eBook Retreat 2014 Agenda
NOTE: Arriving Saturday? There will be a dinner with a group of teachers, organized by the Eric Carle Museum on Saturday evening.
If you arrive early, let us know to make sure there’s room. You’ll have to pay for an extra night ($135-ish; including the dinner).
Appetizers and dinner at about 5:30pm on Saturday, April 26; the fun will go into the evening.
Our formal start time is Sunday (arrive between 3-5); we end on Tuesday after lunch. If you want the two Erikson TEC CEUs, please use this form.
Click here to register.
Here is a closer look at the draft agenda.
[highlight]Sunday April 27, 2014[/highlight]
3:00 pm – 5:00 pm Arrive: The Barn at Highlights Foundation
Meet in our intellectual home for the next three days to pick up your materials, check into your room, get a snack or informally share a project. Here are the directions.
5:00 Appetizers, Beer and Wine
5:30 Dinner
Welcome by Daren Carstens and Warren Buckleitner
- Preview of the agenda.
- Introductions.
6:15 Panel: What is an eBook? A 2014 Definition
With Junko Yokota, Michel Kripalani, Mark Schlichting, Chris Rettstatt and Bill Doyle. We’ll start with this simple, but complex question.
7:15 The first ten examples by Warren Buckleitner
Ten products that are reshaping the fiction and non-fiction space, helping us to re-imagine the children’s book, drawn from the short list finalists of the BolognaRagazzi Digital Prize.
We’ll preview some of the most innovative work first hand. Watch the jurors discuss the 2014 examples, in this video.
8:00 Feature Presentation by William Teale
A Literacy Theory Crash Course for the Tablet Age. William Teale is a Professor of Education, University Scholar, and Director of the Center for Literacy at the University of Illinois at Chicago. Author of over one hundred publications, his work has focused on early literacy learning, the intersection of technology and literacy education, and children’s literature. He has written for numerous scholarly books and for journals such as Educational Researcher, Research in the Teaching of English, Children’s Literature in Education, The Reading Teacher, Young Children, and Language Arts. Details on his publications and projects can be found at UIC or Academia.
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[highlight]Monday April 28, 2014[/highlight]
8:00 AM Breakfast
9:00 Current Topics in Digital Storytelling
Hands on with select examples.
- Literacy defined.
- Whole language vs. phonics
- Decoding in the multi-touch age
- Encoding (writing) in the multi-touch age
- Influential theories
- By Age: Babies, Toddlers, Preschoolers, Early elementary & Upper Elementary
- Upper and Lower Case
- Fonts and Handwriting
- Scaffolding
10:00 Chris Byrne: Developing Marketable Characters
Chris Byrne is a New York City based author and toy expert/analyst who has many years of experience dealing with commercial children’s products. He’s one of the founding editors of Time to Play magazine, and his TV/YouTube reviews are highly regarded. This is his first visit to the Highlights Foundation.
10:30 Panel: Mark Schlichting, Daren Carstens, Michel Kripalani, Bill Doyle, Emmet O’Neil, and Chris Byrne — Selling Pixels… A frank discussion on the realities of various stores.
- Submitting an app to iTunes
- Working with Apple and/or Google
- Android, Kindle and other platforms
12:00 Lunch
1:00 PM Junko Yokota What works well where: An analysis of the features of digital books for children
Dr. Junko Yokota is Professor Emeritus of Reading and Language at National Louis University (Chicago) and Director of the Center for Teaching through Children’s Books. She was an elementary classroom teacher and school librarian for the first ten years of her career. Her research focuses on digital literature for children, multicultural and international literature, and literacy instruction through quality literature. She is a frequent speaker internationally, most recently on topics related to the digital world of literature for children. She served on the American Library Association’s Caldecott and Newbery Committees, chaired the Batchelder Committee, and served two terms on the IBBY Hans Christian Andersen Award jury.
2:00 Demos
3:00 Continuation of the First Ten Examples
5:00 Appetizers, Beer and wine
5:30 Dinner
Evening Talk: The Immersive Power of Digital Storytelling with Carolyn Handler Miller
This talk will cover some of the basics of storytelling, including what makes stories alone so compelling and immersive, and then talk about adding interactivity to storytelling and how that maximizes the experience for the user/listener/player.
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[highlight]Tuesday April 28, 2014[/highlight]
8:00 AM Breakfast
Check out of your room by 10:00 AM
9:00 On the Road to Reading with Ebooks with Jeremy Brueck
Ebooks are rapidly spreading into the early childhood classroom, inviting young children to interact with books in ways they have not done before. But what does this mean for learning to read in a digital age? This session takes a close look at the emerging role of ebooks in the teaching of early literacy. It explores the design quality of ebooks as children’s first readers; describes the potential of good ebooks for learning to read and reading in P-2 classrooms; and presents an ebook instructional routine that guides the use of ebooks in early literacy instruction. It also offers a glimpse into the future of digital reading with ebooks. See the lit review here.
10:00 Frosting is nice…Surprises from Bologna and nice touches in appbook/eBook/digital storytelling design
- Page transitions
- Scaffolding
- Visual effects
- Hard wired finger driven effects
- Navigation
- Representational strategies
- Ways to pull in children’s ideas
- Motion detection
- Hidden surprises & Easter Eggs
MORE EXAMPLES
11:30 Review and Evaluation
12:00 Lunch
1:30 Conclusion
Shuttle service will be provided to Scranton airport, departing after lunch. If you need to stay for another evening, please see Jo; housing will be handled on a case-by-case basis.