Building & Sharing 21st Century Digital Literacy Skills With Mozilla

Dear MOZILLA, Thank You! I just signed up to work with my small crew of teen girls in NYC & attend a free online course (May 2 - June 30) powered by Mozilla. The initiative teaches 21st century digital literacy skills through making & learning together. Awesome!

"Teach the Web (#TeachTheWeb) is also the pre-game for the Mozilla Maker Party, which was announced earlier this week at the White House Science Fair. It's a global party to celebrate all the things we can make thanks tothe collaborative power of the web! Many Hive members and partners have already signed up to join this campaign that Mozilla is running with the National Writing Project and with support from the MacArthur Foundation." -from the Hive NYC blog, EXPLORE + SHARE + CREATE

I'll be tweeting (@cynthiajabar) & writing about it here on my storytelling blog. Join us! We're going to experiment, write & share our digital storytelling adventure.

You can join the Google + group here.

Mozilla Teach The Web Blog here

Mozilla Webmaker: Hackable Content / MentorMob here

twitter: #TeachTheWeb, @MozTeach

RELATED READING (suggestions welcome!)

How My STEM Project Led Me To The White House by Zainab Oni

Common Core Practice / Reading The Times and Responding in Code by Srah Gross, Jonathan Olsen & Katherine Schulten

5 Great Things About Webmaker V2 by Mark Surman

Why is it Important That We Participate In Helping To Shape The Enviroment by miguelc, Youth Voices

Thanks for reading. Come say HEY on twitter!

Inspiration: Creating More Meaningful Content With Less

Law of Subtraction by Mathew May

I'm reading The Laws of Subtraction by Mathew May.
A reminder of the power of less.

If you're crafting any kind of UX/story experience, reading this book might help you whittle down your content in a more meaningful way.

This is my favorite quote so far & it's informing what I'm creating now: "When you reduce the number of doors that someone can walk through, more people walk through the one that you want them to walk through."

May distills the power of subtraction into 6 laws.

1. What isn't there can often trump what is.

2. The simplest rules create the most effective experience.

3. Limiting information engages the imagination.

4. Creativity thrives under intelligent constraints. 

5. Break is the important part of breakthrough.

6. Doing something isn't always better than doing nothing.

Here are a few more gems.

"To attain knowledge, add things every day. To attain wisdom, subtract things every day." 
-Lao Tzu

 "Simplicity is about subtracting the obvious and adding the meaningful."

"When you remove just the right things in just the right way, something good happens."

"It is the experience that makes something meaningful. Focusing on the experience puts us in touch with the more emotional side of ideas. Understanding the human factors involved in producing an experience that fundamentally improves how we think, feel, or behave is what makes the design of any particular thing interesting."

Inspiring ideas to keep in mind as you're creating story experiences across platforms.

Twitter: @MathewEMay
Web: MatheweMay.com

RELATED READING

7 Design Principles, Inspired By Zen Wisdom by Mathew May, Fast Company
The Art of Adding By Taking Away by Mathew May, The New York Times

World Book Night 2013

What fun! I gave away books around the neighborhood today, thanks to WorldBookNight.org, a literacy initiative "spreading the love of reading from person to person."

World Book Night Spreads the Literacy Love

Books changed my life as a kid, which is why I try to do my small part by volunteering with as many literacy initiatives as I possibly can. I know first hand that reading saves lives. Being unable to read can set a child up for unimaginable struggle. How can we sit by & let this happen? We all have something to give-no matter how small.

Read these 11 facts from the DoSomething.org website.

1.  Two-thirds of students who cannot read proficiently by the end of 4th grade will end up in jail or on welfare. Over 70 percent of America’s inmates cannot read above a 4th grade level.
 

2.  1 in 4 children in America grow up without learning how to read.
 

3.  As of 2011, America was the only free-market OECD (Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development) country where the current generation was less well educated than the previous.
 

4.  Literacy is a learned skill. Illiteracy is passed down from parents who can neither read nor write.
 

5.  Nearly 85 percent of the juveniles who face trial in the juvenile court system are functionally illiterate, proving that there is a close relationship between illiteracy and crime. More than 60 percent of all inmates are functionally illiterate.
 

6.  53 percent of 4th graders admitted to reading recreationally “almost every day,” while only 20 percent of 8th graders could say the same. (2009 study)
 

7.  75 percent of Americans who receive food stamps perform at the lowest 2 levels of literacy, and 90 percent of high school dropouts are on welfare.
 

8.  Teenage girls ages 16 to 19 who live at or below the poverty level and have below average literacy skills are 6 times more likely to have children out of wedlock than the girls their age who can read proficiently.
 

9.  Reports show that low literacy directly costs the healthcare industry over $70 million every year.
 

10.  In 2013, Washington, D.C. was ranked the most literate American city for the third year in a row, with Seattle and Minneapolis close behind.
 

11.  Long Beach, CA was ranked the country’s most illiterate city, followed by Mesa, AZ, and Aurora, CO

I'm both honored and excited to be an official BOOK GIVER for World Book Night 2013. 

I'll be giving away HOUSE ON MANGO STREET by Sandra Cisneros, one of my all time favorite reads, at the Fort Washington Library located at 535 West 179th Street between Audobon and St. Nicholas Avenues April 23, 2013. Come say hello and get a free copy of this brilliant book.

World Book Night Books for 2013

"World Book Night U.S. is a celebration of books and reading held on April 23, when 25,000 passionate volunteers across America give a total of half a million books within their communities to those who don’t regularly read. In 2012, World Book Night was celebrated in the U.S., the UK, Ireland, and Germany and saw over 80,000 people gift more than 2.5 million books."

RELATED LINKS

WEB: World Book Night USA 

Tumblr: World Book Night

Twitter: @wbnamerica

Making Fixed Layout Ebooks for Kids

“If children are the future, then ebooks are the future of the publishing industry,” 

- The ABC's of Kids & Ebooks

Ready to make an E-book? 

Fixed-layout seems to be the best format for children's books because they are so illustration heavy.

I'm starting with this free epub produced by BISG (Book Industry Study Group) called a Field Guide To Fixed Layout for E-Books. Published February 2013, it's the most up to date guide I've come across for fixed layout ebooks. You can download it here.

Field Guide To Fixed layout for E-books, published by BISG

CircularFlo: Circular software that converts InDesign files to the fixed layout format "in one click".
Lynda.com: Creating a Fixed-Layout EPUB with Anne-Marie Conception
Liz Castro: Fixed Layout EPUBs For iPad and iPhone


A Fantastic Resource: Going From InDesign to Ebook
By Colleen Cunningham, ebook developer, F + W Media here.

***********************************************************************

RELATED READING LIST: CHILDREN'S EBOOK NEWS

Trajectory Inks E-book Deals with Chinese Publishers at Bologna Book Fair
Frederator Hires David Wilk To Run New E-book Unit
Scholastic Adds HarperCollin's Children's Books to Storia Platform
More Than Half U.S. Kids Reading Ebooks, New Report Shows

Follow me on twitter: @cynthiajabar
ebook hashtag: #edprdctn on WEdnesday at 11:00 am EST

Mobile Strategy Insights

Do you have a mobile strategy? There are some interesting numbers on mobile & social content consumption from The Business Insider. 

You can see the rest of the slide deck THE FUTURE OF DIGITAL, by Henry Bloget, CEO & EIC, Business Insider here.
For more information visit intelligence.businessinsider.com

Pictoplasma Takes Manhattan

If you haven't been to a PICTOPLASMA event, go! The Pictoplasma NYC Conference happens February 8 & 9, 2013 and promises to be the premier event for innovative character design & animation. The line up this year includes Gemma Correll, Ryan Quincy, Buff Monster, Julia Pott, Steven Guarnaccia and more.

There are also animation screenings and a Pictoplasma Group Show at CAPPELLINI SoHo that accompany the conference.


Register to see the CHARACTER GODS here.

Lovely Kind of Transmedia Mashup: Poetry by Leigh Stein & Drawing by Jorge Colombo

Found this link on the New Yorker site. Painter Jorge Columbo & poet Leigh Stein collaborate and make something new & lovely. A new kind of book trailer that can stand alone and be enjoyed, much like a music video. SO SMART, I love it! You can enjoy this as it is, or dive deeper if you want to & buy the book or a painting. This is a great way to use transmedia storytelling techniques to further engage your audience and increase your community without hitting them over the head with BUY my BOOK messaging.

Watch the DISPATCH FROM THE FUTURE video here.
See Leigh Stein's book DISPATCH FROM THE FUTURE, published by Melville House.
Vist Jorge Colombo's blog here, chock full of his finger paintings using the iPad app Brushes.

Here are 2 New Yorker articles about Jorge Colombo painting his new Yorker covers using apps.
Jorge Colombo's iPad Finger Paintings, by Mina Kaneko & Francoise Mouly
New Yorker Cover Art painted With An iPhone, by Stephanie Clifford, 2009

Transmedia Resource Kit

The transmedia multi platform convergent resource kit (say that 5 times fast) is an amazing site designed & developed by Dr. Siobhan O'Flynn & Anthea Foyer, if you haven't seen it, go take a look.
Make sure you see the social media case study devoted to THE HUNGER GAMES. Wow.

TMC Hunger Games Case Study from TMC Resource Kit

Love this: "Tweak (and tweak] Constantly!"

Children's Ebook Trends

So, are you contemplating making ebooks for kids? Maybe you're thinking about converting a title from your backlist? It's probably a good time to start. The ereading habits of digital natives are fueling the digital book revolution.

Digital Book World is hosting a free webinar January 29th aptly named The ABC's of Kids & Ebooks: Understanding the E-Reading Habits of Children Aged 2-13. You can buy the book too, if you need more data.
The study, written & researched by PLAYSCIENCE sees the ebook trend as showing "no signs of slowing down."

"If children are the future then ebooks are the future of the publishing industry" the report says.
- Jeremy Greenfield, More Than half U.S. Kids Reading Ebooks, New Report Shows

The Kids & Family Reading Report, a biannual study from Scholastic & the Harrison Group, reports:

•  72 % of parents are interested in having their child read ebook
• Print books are seen by kids a setter fro sharing with friends and reading at bedtime
• kids say they are more likely to finish a book they choose themselves
• The percent of children who have read an ebook has almost doubled since 2010 (25% vs. 46%)
• Half of children 9-17 said they would read more books for fun if given access to ebooks- a 50% increase
• Half of parents (49%) feel their kids don't read enough for fun ( an increase in dissatisfaction)
• 1 in 4 boys who has read an ebook says he is now reading more books for fun
• 80% of kids who read ebooks still read books for fun in print
• 58% of kids 9-17 say they will always want to read books on paper (a decline from 66%) even if ebooks are available

You can read the report highlights from the Kids, Families and eBooks report here.

Change is Good

Hello there if you are reading this! Happy new year & all that. This blog has gone through many incarnations. It first started as an assignment for a NYU class called CREATING AUTHOR PLATFORMS given by the lovely Yen Cheong (BOOK PUBLICITY BLOG).

Next it was a place where I collected notes around what transmedia is and is not (transmediakids.com). That debate continues. My takeaway after reading & meeting folks at conferences is this: transmedia aka multi platform storytelling is a way to tell your story (the grand narrative as Jeff Gomez calls it) using many platforms (books, ebooks, games, apps etc).

I never promoted my content more than having it link to my beloved twitter account. Oh HOW I LOVE THEE TWITTER.
Okay. Enough.

Well now it's taken another form as THESTORYBOXPILOTS.com.
As I build my tiny ULTRA LEAN STARTUP, I need a place to let off steam and be silly. Hopefully connect with other authors and illustrators experimenting and sharing lessons learned.

I want to help others as I help myself by writing about my digital journey. Stuff I wish my editors could tell me. DOH! Did I just say that in public?
LOL. That's not a personal dig, just a reflection of the rate of growth & change in our industry.

But the biggest reason I changed my BLOG VIBE is because I want to tell an authentic story. Get the conversations going between authors, illustrators and publishers. Get off the one way street. Co-create, share our creativity and make something better & bigger than our individual selves & platforms.

So, WELCOME to my MONSTER TRANSMEDIA BLOG VIBE!

Enjoy! Come say hello on twitter @cynthiajabar, I've got someone you should meet.