GPACW and the Future of Computers and Writing

Word is that the next Great Plains Alliance for Computers and Writing Conference will go big next year, being hosted by none other than the University of Minnesota at their main campus in downtown St. Paul (or Minneapolis--stay tuned).  After the success of the event yesterday at Mankato, it's sure to be a conference that brings in even more people curious and willing to share about the work that people are doing in this field.

My own session had a small but interested group that heard from Matt Barton of St. Cloud about what we could learn from Kickstarter and similar crowd-funding opportunities.   They heard me talk about our growing English for New Media program at Dakota State University, and they heard Danica Stith of Iowa State talk about using political ads in a swing state for doing rhetorical analysis.  That group lingered and talked and shared more ideas as the conference wound down to a close.

Kudos to Lee Tesdell and his crew at Mankato State University for a job well done.  I look forward to next year!

Crowded Schedule

"Time is what keeps everything from happening at once."  Ray Cummings.

Ray, is time a thing that moves in a stream, or comes in clumps like cottage cheese?  Does it flow like a river, come down from north like a wind, or does it rumble from time to time like California earthquakes?  I'd like to know, because lately it seems as though the long stretches of quiet, the bowl of sun and space with nothing to stir it but my own steps forward, these seem gone, or become the dumped contents of a pair of salad tongs.  One arm of the tongs is me.  What is the other?  

This week, in addition to my teaching, I've done a prep session for students getting ready for the CAAP exam, co-hosted, sort of, a conference for the GPACW, participated in a panel discussion of the English for New Media program at DSU, and led a workshop (with a colleague) on the multimedia authoring software Sophie, which neither of us knew before we took on the workshop.  

Nothing wrong with keeping busy, except when it invades the need for quiet, or time with family.  It just so happens my sister and her man came through this week on their RV journey west after selling their home, quitting their jobs, and packing everything into an 18 year old motor home and leaving Nashville for California via St. Louis, South Dakota, Boise, Portland, and maybe even Seattle.  Then my daughter and her man arrived for a visit from Minneapolis.  So it's great having them here, but I wish, Ray, that there could be less of it all happening at once.  

It's all good.  

Dan Weinstein is My Hero, iJot, and Other Cool Stuff

Our GPACW Conference today, a gathering of the Great Plains Alliance for Computers and Writing, has been a success, doing what it should do--confronting teachers with questions and offering an opportunity to consider how to answer them. Presenters through the morning and afternoon gave us a lot to think about, in terms of specific tools as well as concepts that need further consideration. Just as it should be.
The conference, hosted by our own Dan Weinstein, brings together some heavy-hitters, including Dickie Selfe, who has thought and written much about emerging literacy issues. Also in attendance as a sponsor and interested party was Marc Barrot, whose iJot software seems poised for bigger and better things. Marc was especially interesting to talk to, interested in what I was doing with my students and seeking out how his program could better serve our needs. Marc's concept and simple execution of an idea of collapsible and expandable outlines on the web is evidenced in iJot and on pages such as Salon's Slam in Salon. I'm feeling good about all that.