The Process of Self-Publishing Using Kindle Direct Publishing

Lady Lightning Fingers with some students that
actually graduated high school this year

For many years when I was an elementary technology teacher, my alter-ego "Lady Lightning Fingers" would show up to challenge students in their timed typing tests. The kids loved the persona and would look forward to her showing up occasionally. It has been a few years since I've had the opportunity to become this make-shift superhero due to moving out of the classroom and into more of an edtech coaching role. Every year I still go into the elementary classrooms and do lessons on the 9 elements of digital citizenship with concepts based on grade level appropriateness. While this may sound odd, I always make sure I teach about digital citizenship in "unplugged" ways because no matter what age, I focus on the importance of students finding their balance between real life and their online presence.
Two years ago I was in the shower (where most of my great ideas start) and a book series concept came to mind that would support teaching our students about digital citizenship in an unplugged way. I actually got out of the shower without finishing because some great rhymes were "washing over me" (see what I did there?) and the concept of the first book began! In a week I had the rough draft of 3 books created that all supported different aspects of digital citizenship with "Lady Lightning Fingers" as the superhero that makes cameo appearances in them all.
Because this concept was directly tied to the students at my school, I wanted it to run with that idea. I sought out students to create the illustrations but had a hard time finding what I needed. One day I was discussing the concept with a fellow educator at our school and she said "Have you seen Daniel Grissom's Instagram? I think he could do it." At first glance, I immediately knew he could take my ho-hum idea and make it spectacular. Thankfully, he said "yes!"

Over the last few months, Mr. Grissom worked to create amazingly vivid and compelling graphics for what has now become the first book, But What if it Wasn't a Sardine Delivery Man? (The Digital Citizenship Adventures of Lady Lightning Fingers). Most authors would say that he has created splendid artwork to support the writing but I would be remiss if I didn't admit that I think Daniel's characters actually are what makes this book worth it!
From the beginning, it was my desire to self-publish. I felt like this would be a great opportunity for the newly appointed Director of Instructional Technology and INNOVATION to model innovative practices to teachers, students, school families, and beyond. I chose to create every step of this book with the tools that our students have access to all the time. I created high-resolution scans of Mr. Grissom's artwork on our school's multi-functional printer. I imported them into Google Drive. I opened a Google Doc and anywhere I wanted an illustration, I would pull it into Google Draw to add it. As time went on, I got more creative and started realizing I could place text boxes anywhere on the scans and little by little the book started feeling creative and worthy of the being called "a picture book."
Little did I know that Kindle Direct Publishing actually has free tools that would have allowed me to do these same things a bit easier (I ended up downloading the free Kindle Kid's Book Creator software to create the e-book version of But What if it Wasn't a Sardine Delivery Man? (The Digital Citizenship Adventures of Lady Lightning Fingers). I do love knowing that I created the entire book using Google Suite for Education products and that this could be done on our student's Chromebooks as well.
I know that if Mr. Daniel Grissom will take on the concept again for the next book in the series, it will be better. I learned so much in this process! I hope I can now share the "how" with our teachers and students to empower them to be self-published authors as well. My definition of innovation has always been "the intersection of need and passion under an umbrella of creativity." As an educator, I felt I had a need for quality unplugged resources to teach the 9 elements of digital citizenship to our students. I had a passion to see those resources come to fruition; with the help of Daniel Grissom's creativity, we have innovatively created our first published Digital Citizenship resource for our school (and anyone else that might find it's value).
This particular book looks at the importance of students being mindful of digital security and privacy. At the end of the book are possible discussion questions to spark critical thinking on the concept. It is my desire to place a book in each of our k-5th-grade classrooms this year. It is also my desire that my alter-ego, "Lady Lightning Fingers", might be asked to read the book occasionally. If you are interested, you can get your paperback or Kindle version from Amazon.

Using the Tools Appropriately: Unpacking ISTE Standard #2

ISTE Student Standard #2 Digital Citizen: Students recognize the rights, responsibilities, and opportunities of living, learning and working in an interconnected digital world, and they act and model in ways that are safe, legal and ethical.

Warning: I will get on my soapbox here a bit. Helping students to develop appropriate
digital citizenship skills is an imperative part of the educational process not only for their
own safety and legal obligations but for the care of others as well. I feel very strongly
about the importance of all educators that have technology in their classroom speaking
into appropriate usage- with rights come responsibilities.  As a four year Common Sense Media
Digital Citizenship educator I start teaching grade-level appropriate digital citizenship in
kindergarten to talk about the importance of wise choices and the impact it can have on you.
If you are in a technology-rich environment I highly recommend your school district adopting
a digital citizenship curriculum and embedding it into your district’s scope and sequence right
in the various subject matter curriculum itself. Let your technology teachers spend extra time
on it but every teacher should be speaking into digital citizenship issues because we are all
stewards of it. We should see ourselves as both consumers and creators of the Internet.
This past school year a group of fifth graders at our school had been taught how to create
a Google site. On their own, during their own time, they created a website of cartoons for fun.
Because I had been speaking into digital citizenship the whole time they had been at our
elementary school, they allowed me to make some suggestions to better protect themselves
as well as help them learn how to track visitors to their site. If they had been 16-year-old boys
doing this, I doubt I would have had that same opportunity but what an amazing blessing it was
to me to see these students become empowered learners from a previous lesson and then to
seek me out to figure out best practice. It was one of my all-time favorite teacher moments.

We live in a world of instant gratification, instant reciprocation, instant retaliation. Students who
are 18 need to learn that by forwarding one inappropriate photo that was sent to them by the
person who took it could put them on a sexual predators list for the rest of their life. Teaching
digital citizenship is probably the easiest standard to meet without technology itself. Every
person has heard some horror story and quite possibly they have even had a family member
that has lived through one. But I believe we also have a responsibility to share the positive
influence technology can have as well.

If you are in a low tech environment:

• Have students participate in a station rotation Common Sense media digital citizenship

curriculum that supports their grade level.

• Talk about valuing the intellectual property of others and show them examples of

plagiarism and ways they can detect if they have accidentally plagiarized.  

• Have students google themselves or their parents to see what they find. Use that to talk

about the digital footprint they are creating and how it will remain long after they are gone.

If you are in a no-tech environment:

• Watch age-appropriate videos to discuss various digital citizenship issues.
• Create discussions on “what if” this happened and what would be the correct result.

Common Sense Media also has several unplugged options to choose from.

• Speak from your heart.

One of the most effective lessons I teach is sharing two stories with my students. In 2011,

President Obama was coming to visit Chattanooga, TN. Our family owns a donut shop

in Chattanooga and I immediately thought, “How cool would it be if the President came to

visit our shop?”  

Being a techie, I immediately started tweeting the #POTUSinCHA hashtag to invite him to Julie Darling Donuts. The problem was that I was currently in Atlanta at an edtech conference and I

didn’t know that the majority of the politicians in Chattanooga were boycotting the

event. His visit had become a political hotbed. On my way home from Atlanta I received a

phone call from one of the local news stations and they asked if they could interview me about

why I wanted him to come and about the special flavored donut we were going to make in his

honor on the day he was in Chattanooga. Oblivious to any agenda, I jumped on the chance to

give our 2-year-old company some publicity for free.

When I was interviewed I told the reporter it wasn’t about politics, it was about respecting

the office of the presidency. That evening the piece aired on the nightly news and before

I could say “Chocolate Salted Caramel Donut” my company and myself were being viciously

attacked on social media and via emails. This story made national news! I was called everything

from a racist (because the donut was chocolate) to an exploiter. The Republicans were

mad at me for welcoming him and the Democrats were mad at me for capitalizing on him

being in town. I received hate emails and threats personally. I remember being so distraught

the next morning when I would read all that was said and we were actually quite worried

it was going to be the demise of our shop. President Obama did not visit the donut shop

that day and a group of friends also started a Facebook support page for me that week.

Looking back, it was so hard. People who didn’t know me or know anything about me

made so many assumptions about me and when anyone tried to speak up, it just made

it worse. I laid in bed for 4 days sick to my stomach thinking I had ruined our business

with one tweet that invited the President of the United States to my donut shop.

The upside to this story is that up to that point, it was the busiest week we had ever

had at the shop but it came at such a personal expense to me. I was bullied and

ridiculed by adults. It has become my greatest lesson for teaching digital citizenship.

But I don’t like to leave students, parents, or teachers scared of the Internet.

I like to remind them of the good things that have happened in my life because of

the Internet. This is my favorite success story: In February of this year, our 7-year-old

border collie named Secret went missing. She didn’t have on her collar, she wasn’t

chipped, and she had disappeared from a location she wasn’t familiar with. The truth is,

it felt pretty hopeless that we would get her back. But I’m an edtechie and I knew

first hand the power of social media. I do what I do best, I flooded my social media

accounts with photos of Secret and put out pleas to anyone and everyone to be on the

lookout for her. This silly dogs photo was shared over 2,000 times by friends,

family, acquaintances, and downright strangers. People I didn’t even know would

send me messages on Facebook telling me they had driven around the area she

was originally lost in looking for her. If everyone wants to know “Where’s Waldo?”

then a close second would be “Where’s Secret?” 2,000 reshares. It’s mind-boggling.

I remember telling my husband that I would keep looking hard for her for one week.

I followed up on every supposed sighting (there were only 2) and someone in our family

checked the local animal shelters daily to see if she had made her way back there.

We drove around Red Bank, Tennessee yelling out the window for hours. Six days

after her disappearance I got in bed and told my husband, “I don’t think she’s coming back.”

The next morning was my monthly #CHAedu #coffeeEDU at the donut shop.

Local educators that want to come together once a month to discuss education topics

of our choice for one hour. It’s a very fluid, organic meeting that I love. That morning

we had more participants than we had ever had and right when it was time to start,

my phone rang...and I answered it. It was the executive director of our local humane

society and he told me he thought he had Secret but she had been hit by a car and

would need surgery. Both my girls were working at the donut shop that morning

and I quickly updated them and left. The meeting went on without me! I may or may

not have driven a tad erratically but that is not pertinent to this. As I entered the

building the director told me she had been brought in the night before due to a phone

call they had received that a dog had been hit in Red Bank. They had taken her

to a local animal hospital for x-rays and to make sure nothing was life threatening

and one of the ladies that worked there thought she recognized the dog. The next

morning she called the humane society because she had scoured social media and

found the photo and gave the executive director my contact information. Our Secret

was back with us, a little worse for wear, but 2 surgeries later we have all put that

loss behind us. We have not forgotten the power of people coming together using

technology for a greater good. We spend so much time warning, threatening, and

scaring kids about social media but what an opportunity for me to model usage that

had an outcome with a happy ending. Crowdsourced dog finding! We all have stories

and the more real they are to our students, the more likely they will have an impact

that will matter at the appropriate time.

Other ideas for creating "Digital Citizen" opportunities in your classroom:

                        NO TECH                                LOW TECH                       HIGH TECH                         

Digital Citizen

Use newspapers to discuss articles that used technology and then discuss the impact of media on our footprint. Also, pull in a discussion on the 9 Elements of Digital Citizenship using these articles.

Have students volunteer to be “googled” or google yourself as a teacher and talk about the importance of an appropriate digital footprint. Discuss if having no footprint is good or bad?

Have students create a Fakebook for a historical or fictional character then discuss the 9 Elements of Digital Citizenship and how they relate to your character.