So about 80% of the people on the plane to New Hampshire were reading Harry Potter last night. Well, ok, maybe 8 people, but it seemed like a lot. The guy next to me warned me when he sat down. “If you know the ending, I don’t want to hear it.” Between the hour long delay getting out in Philly and the hour long plane ride, he cruised through about 200 pages. Impressive.
When I got out of the terminal here in “Manchestah” to where the hotel shuttle was supposed to be, a woman who had arrived for the user group meeting I’m keynoting tomorrow recognized me (oy…t-shirt, two-day beard…oy) with, you guessed, it Harry Potter in hand. He’s everywhere.
Then today, in the midst of a workshop I was doing, I tweet to the network that we’re looking for the favorite Web 2.0 tools of the group. Within minutes, the tweets start coming in. I’m showing it real time in Twitter Camp. The people of the room are mesmerized. I’m trying to articulate what all of this means, the fact that in the midst of my sobbing at the Philly airport yesterday watching some soldiers come back from Iraq, greeted by their screaming children and affectionate wives, not being able to imagine what it must be like for them, that in the midst of that powerful moment I decided to Tweet the fact that I was sobbing.
I need help.
So anyway, in response to the tool question, Lucy Gray (who’s Twittering her way to Monterey, btw) responds with “How about Scribd?” and I’m like “How ’bout wha?” So I go there and try to take like one minute to make sense of what I’m looking at when I see someone has posted a .pdf of the entire Harry Potter book scanned in a page at a time.
And I’m doing this on screen as everyone is watching, and there are like audible gasps and reactions from the group and I’m getting pretty stunned, mumble something about copyright and intellectual property when all of a sudden I see this link underneath the .pdf that says “mp3,” and I’m going “this can’t be what I think it is” and so I click on the link and sure enough it starts downloading this huge file to iTunes which after a few minutes opens up and this female computer voice starts reading the last Harry Potter book through my computer speakers to the whole room. And there are a couple of women in the front who have their fingers in their ears saying “Ooooooommmmmm. Ooooooommmmmm.” so they can’t hear this voice which, if you really pay attention you can kinda get in the rhythm of things and follow along the story.
It’s surreal.
And amazing.
Have I mentioned lately, I love this stuff? I really, really do. Every day for me is like a little kid at Christmas, my eyes opened wide by what this interconnected life I’m leading brings my way. Today was, on balance, just too much fun.
I’m not worthy.
(Photo “The Circle is Complete” by Teban.)
Technorati Tags: harrypotter, learning, twitter, manchester
I knew I was traveling this week, so I finished the book on Sunday afternoon. I’ve been asked my opinions, but I won’t say until next week. However, someone did point out that this is probably the most celebrated book ever coming out, so much hype and NO ONE could remember ANYTHING ever bringing that much excitement to the world. Spoilers, copyright infringement, so many fan fiction sites and great websites (Love the Leaky Cauldron and Mugglenet!), not to mention the other books that people have written to share their thoughts and views, the webchats she’s held, the podcasts, plus chances to buy un-official shirts from places like cafepress. It is completely incredible. The Internet has really pushed this book by storm. Makes me curious what other books would have been like this one if the Internet had been around? And what would this book have been like without the Internet?
No matter the hype or the internet push the book has people reading and that is a beautiful thing. I am reading it now, slowly and with glee. To know that the book transcends the boundaries of folks who normally choose their computer to interact with is amazing in itself. Thanks for sharing your terrific day. I enjoyed it vicariously in a big way.
Hey Will,
So the evening most went on the cruise during BLC I went with my students and saw the latest Harry Potter movie. What interested me was how when both my students got back to the hotel, they immediately started writing reviews on their MySpace pages. It turns out this is common practice for them and their friends, whoever sees a movie first blogs about it.
Image them coming in the next day to class and being asked to write an essay on the movie after that – ugh.
I finished it this morning. I am currently at a very competitive sports summer camp for boys age 8 – 16 in Wisconsin. The older kids were asking me for un-assigned periods so that they could read. The younger kids are flying through it as well. The boys should be playing sports all day, and a lot of them want to sit in their cabins to read. I wish I could get that kind of “hype” and engagement in my classroom.
I’ve got to say that I had a great day too. First thing this morning, actually it was a 8:30am, I worked with two teachers who are very apprehensive about technology. Both of these teachers just got brand new 80G iPods. My job was to show them the basics and not overwhelm them. I just showed them 3 basic things. I showed them how to download educational podcasts to their local machines, how to get those podcasts, and other things, on their iPod and I showed them how to create a basic playlist. I went from 8:30 to 12:00 noon. I am also setting up a follow up day in September. Both teachers said they felt much more comfortable after I worked with them.
That was not the best part of my day. My wife volunteers for a program call the Elusive Rides. The program takes place at Rainy Day Farms. This is a riding program for school age children with special needs. This is a great program. It was great to see the smiles on these children’s faces that so often have little to smile for. And for some of these children smiling is a hard chore. What I loved was watching the parents. Some parents were nervous but all the parents had a moment of “hey, that is my kid.” Look at what my child can do. My wife, Kimberly Weinberg, is a former rider who leads the horses around the riding area while therapists work with the child riders.
A child at Christmas describes it perfectly!
It’s just so cool using some of these tools, and how all the connections start popping out at you, everywhere.
By the way, Harry Potter was on Colbert’s show last night. He opened the scene with him reading, and then they pan the audience, and every member of the audience is reading too.
After every commercial break, when they came back, he was reading the book. Pretty clever 😉
I bet you wowed the workshop! gotta love those unscripted moments!
“.. I’m getting pretty stunned, mumble something about copyright and intellectual property…”
At the risk of sounding as though I missed the point…because I do get how cool the immediacy of receiving and at once sharing a pertinent discovery with the audience was,…but what about the stuff you mumbled first…what about copyright and intellectual property? Isn’t Scribd a lawsuit waiting to happen? Is there an acceptable way to do what they are trying to do? Where does that leave creators?
Suzanne: I actually woke up last night and started thinking about this post, specifically the point you bring up. I managed to really minimize an important aspect of this whole thing, didn’t I? It is a huge discussion we need to have, and you would think that there should be ramifications given the current laws. Beyond that, however, we need to really begin to rethink and understand where this leaves creators and what it means for creative work. Thanks for not letting that point drop.
Will, I”m not sure what you meant when you said that Lucy Gray is twittering her way to Monterey. But, wouldn’t it be cool to twitter and blog your way around the country. I imagine that it would be much safer way of hitchhiking.
I’m not surprised that someone put it on the web also. Being one of those crazy adults who being over the age of 25, will get a life now that the series is over, I like to read for myself. A fellow teacher was upset when she turned on the radio yesterday and heard the DJ sharing info regarding the outcome of the book. The ability to share information so freely is wonderful but what about the rights of those who want to spend the time and savor the learning themselves? I rushed to read it so no one could spoil it for me.
Unbelievable – I had to check out the pdf of the book (since my wife and son would not lend me one copy to go to the conference), and do you know that it was not scanned in at all, somebody actually typed the book – there are too many little errors to have gotten by a publisher. What an effort, all to bring Harry to the masses!
I’m also a Harry Potter reader, but I won’t talk about the book (that I finished reading by 5 a.m., this “morning”)but about two other things:
> the role of the internet (and the movies, even if I think they can’t be separated)
> and the law, the author rights in the “share world” we live in.
about the first topic, I agree with the person that said that most of the success, the fan-fever around the books/movies was increased by the internet: if we still lived in a “book club” world, whit no possibility to talk about things rather than in our little group, the Potter (and Tolkien, brought back by the films) phenomenon wouldn’t be so big. We have discussion groups, where we discuss the plot, the characters, with thousands of different people. we have Potter encyclopedia, we have fan-sites, we have a huge brain that thinks, feeds of an lives potter life, only possible thanks to the internet.
about the author rights, I was glad when the PDF version appeared on the web. I bought the book (reading more than 700 pages on a screen is really hard), but I was glad. Even if I consider it an example of breaking the law.
we know that there are softwares (e-mule, kazaa, etc) that allow people to share everything, even what isn’t theirs…
Yesterday, here in Portugal, three major sites were closed because of that.
maybe things are changing. we can share what is ours, but are we really allowed to share what it isn’t?
btw…: Deathly Hallows is really, really, the best Potter book ever 😉