IATEFL Birmingham 2016: MaWSIG pre-conference event

This year’s MaWSIG (Materials Writing Special Interest Group) pre-conference event was based around comparing print and digital publishing.

Lizzie Pinard documented the whole thing in four parts on her blog, so I’m going to cheat and give you links to them instead of writing my own summaries. I can’t really add anything she hasn’t already said! 🙂

Links on ‘parts’ will take you to Lizzie’s blog, links on names will take you to blogs or profiles of the speakers.

• Part 1
  Ceri Jones – Same but different
  Talking about how you have to approach the same learning outcomes in different ways depending on whether you are writing for print or digital, and raising the question of how to include freely productive tasks in self-study courses. (See also Christina Rebuffet-Broadus’ sketchnotes of the talk)
  Genevieve White – Adapting ELT materials: how to digitise a print course
  Talking about her experience of having to adapt print courses to work online. We suggested ideas for our versions of a print spread at the end of the day, and I was the lucky recipient of some puffin poo, which was much tastier than it sounds! (See also Christina Rebuffet-Broadus’ sketchnotes of the talk)

• Part 2
  Katherine Bilsborough – Writing for Primary
  Covering the content, illustration, appropriateness, rubrics and key ingredients of primary materials, as well as some tools Katherine uses to help her write age-relevant materials.
  Fiona Mauchline – Writing materials for the Playstation generation
  Focussing on materials for students aged 11-19. Including some very interesting research she did with her class on topics teenagers do and don’t want to talk about in class. (See also Christina Rebuffet-Broadus’ sketchnotes of the talk)
• Part 3
  Damian Williams – A road less travelled: from digital to print (and back again)
  Damian wrote an excellent e-book to help students who want to take the Delta exam, and decided to produce a hard copy version of it [affiliate links]. This is how he went about it. (See also Christina Rebuffet-Broadus’ sketchnotes of the talk)
  Sue Kay – Fifty ways not to turn your editor grey
  Lots of great tips to helps materials writers work well with their editors and smooth the writing process. You can find all of Sue’s tips here.
• Part 4
  Panel discussion featuring Katherine Bilsborough, Jo Sayers of ELTjam, Macmillan’s Debra Marsh, and Damian Williams, all chaired by Rachael Roberts.

If you’re interested in the interface of print and digital, you might also like to watch the recording of this presentation by Laura Patsko and Rolf Tynan, based on research done at Cambridge University Press into the use of face2face ebooks at the Embassy English school in Cambridge.

Thanks to MaWSIG for organising another fascinating pre-conference event. Looking forward to next year already!

Addendum: a few things from the rest of the conference

Lizzie went to the MaWSIG Open Forum during the main conference and reported back on it, as well as Here’s one I made earlier – designing effective classroom materials by Katherine Bilsborough and Sue Lyon-Jones.

Here are some slightly random tweets from talks I didn’t attend, but which are all related to materials writing:

Final Tip ‘DON’T PANIC!’ when materials writing for ESAP Reading from @tania_pattison #iatefl #espsig pic.twitter.com/ReAKCOphvq

— willnash (@willnash) April 12, 2016

What do you do with listening transcripts? Here’s what @esolcourses does #iatefl #iatefl2016 pic.twitter.com/ZfpXwTydsB

— Angelos Bollas (@angelos_bollas) April 13, 2016

@esolcourses highlights the importance of observing copyright #iatefl #iatefl2016 pic.twitter.com/eHMwuCpAOk

— Angelos Bollas (@angelos_bollas) April 13, 2016

What stops us writing? #IATEFL #MaWSIG pic.twitter.com/h1OmrOZnwN

— MaWSIG (@MaWSIG) April 15, 2016

How to start writing…
One suggestion of course is to join MaWSIG!#IATEFL #MaWSIG pic.twitter.com/LWlL76kIh6

— MaWSIG (@MaWSIG) April 15, 2016

Put money into experts. They should be adaptable, fearless, flexible and curious. A new breed … #IATEFL pic.twitter.com/9lSBURtB1y

— ELT Teacher 2 Writer (@ELT_T2W) April 15, 2016

.@teflerinha talking about our PCEs, conferences, Meetups – all great places to meet other #ELT writers, editors etc #MAWSIG #IATEFL

— MaWSIG (@MaWSIG) April 15, 2016

Emma Belcher from @OUPELTGlobal is asking for contributions to their blog. Contact her or us if you’d like to write. #MAWSIG #IATEFL

— MaWSIG (@MaWSIG) April 15, 2016

.@pennyhands Lovely advice from editors to authors – do you agree? #MaWSIG #IATEFL pic.twitter.com/ymqZRqyzyB

— MaWSIG (@MaWSIG) April 15, 2016

@pennyhands #MaWSIG #IATEFL Penny – Editors: if or when you do make changes what do you *need* to tell authors and what not

— MaWSIG (@MaWSIG) April 15, 2016

@BrunoLeys: Use https://t.co/Uh7HIWR1Ed to check frequency of use. #iatefl

— JorisEAL (@JorisEAL) April 15, 2016

More ideas #iatefl #iatefl2016 pic.twitter.com/4KjZVtNWda

— Angelos Bollas (@angelos_bollas) April 15, 2016