Recently, I was asked to submit a chapter proposal for a book on Web 2.0 technologies. While I am greatly honored by this requests, my first question is how could I fill up an entire chapter of a book? I know a little bit about a lot of things. Do I know a lot about any one thing?
I love writing this blog. It is a place for me to hash out my ideas, share what I am learning and get feedback from educators around the world. I learn as much from writing here as others learn from me. But my posts are short. I've never been a loquacious writer. When I was in college, I spent a lot of my time finding ways to stretch a three page paper into five required pages. My writing tends to be succinct and to the point. That is one thing I love about blogging. How do I turn this kind of writing into a chapter in a book? The idea is daunting and scary.
It is also a challenge that I'm going to try to take up. I have to come up with a chapter title, a focus, an objective and a knowledge area. (You too could submit a chapter proposal.) One idea I have is to write about the power of social networks like twitter, ning, this blog etc. to bring together the minds of educators around the world, which I touched on in previous blogs posts such as You are What you Share and Collective Intelligence.
What do you think? You are my collective intelligence. What would you like to read about in a book about Web 2.0? Could I fill a chapter about either of these topics? Is there something else you would be interested in reading about?
I know you won't let me down. Your responses could be the opening paragraphs of my chapter!
5 comments:
Elizabeth,
Were you not the one who once quiped, "I always lose at Trival Pursuit because nothing I know is trivial."
Trust your background and knowledge and you chapter will come to you. Having once done exactly what you are asked for once for a book about student government elections I can tell you that you ought to outline your thoughts before you begin.
Having knowledge is one thing, however sharing that knowledge is the BEST thing.
I would think about combinding your abilities to draw on many different types of sources to develop the learning community. I am NOT an educater, and many of your friends are not as well, however drawign on their thoughts is something you do very well.
Good luck on the project and congratulations on the recognition.
Congratulations, Liz. But isn't a *book* about Web 2.0 kind of missing the point?
Robert - Yes I was thinking the same thing. Isn't Web 2.0 book an oxymoron!
Yep they contacted me as well. Maybe we should twitter and see how many of us they have contacted? I just haven't responded. Maybe it should be something we all write together in Google Documents.
Sue - that is a great idea. I was thinking about writing about the power of a collaborative professional learning network - using google docs to write that as a team would be a perfect example. Let's do it.
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