Let's write an ebook!

This is a seminar I've been looking forward to for a long time! The idea started back in June at the STLHE conference in Saskatoon, where I met Richard Schwier in person for the first time. I was so excited to meet him that I ran off mid sentence to a session that wasn't due to begin for another hour. That was after the confusion of the lunch tent collapsing from an accumulation of rain water. But enough about natural disasters and me not being able to control my emotions.

We were sitting in the lunch tent trying to catch up on years of what we knew about one another form our online relationship. Richard told me about the experience of writing his ebook, Connections: Virtual Learning Communities, while on sabbatical in New Zealand. I had read the book (probably the same day it was released!) and asked if he might be interested in facilitating a SCoPE seminar. His response was something like "I think that's been done. But what was really interesting was what I learned about writing, and how it's so different when the final product is not print-based".

So there you go, that's the topic of the current seminar at SCoPE, only with a bit of a twist: Writing an ebook about ebooks for fun and no profit". We're discussing the ins and outs of writing an ebook, and from that we are creating an ebook. You and everyone else who participates will be authors.

We have a great team assembled to help to make this all happen. We partnered up with eCampusAlberta Professional Learning to organize the event. Scott Leslie will be helping us to understand the strategies and technologies around e-book authoring. Randy LaBonte will be moderating our web conference with Scott. Hilda Anggraeni and Diana Chan, co-op students from Simon Fraser University, will be helping us to turn this seminar into an e-book. (I say helping, but let's face it, they have the energy and skills to do it all!)

Richard explains it so well in his welcome video:

 

Sound like an adventure? You bet! Please join us!

Where: SCoPE -- direct link to the seminar discussion
When: February 1 - 14, 2012