What should I write? Some guidelines

Thanks for agreeing to contribute a chapter to "Coming of Age: an Introduction to the New Worldwide Web". Here are some guidelines about what to write.

Original contributors:

1. You may wish to read through your chapter(s) to make sure it is still relevant. It may be that you would like to make minor changes, which is fine. If you want to do a really radical rewrite, please discuss it with me first, because this book is a very delicately balanced ecosystem.

2. Read your bio again. You may wish to update it, or replace your mugshot with an even nicer one. No problem.

3. If you have the time, it would be incredibly useful if you could provide a very brief abstract (summary) of your chapter, eg "In this chapter I describe the work of three podcasters in schools in Russia, to see how they tackled classroom management issues." The idea of the summary is to enable a reader to determine very quickly whether or not this chapter is going to be relevant to her at this time.

4. If you gave had feedback in the form of, say, "I have found this book wonderful. I passed it on to 3 colleagues and now we have a blogging teachers' club in our college", please let me know, together with the person's contact details so I can ask them if it's ok to publish their comments. The purpose is to provide mini-case studies that others can learn from or be inspired by.

New contributors, and original contributors with new articles:

1. I will have already suggested a broad theme or title. If you wish to radically change it, please discuss with me first, as I am trying to ensure that the book is both well-balanced and themed.

2. The aims of the book are to (a) bring these tools to teachers' attention, (b) explain what they are and how they might be used in the classroom in a very non-technical and highly practical way, and therefore (c) to give teachers the confidence to try stuff out for themselves.

With these aims in mind please:

a) write about what you are passionate about, so that your enthusiasm shines through

b) make sure that you can answer this question: "How will this chapter help Mrs Soames with her 5th graders next Wednesday afternoon?" OK, not literally, but you see what I'm getting at: this is not intended to be an academic treatise or an opportunity for some of us to have an intellectual debate amongst ourselves!

3. Please don't worry about covering similar ground to someone else: we all have different ways of explaining the same thing, so if what I say doesn't click with someone, maybe what you say will.

4. If you have the time, it would be incredibly useful if you could provide a very brief abstract (summary) of your chapter, eg "In this chapter I describe the work of three podcasters in schools in Russia, to see how they tackled classroom management issues." The idea of the summary is to enable a reader to determine very quickly whether or not this chapter is going to be relevant to her at this time.

General points:

Please try to avoid expressions which are very specific to a particular culture, even though it's difficult. Last time, I wasn't sure what a slam dunk was because we don't use that expression in England. By the same token, if you use an acronym, like DOPA or ECM, please spell out what it stands for.

If you have ideas for other things that ought to be covered, please say. Please volunteer!

I need some extra words on using social bookmarking. Any offers?

At the risk of sounding sexist, I'm very interested in trying to include more female contributors. I have approached several, but if you know of any lady who is doing good stuff in a particular area and writes nicely, please let me know.

I'm going to ask someone to write a chapter on online safety. Got a couple of possibilities, but need to sleep on it.

I think it would be good to include someone from the antipodes, someone from Asia, someone from Africa and someone from Europe (apart from UK). Any suggestions?

Finally, if you wish to be invited to be a member of this blog, so you can post messages in your own right, please let me know.

Thanks again for all your enthusiasm!