ARE WE HAVING ANY FUN YET? TEACHING TO THE TEST

So today (I’m writing on Monday) I was supposed to do a 9:00 AM test call for an upcoming video conference with some seventh graders.  Lo and behold, at 8:30 AM, my screen lights up and a harried-looking tech person appears amidst stacks of boxes.  “Sorry,” she says, “but we have standardized tests all day long today so I’m in a hurry.”  Since our upcoming video conference is based on a book I wrote about the Revolutionary War, I ask her if the students have studied that period yet.  “Not much,” she says.  “All we do in this state is test, test, test, so the kids don’t learn a thing.”

Hmmmm….I think she was in such a hurry that she was accidentally thinking out loud in front of a total stranger.  But she’s definitely not alone.  I hear this same complaint from teachers all the time when I visit schools. 

Ever since the No Child Left Behind Act first reared its head in 2002, kids in have had to take tons of standardized tests, and if they don’t do well, their schools pay the piper.  They stand to lose federal funding and free tutoring and worse.  These tests cover a very narrow part of the curriculum, but they supposedly show whether kids are learning or not, whether their teachers are any good, whether students have to take even more mind-numbing skill-and-drill classes in summer school, and whether they will stay awake long enough to pass to the next grade. Cheating is common—even some teachers and principals cheat by upping the test scores because teachers and principals can get fired or get a fat raise depending upon the results. Kids are bored to death or stress out over these tests. And nobody is having any fun. 

The worst part is that so much invaluable class time is spent teaching to the tests at the expense of every single thing that can get kids excited about learning.  Who wants to sit in a chair all day long and study from some dry-as-dust standardized test prep book just to keep their school out of trouble?  And as updated more “interesting” tests get progressively harder, even more test prep is in the works. 

 

Ahem. Ladies and gentlemen, there are better ways to teach and there are better ways to learn.   Why would anyone want to give up creative hands-on activities or ignore great music and art and foreign languages and amazing stories from history just so that they can mark the right box on a test form?  Who want to cut out class trips, whether they’re to the school library (to find some great nonfiction books, of course) or to some outstanding museums or to the great outdoors?   What is happening to young peoples’ health when physical education and even recess give way to studying for the tests? What if a class wants to explore a certain topic in depth?  In many schools, plenty of such worthwhile and beloved activities are on the chopping block.

Even the best teachers have trouble raising test scores under certain conditions. In some places kids can come to school hungry. Some neighborhoods are like revolving doors where students come and go all the time. Plenty of parents are overworked or jobless or have other problems that keep them from getting involved with their kids’ education in any way. If students have recently moved here from foreign countries and are not fluent in English, they will fare poorly on the tests no matter how smart they are.  But the tests reflect none of this.  They don’t show a thing about individual student progress or whether kids can think creatively or whether they have good critical thinking skills or whether they love to learn. 

But at least someone is thinking creatively out there. I loved this article entitled Eighth grader designs standardized test that slams standardized tests. Its your homework, so of course you have to read it.

Peaks and Valleys

A couple of weeks ago I was in a waterfront hotel in Vancouver BC where I received a Lifetime Achievement Award from AAAS/Subaru Science Books & Films. It was certainly a validation, a crowning moment, (here’s the video) but awards are a funny thing. If one is truly engaged in life, it’s the struggles that are the focus. So right now I’m thinking about what happened this past weekend.

We are midway through the school year and about half of the authors participating in iNK’s pilot project, where we are collaborating with both teachers and students of Bogert Elementary School, have completed their missions. Roz Schanzer worked with two fourth grade classes. They had to learn about New Jersey’s government, a somewhat dry subject. But under Roz’s direction they produced an amazing book called The Golden Government. You can read a rave review of the project from teacher Heather Santoro here. Dorothy Patent worked with two fifth grade teachers. Read what Chris Kostenko said about that experience here. I worked with Carla Christiana and Alicia Palmeri on the solar system and we’re about halfway through the unit. I’ve written an article about our experience that will be the lead feature in the April edition of Science Books & Films but you can see the effect on student learning in this video where the kids are exclaiming over the NASA website. What we’re doing is groundbreaking because of its scale, its intimacy, and the effective timing of the conferences so that we are truly transforming the learning of the children. That’s where the rubber meets the road in education. It’s far more effective than a school visit, which generates enormous interest and excitement, very little of which is channeled into the work kids do in the classroom every day.

I may be a little impatient, but I want people to realize that using children’s nonfiction authors and their books as a resource for education produces powerful results. So whenever possible I’ve been submitting proposals to conferences to present our work. The conferences are NOT library conferences. (Librarians have their own problems trying to get classroom teachers to use nonfiction.) I’ve been sending in proposals to conferences for teachers of technology. I figure that many schools have videoconferencing equipment sitting around, gathering dust and the techies in charge of the equipment are looking for reasons to use it. It stands to reason that they’d like to find something that their classroom teacher colleagues will appreciate. Maybe this is a kind of oblique approach to marketing but hey, I have an experimental nature. I have no illusions that my reputation as an author is meaningful to technology teachers. Basically, I’m starting over, a humbling experience. So finally, after being rejected twice by the BIG conferences ISTE (international Society for Technology in Education) and NYSCATE (New York State Association for Computers and Technology in Education) I was finally accepted, for this past weekend at a little regional NYSCATE conference in Wappingers Falls, NY (about an hour from my home.)

Wow! This was exciting news. So I lined up Bogert’s media specialist, Heidi Kabot, and Dorothy’s two teachers, and Roz and Dorothy, to hang around their computers on a Saturday afternoon, so I could beam them in via Skype to speak at my presentation. I could not present them as a panel because the high school, where the conference was held, didn’t have the capability of providing a bridge so that several end points could be presented at the same time. (So much for being "cutting edge" at a technology conference!) So I brought them each in sequentially to speak for five minutes. Our presentation time was 1 pm , which gave me the morning to meet people at the conference and drum up an audience. The title of our session was “Catching the Love of Learning: A School-wide Project with Teachers and Authors.” I was listed as the presenter but there was no bio so I’m not sure if there was any name recognition or if being an author was of any significance whatsoever to this group.

So far, all peaks, right? Here comes the valley. I had to wait to get into the room. The session before mine was “Identify Effective SMART Board Use.” The room was jammed. When I was finally able to get in to set up, (with the help of a very savvy techie named Chance) I happened to have the iNK Think Tank website up on the SMART board and the instructor of the last session said, “Oh, I LOVE that site!” as he was gathering up his stuff. The room cleared out and my attendees entered. Only three people showed up and stayed! One person I had met at lunch came in, and sat down but left before I started. Okay. This is show business. We’re in an out-of-town tryout. So I hoped our three listeners felt welcome and proceeded with the presentation which went off without a technical glitch. Everyone who presented was wonderful and articulate. The audience took copious notes. But where were all the people I had met that morning who said they would come?

We’re doing a post mortem. As I’ve said many times, “A learning experience is what you get when you don’t get what you want.” There were seven other concurrent sessions. We’re trying to figure out what was the big draw. Did it have something to do with the new emphasis on Core Curriculum Standards? Did I offend people? Did I come on too strong? Are these teachers too concerned with keeping their jobs to be thinking about the “love of learning?”

In my perennially optimistic style (which some people find annoying) I can only say that failure is far more interesting than success.

LiNKing with Our Audience

A few days ago, Vicki wrote about the success of the first videoconference between an iNK Authors on Call author and students in Bogert School in New Jersey. I happened to be the author in that interaction, but I believe that all of us will have similar successes connecting with the students. Before each of us skypes with them, the students will be familiar with some of our work, and just the idea of having a “real author” interested in them is an exciting prospect. Real people write those books—wow! The enthusiasm of Bogert's devoted teachers also rubs off on the students, and the special projects they will undertake give them a change from routine classroom work. All the elements area there for a successful project.

A key element in what we’re doing that makes our interactions different from a traditional school visit is that we skype with the teachers first and find out what they would like to see in the students as a result of “meeting” their author. Different teachers can have very different goals. For example, Jason and Chris, “my” teachers, hoped that I could help their students to connect with their own real worlds, with their day to day environments, and to become curious about them and begin to ask “why” questions.

As a 20^th century kind of person, I tend to attribute the students’ disconnect with what I would call the “real world” to their incessant contact with input from outside worlds—music from their ipods, text messages on their cell phones, comments on their Face Book pages, and so on. These sources of “information” have little or nothing to do with the environment through which the students are moving on a day to day basis. As a result, when a teacher asks the students what in their lives sparks their curiosity, what around them might they want to learn more about, they have no answer. They are so wrapped up in those outside worlds that they are disconnected from the actual world in which they eat, sleep, and go to school.

So, when I talked to the students, I suggested they take a look around as they go home from school and start to wonder—why do some trees loose their leaves in the fall and others don’t? Where do the ants go when they disappear into a crack in the sidewalk? That sort of thing. From what Jason and Chris have indicated, some of the students are awakening to their environments, and the classes as a whole got truly engaged in our interaction. From five time zones away (I was in Hawaii), I could feel their enthusiasm as they murmured to one another while watching my slide show. As for me, this experience is only strengthening my knowledge that the two things in life that most help me “come to life” are learning new things and communicating the excitement of learning to others. I think that’s a powerful motivating force for all of us who have chosen to write nonfiction books for children, and connecting directly with our readers, even from far away, gives us a special high we can’t get in any other way. It's a win-win process.

A Call to Action

Last Wednesday evening I did an interactive videoconference with Marc Aronson’s Ebook and App class of graduate students at Rutgers. It was a terrific opportunity for me use a technology medium to elaborate on what the Authors on Call group of Ink Think Tank is doing in its pilot project with Bogert Elementary School. (Some of the results are starting to come in and if you want to watch them unfold, you can go to the project’s wiki.) Since Marc is a vocal advocate for nonfiction literature in his SLJ blog, I was somewhat surprised to find that so many of his students seemed unaware of the struggle to get schools to use nonfiction literature in classrooms as the primary reading material and to use its authors in a timely and productive way to enhance the learning of both teachers and students. We, readers of this blog, who are committed to nonfiction literature as authors and educators, are all inhabitants of a “bubble” where the use of nonfiction literature is prevalent. And, since we mainly talk to each other, we can delude ourselves into thinking that it is more widespread than it actually is.

This month, I’ve also been travelling—first to Doha, Qatar where I attended the World Innovation Summit for Education (WISE) as I did last year, and then, a week later to Israel with a delegation of school superintendents. (50 hours in the air, don’t ask!) At WISE I attended a workshop where a study was presented to see how the delivery systems of reading material—i.e. print vs digital—affected literacy. Conducted by www.educationimpact.net, the results, it seems, are equivocal. In some countries kids learned more from books and in others they learned more from a screen. I finally raised my hand and asked, “What were these kids reading?” No one seemed to know. I then made the point that not all books are equal and not all digital materials are equal. I gave them an example of how to write to engage readers. At the end of the session a number of people asked for my card.

I was at WISE wearing my journalist’s hat, covering the conference for Education Update. I did a video interview of Dr. Jeffrey Sachs, head of the Earth Institute at Columbia University. He was extremely interested in what iNK (not a typo, we’re getting new logos, thank you Steve Jenkins) is doing in its pilot project. His organization is tackling some major issues world wide—like poverty, disease, ignorance and global warming. I asked him, “What can be done to accelerate change?” In a nutshell, Sachs said that networking is very important but, in addition, you must act—do something to prove that it works and acts as a model for others to follow. (You can see my three minute interview here.)

In Israel, we visited schools that are making breakthroughs in serving minority and impoverished children and in technology in the classroom. But, again, nowhere did I see evidence that there is attention paid to the quality of classroom instructional material. The lessons I observed seemed very pedantic and traditional. It’s almost as if no one is taking a hard look at instructional material.

At the end of my session with Marc’s class a student asked me, “How can I help?” I see very clearly that a movement for change needs organization. This blog is a start, but not if the only people who read it are already converts. The iNK database is a tool— to let people know about our books how the fit into their curricula and meet Core Education Standards. And when we start getting results from iNK’s pilot project, they will be newsworthy. Today, Dorothy Hinshaw Patent is doing the very first videoconference with the kids who are studying her book Shaping the Earth. (The book was chosen by the fifth grade teachers because it fit into their scope and sequence.) Dorothy is connecting from Hawaii to the school in New Jersey. A local NJ reporter will be present to cover the event. To be continued—and we’re counting on you to help spread the word.

A Leap of Faith

Years ago, when publishing was in its heyday, established authors could sell from concept. Here’s how it worked. An author and an editor did lunch. (The publisher picked up the tab.) They discussed possibilities for future projects. When the editor liked an idea s/he said, “Write me a proposal.” That was it. There was trust that the author would deliver a book that they would be happy to publish. The author walked out of the lunch confident of an assignment with money to follow. That was then. Now even established writers have to do proposals complete with a marketing analysis, detailed outlines, maybe a few well-written chapters, and loads of background material. Then they wait for the proposal to be reviewed before a full committee, which seems to be more dedicated to why they shouldn’t do a book than why they should. In these hard times, the beleaguered publishers must constantly consider their bottom line when investing in a project.

The best editors, however, still know how to imagine along with authors. We all know that every book starts with a vision—a fleshed-out idea of how to create a work. Other parts of society are not quite so visionary. As much as we would like to think otherwise, most people don’t “get” innovative ideas. The popular show, Mad Men, about the advertising industry back in the sixties understood this. Fully articulated and illustrated presentations were required to in order to leave nothing up to the imagination of their clients. They knew that even when a concept has merit and is worth a try, every innovative venture, every work of creativity, requires a leap of faith in order to turn a concept into a reality.

What, then, is innovation? I have defined it as: Creating something new from disparate existing elements used in novel ways to solve a contemporary problem while forecasting its own future growth and development. In my outside-the-box proposal published last month in this blog I proposed using nonfiction literature in the classroom (nothing new here), combined with professional development from the authors themselves (nothing new here) to help teachers use their books effectively, and ending up with an author visit with the students after they’ve studied the books (this doesn’t happen often but there’s nothing new here, either.) What makes this program innovative? Its scale (school-wide, many authors and many books) and the timing of the professional development—just before the books are to be used by the teachers, so they can immediately apply what they’ve learned and the timing of the author-visits with kids (just when they’ve completed studying a book). The technologies that makes such an ambitious program possible and even more importantly, affordable, are interactive videoconferencing—face-to-face conversations between the authors and the school participants and a wiki, a collective online document that chronicles contributions from all the participants and serves as a written record of the project. The authors don’t need to travel and schools don’t need to pick up the travel expenses and the in-person personal appearance fees. All of us authors know the excitement of a school visit. It is often the highpoint of a school year. I’ve always wondered how the teachers took advantage, back in their classrooms, of the energy and enthusiasm generated by these visits. I believe that my program for Authors on Call does just that. What we’re really offering, beyond expertise and excellent writing is inspiration and excitement. My problem: I needed to find a school willing to test this idea.

Dave Kaplan, principal of the Edith A. Bogert Elementary School in Upper Saddle River, NJ is willing to take that leap of faith. I met him last spring when I did the traditional author’s visit at his school. Right away, I noticed something unusual about Dave: He was truly interested in me. He attended all my presentations, including my lunch with some of the children. (You should know that this is very rare. Most principals say, “Hello,” and disappear.) I mentioned that I had this idea of a huge collaboration between authors and teachers. Was he interested? He said, “Yes.” But he didn’t get back to me until July when we could make an appointment for him to hear me out.

After our conversation, Dave emailed me: “I just typed up my notes from this morning and as I was typing, I felt my excitement really mushrooming! I'm so thrilled about this venture.... Again, I'm so pumped about this innovative journey on which we're about to embark, and look forward to working with you!” When he introduced the concept to his faculty, he asked for nine volunteers (one to work with each author). He got 28! The entire school! So far, so good. We are currently in the book selection process, where the teachers are doing the choosing. This has only fueled the excitement. The teachers had no problem “getting” the idea and realize that they are part of an experiment; that no one has done what we’re doing. Ultimately, the measures of our success will be from the students and the books themselves.

We are mid-air in our leap of faith.

An Outside-the-Box Proposal

Welcome back, I.N.K. readers.... Another school year begins and one where we're gaining strength and a real voice. Our Ink Think Tank Website has been updated with many new features. But that's not what I want to discuss today.

For the past two years, I’ve been working on a very innovative project, and it has taken me a while to find a way to get others to share my vision. I’ve been on a very steep learning curve, but learn I have! I think I’ve finally figured out how to present my idea so others get it. I’m going to make it very specific and concrete. So this is an experiment; I’m going to share my outside-the-box thinking with you.

Here are the questions I’m asking:

* What would happen to the learning environment of your school if your teachers and a team of award- winning children’s nonfiction authors collaborated in a large-scale, school-wide project where everyone was involved in sharing knowledge and skills?

* Is the love of learning—the passion that drives us children’s nonfiction authors--contagious? Can you catch it from us? Because lifelong learning is who we are and what we do

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* What happens to student literacy when the core reading material is children’s nonfiction literature? Our books are normally considered “enrichment” and relegated to a secondary role in student learning, if not completely ignored in most classrooms, although they more than meet national educational standards. Suppose that they become the intellectual meal rather than a sometime dessert? Can you imagine it?

* How could personal contact with the award-winning authors of the books enhance the professional development of your teachers in both literacy skills (writing) and knowledge of content?

* How can these questions be addressed in a way that is affordable for a school and yet compensates authors (who have no salary or benefits) for their time and expertise?

Ink Think Tank has a group, Authors on Call of nine award-winning nonfiction authors and two consultants, one in literacy and one in children’s nonfiction literature. .We are pioneering a way to work with schools via interactive videoconferencing (ivc). Let me describe how a partnership with an elementary K-5 school with about 500 students would work. Please note that this is just an example that can be modified to fit your school:

* Your school would select one title from each author that fits into your scope and sequence in science, social studies and math. The authors can help with the selection. They can also show how the selected books fit into the scope and sequence of your language arts program.
* The authors are as follows:
Vicki Cobb (hands-on science, biography, physical science, chemistry, biology)
Penny Colman (history, women’s history, history of unusual things)
Trish Marx (geography, multicultural issues)
Jim Murphy(history, disasters)
Dorothy Hinshaw Patent (natural science, ecology, wildlife, western expansion history)
Rosalyn Schanzer] (author/illustrator history. science, and biography)
David M. Schwartz (math, animals, natural science)
Alexandra Siy (natural science, animals, technology)
Andrea Warren http://andreawarren.com/ (history—major world events from the point of view of the children who lived through them)

(Check out the videos on our Authors on Call Page)

* Your school would order 100 books of each title, one for each author, about 3 classroom sets.
* Your school would assign the books to the appropriate teachers who would read the book (s).
* Just prior to teaching a book, the teachers would meet for an hour via interactive videoconferencing (ivc) with its author for a brain-storming session on classroom strategies for teaching that particular book including tips on researching and writing.
* INK would establish a wiki for the project with your school. Each author would have a page on a wiki to answer teacher questions on an on-going basis for the duration of the use of the book. Teachers could also use the wiki to blog about their experiences.
* After the students finish studying the book, they would meet face-to-face with the author via ivc for questions and answers. In order to keep the groups small, this would be three 20 minute periods or four 15 minute periods.
* In addition, the teachers would attend an ivc with Dr Myra Zarnowski, a professor of children’s literature at Queens College, CUNY author of Making Sense of History and one with Angela Maiers, author of The Passion-Driven Classroom.

To sum up, the package would include about three classroom sets for each of nine titles (900 books in all), eleven hours of just-in-time professional development, and 9 hours of interaction with children. The wiki created by the authors and teachers would be a permanent record of the insights developed during the course of the program. The total investment is $50 per child, no more than $25,000 for a school of 500 students, with the books and the knowledge available for years to come.

I believe that this program will generate unprecedented excitement and a culture of learning in your school. Teachers and students will love the writing projects that come out of interacting with real authors. We could be a catalyst to rev up learning and creativity throughout your school. I also believe that reading terrific nonfiction will have a significant effect on test scores. Don’t forget, it is our books that are excerpted on the assessment tests. There is grant money available in technology, literacy and professional development and now is not to soon to start thinking about next year. We are piloting this program starting in October and will know more in the next few months. Think about it. And contact me if you’re interested in knowing more. My email address is: Vicki@inkthinktank.com. I’d love to hear from you.

Who Are Exemplars of Twenty-First Century Skills?

Twentieth century education arose at the time of the industrial revolution. Its purpose was to produce workers for factories—people who could read and write, who got along well with others, and who could follow directions. This short video sums it up quite well.

But times have changed and the skills of the twentieth century, which education met most effectively in the 1950s, are still being taught for the most part in the old-fashioned way. It doesn’t work. Recently, I’ve been attending education conferences where many innovators speak about the skills we’ll need for the twenty-first century. Computer literacy is, of course, a given. But that alone won’t solve the problems. Much of what I heard at these conferences as new is a simply a throw-back to the progressive education I was fortunate to receive as a child. (The new buzz word is “project-based learning” or pbl.) But one noted and impressive educator I’ve come across in my travels, who truly speaks to the future, is Alan November. Here is another short video in which he lays out what he thinks are the three essential skills kids will need to thrive in the twenty-first century.

If you don’t have the time or interest to watch the video, here’s my take on his three skills. First, people will have to know how to process massive amounts of information. This means they have to be able to read critically, pick out the stuff that fits with the problem they have to solve, and synthesize the material into something that has added value for the marketplace they are connected with.

Second, November thinks that people have to be able to work globally—to find people on the planet, not just in their neighborhood, state or even country, who can help them to solve problems.

Third, November believes that the most valuable workers of the future have to be self-directed. They will be able to work without needing a boss. This means that they must be creative enough to figure out what needs to be done and disciplined enough to do the work without having someone looking over their shoulder. (It’s cheaper to hire workers who don’t need managers.)

So now, here’s my question: Who are exemplars of workers who already have these skills? Who are models of disciplined, self-starters, on-going life-long learners, who process massive amounts of information, including material gathered from all over the world, and produce works with added value? Can you guess who they are? (I’m prolonging this, trying to approximate a drum-roll.) It’s (are you ready?) CHILDREN’S NONFICTION AUTHORS!!!!

We each do extensive research; we travel (and email and Skype) the world; and, god knows, we don’t have a regular paycheck so we’ve got to be self-starters. In addition to the knowledge we’ve accrued via the books we write, we can talk from first-hand experience about the acquisition of the subset of skills needed for each of the three overall 21^st century skills as stated by Alan November. We can speak about how to locate pertinent information, how to select the most appropriate, how to double-check its accuracy, how to honor our sources, etc. Most of us have traveled to other parts of the world in pursuit of what interests us. What skills are involved in working globally with people of different cultures and values? (We can speak to that.) And as to the last skill, the idiosyncratic ways we have each learned in order to trick (manipulate? cajole? threaten?) ourselves into working productively, that could absolutely fill volumes. It’s so a highly individualized that I venture we each have something different to say about it. At the very least, we can affirm that work is not relegated to a traditional 9-to-5 workday.

Want to know how we do it? Start asking.

And to help you ask we’re launching something new:

Ink Link: Authors on Call invites you to join us for a series of COMPUTERSIDE CHATS—informal panel discussions via videoconferencing,starting on May 10. This adventure in technology will allow authors and educators to discuss the exciting role that nonfiction literature can play in bringing the joy of learning to your classroom. The videoconferences will be FREE, compliments of our partner SetFocus, which has given us a “virtual room” for our chats. Participants can ask questions via a written chat (#authorsoncall) , and the conversation will continue on our wiki. The room can hold about forty separate endpoints, which might include anything from individual computers to a room of people with a projector. Together we can create an intimate meeting without the costs or inconvenience of travel. Since space is limited, reservations will be granted via applications ala TED conferences where you can add your own witty comment in answer to our provocative question. If you'd like to join our emailing list, please let me know at: Vicki@inkthinktank.com

Our inaugural INK Link Computerside Chat on May 10 at 7 PM EDT will feature author David Schwartz, literacy expert Angela Maiers, and moi, Vicki Cobb called: Passionate Voices: Science, Math, and 21st Century Skills

Open Source, Intellectual Properties and Economics

Up to now, the business of publishing has been to make creative content available through the dissemination of print, film, and other forms of recorded materials. The purchase price of the end product gives a cut to everyone involved in the production, manufacturing, distribution, and selling to the end reader (user?). Money is made because of the basic economics law of supply and demand. The greater the demand, the more copies sold and the more everyone makes. The producers of content are responsive to demand and make sure, as much as possible, to meet it successfully. Copyright laws protect the creators and producers of content against non-authorized folk stealing and selling (pirating) their products. (By the way, patents and copyrights have a limited life in protecting intellectual property. The idea is to give authors and creators a livelihood so that they can produce other works. Ultimately the protection expires and the property becomes part of the public domain, one of the principles of our free society.) It all worked quite well but I think that it will soon be the good old days.

Open source is a concept that has long been around in science. Scientists have the ethic that, since there is only one nature to be discovered, the work of individual scientists should to be published for the good of all so that everyone can share and build on each other’s work. Scientists are not supposed to profit from their discoveries. As I learned from writing the biography of Marie Curie, she and her husband had the opportunity to make money from the procedure she developed for extracting radium from uranium ore but they adhered to this principle. Others became wealthy from the process and Marie Curie, after much publicity, received a desperately needed gram of radium for her Institute through the charitable contributions of others.

In recent history, open source was behind the software that was installed on the first personal computers. This meant that the software was free. More importantly, the code it was written in was available for everyone to modify as they wished. The good news was that open source led to a proliferation of successful applications. The bad news: no one was making any money. “Hey… wait a minute,” a few developers cried and suddenly some software became proprietary.

As long as it was somewhat difficult and expensive to copy intellectual properties, copyright worked. But the digital revolution has changed the game. It costs nothing to produce writing, copy it and widely distribute it. Why use a publisher when you can publish yourself with the click of a mouse? It now seems as if EVERYONE out there is writing and publishing, blog, blog, blog… And we’re sharing and rewriting each others’ work. The idea behind a wiki is that everyone can put in their own two cents and remain anonymous if they wish. There are no identifiable authors, no gatekeepers; no arbiters of excellence. The zeitgeist is that all information is free. A kid’s idea of a research paper is to Google, cut, paste, and print, ta da! There’s a sense of entitlement out there. If it’s on the web, it’s ours for the taking.

“Hey…wait a minute,” we writers cry. What about all that time, effort and money we spent to get us to this point where we’re really good at what we do? If something is of value, shouldn’t the world pay for it? How can we make a living if we’re not being paid a salary by some institution? The answer, my friends, is in that law of economics. When the supply is limited, the demand forces up the price. Digital publishing puts no limit on the supply so the price goes down, sometimes to zero. The price goes up, however, on analog creations. Here are some examples: theater and concert tickets, professional sporting events, live lectures by notables, one-of-a-kind originals in art and fashion by famous creators. Fame increases the value of a celebrity’s time, which is limited. What people seem willing to pay for are the live, synchronous (in real time) personal experiences with the sources of the material that grabs them. That’s why author school visits pay. That’s why author videoconferencing will pay. And that’s why we’re writing this blog for free.