A father-son chat

My son Brady who draws the skunks for this blog is about to have one of his drawings published by a national journal. My fatherly advice to him...

Dear Son,

I am very proud that a national publication has asked to publish your work. I have always been proud of your wit, skill and creativity, and it is wonderful to see it recognized by the editors of a high quality magazine.

But it is time to have a little father-son talk about "reproductive" rights. I know how heady that feeling can be when you realize someone wants you, thinks you are wonderful. But son, please don't let this new relationship blind you to some realities of life. You may not want to hear this, but I say it only to protect you.

Look carefully at the language of the copyright agreement the Publisher wants you to sign:

Author hereby grants to Publisher all right, title, interest in and to the Work, including copyright in all means of expression by any method now known or hereafter developed, including electronic format...

Are you really willing to give up all rights to your baby - forever? You will never be able to use it again without asking permission of this first Publisher. The Publisher can use and reuse and sell your creative work again and again if it so chooses in any format, to any other Publisher, no matter how low and degraded. Is this really what you want?

I am old man and have been around the track a few times. Let me give you a suggestion. Send in your own publication agreement. Word it something like this:

The Author hereby grants the Publisher the exclusive right to the first publication of the Work in the ________ (date or volume) edition of  ____________ (title of publication) in print format only. This exclusive right extends only for 90 days after publication, after which the Author may republish the Work in any format or resell to any publisher. A separate permission must be granted for any use of the Work in any other issue of the publication, in any other publication, or in any other format. The Publisher may not resell the Work or grant permission to any other entity to use the Work without the Author’s written consent. The Author retains exclusive copyright ownership of the Work. 

What is the worst that can happen? The Publisher will say "no" and negotiations will continue.

Your creative work is what will sustain you financially and emotionally throughout your career. Learn, my dear boy, to treat it well, guard it carefully, and value it highly. Your father wants to make sure you earn enough money from your efforts to place him in a nursing home of high quality when he enters his dotage. Publishers are seductive, but they may have their best interests at heart, not yours.

Love,
Dad 

Just how much do teachers need to know about technology?

Long weekends like the last two can be a blessing for a writer who always seems to be running very close to deadline. The holidays gave me a chance to work on each of the three columns I write on a regular basis.

• "Tech Proof" for the website Education World. Aimed at the mainstream classroom teacher, it appears monthly on very general educational technology issues.
  
• "Media Matters" for ISTE's Leading and Learning with Technology. The primary audience is tech-savvy library media specialists (but since the organization serves a wide-range of educators, may be read by them as well) and appears in four issues of the magazine each year.
  
• "Head for the Edge" that appears in Library Media Connection each month. Mainstream library media specialists are the readers. I've written this one since God's dog was still a puppy (or 1995, anyway.)
  

And even after all this writing, I still am not convinced I really know what I am doing.

Thinking about each column over the past couple weeks gave me a chance to reflect on the audience each venue serves. It's not unusual for me to deal with a single technology or library issue, but in very different ways depending on the group for whom I am writing. How do we connect with others on technology issues in ways that resonate? That create change? That illuminate rather than confuse?

One fear I have about technology writing is with what I call the "Alpha Wolf" syndrome.  I've written about this in regard to instructors in the Seven Habits of Highly Effective Technology Trainers:

6. Knowing what is essential and what is only confusing.
A good trainer will have a list of the skills the learners should have mastered by the end of the training. As instruction proceeds, that list will be the basis for frequent checks for understanding. As an often-random thinker, I find such a list keeps me as an instructor on track and provides a class roadmap for the learner. Now here’s the catch with this one: truly great technology teachers  know what things beginning learners really need to know to make them productive and what things might be conveyed that only serve to impress a captive audience with the technologist’s superior intellect. (“The email address is comprised of the username, the domain name, the subdomain name, the computer name, all referenced in a lookup table at the NIC.” Like that.) It’s an alpha wolf thing, especially common with males. Be aware of it, and strive as an instructor to use charm and a caring demeanor with the pack to achieve dominance instead.

This applies to writers as well, knowing what's essential, what's helpful, and what's just showing your vast command of TLAs (Three Letter Acronyms).

But now I am thinking that some deep background in how technology works might in the long run be critical to a user's long-term success. What has me wondering is reading Michael Pollan's wonderful new book, The Ominvores's Dillema.

I am gaining, not just knowledge and facts about the food I eat, but an understanding of food and deeper appreciation of nutrition. Knowing how the Chicken McNugget got to McDonalds and its ingredients are a good deal more meaningful than a simple chart with calories and fat grams listed.

Applied to technology, might this mean that a tech user would be more adept at dealing with spam if s/he understood more about what spam actually is, why it is sent, and the logic behind spam filters rather than the simple "5 Steps You Can Take to Reduce Your Spam" approach. But how do we keep the person who has a healthy perspective on technology (thinks of it as little as possible) awake during the information session on "why filtering alogrithms work and why they don't"?

 I very much appreciated Will Richardson's tribute to writing instructor Donald Murray on Weblogg-ed. I had never heard of the Mr. Murray, but Will's words made me wish I had. One quote from Murray opened a little window into some of my writing questions:

“The good writer is always forcing the reader to contribute to the text. What is published is only half–or less– of the text…”

Don'tcha love it when the view becomes a little clearer? 

Teacher Magazine columns

I recently received am e-mail informing me that the links to my old columns on the Teacher Magazine website were no longer working. Now they are...

• Informate, Not Automate, Sept 2004
• Just-in-Time Technology Training, Oct 2004
• Kids' Play, Nov 2004
• Low Hanging Technology Fruit, Jan 2005
• Class Monitors: Making Parents Partners with Technology, Mar 2005
• Directionless Dictates (a reaction to the National Education Technology Plan of Jan '05), May 2005