What can technology bring to Graded Readers?
Enrique Bernal of Cuenta a2lenguas looks at the evolution — or not — of Graded Readers and asks what the next step might look like.
ebooks
A round-up of indie ELT books
We’ve given a fair bit of space in the past few months to ELT Entrepreneurs, but there’s another kind of entrepreneur who deserves some attention. The materials writer turned self-publisher or indie press. This is a round up of some of the books that are out there that have made it through the process without the help of a major publisher.
Why don’t teachers use eBooks for professional development?
Why does there seem to be so little demand for digital versions of ELT professional development materials?
Why everyone is stealing your stuff
On the 9th June 2014, the following exchange was posted by a well-known ELT author in the ELT Writers Connected Facebook group. I’ve reproduced it here with his full permission, although he has asked to remain anonymous. It is a conversation with the manager of a blog that had been making copies of the author’s book available for illegal download.
Author: Am I right in thinking that you manage this site? If so please remove the illegal version of my book [REDACTED] from it.
Pirate: lol
Author: That’s your reaction?
ELT dips its toe into the crowdfunding pool
Back in June, Laurie wrote a piece on crowdfunding in ELT, which lamented the fact that nothing much ELT-related was happening on crowdfunding sites such as Kickstarter. Well, there’s one recently launched project that’s definitely worth a look. Atama-ii Books is the brainchild of, amongst others, Marcos Benevides, a Japan-based teacher, publisher and author. Marcos is well … Read more
Self-publishing in ELT (Part 2)
In Part 1 of this post, we had a quick look at the current state of the ELT self-publishing market. If that didn’t scare you off — and I hope it didn’t — here are five tips to help make sure your own self-publishing venture is a success.
Developing ebooks for ELT – 10 questions to ask before you begin
ebooks are fast becoming something that ELT publishers simply have to be able to deliver in a world that’s lurching towards the paperless classroom. However, moving from print to ebooks is much easier said than done, especially if you’re adapting an existing (and possibly old) print book, and there a number of hurdles which might not be immediately obvious. Here’s my starter for 10. Each of these is a whole topic in itself, and I’ve raised more questions than answers, so let’s consider this just a starting point!
Self-publishing in ELT (Part 1)
My recent post on whether ELT brands had become more important than ELT authors generated lots of interesting discussion in the comments, and a few things in particular jumped out: Jason R Levine: … in the age of education 2.0-3.0, have the ELT teachers, content creators, and curators become more important? Eric Roth: Given the … Read more
IxD: The Formula for the Future
Shouldn’t we be prepared to dispense with the deep-rooted analog dependancies and create tech that reflects where we are now and what we want now?
Have ELT brands become more important than ELT authors?
In case you missed it, last week the UK publishing industry was jolted out of its early-summer slumber when the news broke that Charlie Redmayne was to replace Victoria Barnsley as CEO of Harper Collins UK. In a piece last Friday for The Guardian, entitled Bad week for women in publishing as two giants step down, which also covered the news that Gail Rebuck would be replaced as chief executive of Random House UK (now Penguin Random House, of course) by Penguin’s Tom Weldon, the following caught my eye (my emphasis):
Though both Barnsley, who is 59, and Rebuck, 61, could be as tough as anyone when required, they have been author-centred. “What they’ve done is to enable editors. It’s not that they necessarily are those editors. Authors feel the most enormous respect for them and faith in them,” said the source.
The 5 EdTech trends of ELT part 3: Tablets and Smartphones
What will it mean when every English learner has a touchscreen internet-connected computer with them at all times? Previously, we looked at online learning and alternative credentialing platforms – now let’s look at what a mobile world and the paperless classroom might mean for ELT.
