies are pioneers, while others are reactionary trend-followers.  This of course involves a somewhat qualitative judgment, but by looking more closely at the industry and the players succeeding and failing on the forefront its evolution, perhaps we can identify more quantitative methods of discerning who is the dog, and who is the tail.

In light of these two observations, it is clear that there would be benefits to such a study.  If individual companies undertake such research internally, they will no doubt reap some valuable information for use in their own agendas.  However, these studies would be inherently limited in their purpose, if not their scope.  A task force composed of many different voices from within the various branches of the publishing industry could offer a much broader and more accurate picture of the current landscape, in the interest of furthering the industry as a whole, as opposed to boosting a single company’s bottom line.

Surpassing the string and paper model of bookmaking, two classrooms at Lincoln High School collaborate every year to publish a thematic book of essays and illustrations. Through the artistic efforts of Jerod Schmidt’s graphic arts’ classes and Jordan Gutlerner’s Reading the Media class, 10^th and 11^th grade students are given the opportunity to be published before they ever leave high school. Using one of the many new self-publishing venues available online, students write, layout, and design every aspect of the book.

The book most recently published, Watch Yourself!, incorporates a theme studied throughout the year in Gutlerner’s class: voyeurism and exhibitionism in contemporary society. Students wrote essays and poems in response to lectures and several books studied throughout the year. Then, the work was passed into the hands of the graphic arts classes. Using tools they learned about digital media and design, they created illustrations for the work.

The books provide an exceptional conduit for learning, while selling the finished product raises money for the technology needs in the classrooms.

The publishing project created by these Lincoln students each year is inventive and resourceful. Applying classroom curriculum and discussions into a finished product, these two classes are modeling the collaboration and application that our staff at Ooligan aims to be, as representatives of our authors’ creative endeavors.

More information about Watch Yourself! and other works can be found at here.

The classroom atmosphere is what determines the amount of risks that a student is going to take in writing. Children need to feel support and acceptance from their teachers and from one another in order to be willing to take risks in their writing—and risks are necessary in the process of writing well. It is only when children feel safe from criticism that they become eager to write and share their writing.

This is where publishing comes into play. When working with publishing in a classroom, children become both author and audience with for each other’s pieces. Instead of questioning the teacher, they question each other, and the classroom becomes a community of writers. As authors, children improve their writing with the help of ideas from their audience. As audience, they have the chance to see their ideas blossom with the help of a fellow writer. This shift from one role to another helps children become more perceptive writers and readers.

In my childhood classrooms there were various activities that encouraged us to write and share our writing. We would each compose a poem or short story on our own and then it would be compiled into a class book for everyone to keep forever. I still have all of mine. Sometimes, we would compose a poem as a group, debating what words would fit best and where they would fit. We discussed and which poetic styles we wanted to include.

I remember one poem that was read to us for encouragement in my Kindergarten class. It went something like this:

I can write about kings, and stings,
and hippopotamuses’ wings.
I can write about me,
or you,I’m a writer—whackydoo!

The ditty is still in my head, years later, reminding me why writing is fun, and creative, and inspiring—all because of how my teachers made the classroom writing environments an adventurous place.

Kristen Svenson is one of the newest members of the Classroom Publishing team.

The IPRC is a terrific resource for teachers and youth who are interested in classroom publishing. The center hosts regular monthly groups that are either limited to teens only or for all ages. Zine Canteen takes place every Sunday from Noon to 5:00 pm. It is open to youth, ages 8–18, to drop in and work on their personal zine projects. Staff are on hand to help and the IPRC provides materials, support, and snacks. The IPRC also hosts the Comics and Coffee group every second Sunday of the month (all ages) from 5:00 pm to 8:00 pm. People of all artistic abilities are invited to come and work on their own comics and imbibe some caffeine!

The IPRC generously offers tours of the center to groups, which could be a great class field trip. But if getting your class to IPRC isn’t feasible, consider availing yourself of one of the center’s various outreach workshops. They offer lectures and workshops tailored to the age of your group. Workshops vary in subject matter. For example, the Media Action Project introduces youth to concepts of media literacy, and offers an opportunity for young people to create a zine using their new-found critical thinking skills. The Neighborhood History Project shows participants the steps a group of teenage girls took to create a documentary zine of their Parkrose neighborhood. Zines 101 is the IPRC’s basic workshop that introduces youth to the history of the zine, and leads participants through the process of creating their own such publication.

Additionally, the IPRC has led workshops and created projects that serve disenfranchised youth that are on the streets or in the social service system in some way. It is clear that this form of diy self-expression and publishing is a wildly creative medium accessible to just about anyone. The means of expressing oneself and sharing ones’ life experiences through classroom publishing can be a deeply empowering activity for many young people. The IPRC is a local gem that is here for teachers and youth alike!

The IPRC is open: Monday, noon to 10:00 pm; Tuesday–Thursday, 4:00 pm to 10:00 pm; Friday–Saturday, noon to 6:00 pm; Sunday, noon to 5:00 pm (youth only), and 5:00 pm to 8:00 pm.

Visit the IPRC at:

• 917 SW Oak Street #218 in Portland, Oregon
• Phone: 503.827.0249
• Email: info@iprc.org

What are some great places for students to hang out in your neighborhood?