Background notes - Digital Paper 'zine
We've had quite a few inquiries about Digital Paper, the BAWP 'zine
publication of teacher consultant (TC) writing / audio / video. It's
not an effort unique to BAWP by any means and lots of writing project
sites have published,
or are working to publish, similar collections of teacher
consultants' extraordinary work. The idea at BAWP started way back in July 2002, about two and a half years after we began experimenting with the Manila content management system. Our TCs who were early adopters of the web as a reading / writing environment (the web as "digital paper," a wording coined at BAWP's eBN conference in November, 2003) almost immediately envisioned a network of linked web publications within and beyond the BAWP community. "Teachers, in the classroom practicing teachers, as writers / creators" was at the center of our thinking. It's taken some time to get it off the ground and into the ether. Now it forms the newest part of our Teachers as Writers (TW) program, an umbrella continuity program with its own leadership council and which involves writing retreats, BAWP readings, summer open programs, PD workshops and writing marathons.
Digital Paper is a Manila weblog, hosted by our partners, the extraordinary Web team of the Kern County Superintendent of Schools. The weblog theme uses a design created especially for BAWP by Bryan Bell in April 2003. BAWP TC Chris Ashley did the banner art. For the first issue, editor Evan Nichols (also editor / publisher of his own 'zine, Rudolf's Diner) scanned through the last few summer writing anthologies looking for thematically linked pieces. He decided on "Boundaries" and then called for submissions from a small set of additional TC writers. You can read more in Digital Paper's 'About' page.
Just as BAWP's early exploration of weblogs led to wider interest within the larger NWP network, we hope Digital Paper seeds a California statewide and national network of classroom TC-edited digitally interactive publications. It's easy to envision local writing project site 'zines feeding regional / state 'zines feeding a national 'zine. In the grassroots, up-from-the-local growth of such a network, our teacher consultants will find various opportunities for professional development as writers, editors, producers, readers, and technology integrators. And, of course, there's the equally compelling notion of student versions of all of the above, with students developing as writers, editors, producers, readers, and technology users. We've explored the student level of the idea with with our Best of the Summer Writing Camps, TC Pat Delaney's Galileo Academy 'zine and TC Evan Nichols' Sequoia Sentinel .
To send email to 'zine Editor, click here.