On digital publishing (chapter 2)

In a recent post I shared a few new options for student book creation.

Another strategy for publishing is a very simple one, one that allows us to take documents originally published quietly in traditional formats–Word, PowerPoint, PDF, XLS–into more dynamic, more polished, flippable, zoomable, scalable, and embeddable Web publications.  Most reproduce the feeling of reading a print document and allow you to create your own library of content with privacy options.

Consider the new options for embedding student papers and presentations and yearbooks and artistic comic and picture books in Websites, wikis, blogs, and Moodles, creating archives and portfolios of student work.

Note:  Because most of these sites also function as social networks for document sharing, content is not restricted to educationally appropriate material.  Premium features may address such issues and also may provide attractive print reproduction alternatives.

Some of the options in this publishing subset:

Issuu publishes lovely digital editions of documents as magazines, books, catalogs, reports, and more and currently boasts more than 38 million pages and such users as Penguin Group, Google, World Bank Publications, Random House, Siemens, Routledge, Cambridge University Press, Edelman, Metro International, Guardian, The Telegraph, United Nations, and thousands of hip indie publishers and cool companies. It also offers a nice variety of embed options relating to layout, color, theme, audio, and size.

Here is a document my students recently scanned and published relating to our Township’s local history

Docstoc

is a user-generated community for sharing professional documents. With Docstoc, you can find and download a vast quantity of high quality legal, business, technology, educational, and creative documents for free. Docstoc also allows users to upload their documents to be promoted and shared with the world. Lastly, Docstoc members can store their documents in their own person online folders for access anytime and anywhere.

Note: In addition to its impressive publishing options and archive of both free and premium publications, Docstoc seems to be attracting a number of essays for purchase.

Calameo has a more international scope, can be read in multiple languages, and offers options for the creation of magazines, brochures, sales catalogs, annual reports, presentation brochures and more.

Scribd is a repository for

millions of documents and books at your fingertips! Read, print, download, and send them to your mobile devices instantly. Or upload your PDF, Word, and PowerPoint docs to share them with the world’s largest community of readers.

Yudu, in addition to offering a library of classic ebooks, allows you to upload documents to create search engine friendly page-turning publications that can be added to your website or sent out on email.

Click to launch the full edition

Lulu is a popular portal for self-publishing and selling books with international reach.  The site offers a vast array of options for physical publication and marketing of titles.  Imagine the savings of removing the middle man for yearbook publishing!

Filed under: digital storytelling, social networking