Connections – new book (and more) from Rick Schwier

My friend and mentor (frientor?) Rick Schwier has recently announced the publication of his new book Connections: Virtual Learning Communities. Rick describes it as …

… an eBook that explores how online communities form, who joins them, and how they operate in learning environments. This book is available as an .epub document, suitable for viewing on most mobile devices and desktops.

The book is already on my iPad and in the top three for my summer reading list (and no, Rick, Stieg Larsson is not on my reading list and I certainly wouldn’t put it ahead of your work). I’m impressed with it so far for three reasons.

First, it might be academic in content but it doesn’t read like an academic book. Maybe that’s because Rick and I have talked about these things so often, I recall some of our conversations – I can almost hear him speaking the words as I read. But I’m pretty sure anyone interested in online learning, informal learning or educational technology in general will get a lot out of the book.

Second reason I’m impressed – Rick has released this as a free, creative commons licensed work. This is how all academic work should be released, in my opinion and also in Rick’s:

this book will not be commercial. Ever. It will be free. Forever. If there are any costs associated with its production or distribution, I will eat them. This is more than just a friendly gesture; it is a philosophical position. I am an academic who has been paid generously from public coffers. You shouldn’t have to pay me twice. I also believe, as my friend Dean Shareski once stated, that sharing is a moral imperative— a responsibility we have as educators—not just a nice thing to do.

Yep, he talks the talk and walks the walk.

A third reason I’m impressed is that Rick is publishing the book in a way that transcends time (I’ve always thought of Rick as being slightly time-lordish). I love it when people push some boundaries between different media. My mind is blown by some of the boundaries Rick is pushing and erasing with this book. Along with the book, Rick has put together some videos for an introduction to each chapter. Most books are linear and finite – they are read in a certain order and are done when you reach the end. Connections has many (but not thrown in gratuitously) hyperlinks to web pages, videos and even Elluminate recordings. Rick sees the book as a starting point for an ongoing discussion about virtual learning communities.

I will return to this book when I can to reshape and repair it. And I hope to include some of your stories in the next edition.

If you want to be part of the ongoing conversation and part of future revisions of the book, you can participate at the VLC book wiki.

P.S. I’m trying a bit of an experiment with this blog post, continuing on from my last post. I’m writing in IA Writer on my iPad in markdown format. From here it will be emailed to my posterous blog which should autoforward it to my main personal blog which should then tweet out the new blog post (if this ends up looking like crap, the process broke down somewhere along the line). Although this is perhaps the most convoluted workflow I’ve ever heard of to post to a blog, I’m hoping that being able to start the blogging on my iPad (without a doubt it is my current most favoured way to connect to the digital world) will get me blogging a little more often. Like, maybe three or four times a year. At this rate, I might even get a new podcast out! :–)