I would like to add my agreement to what Peter has said. I like the set-up
for the Inkshed Conference very much and felt that I would have liked to
spend more time reading others Inksheds and processing them a little. The
conference was rich in ideas and I felt that I didn't think through these
ideas as well as I could have. This process is aided, of course, by the
Inkshedding but it would have been nice to have time for private freewriting
too. As it was, I tried to keep two sets of notes -- one for distribution
and one for my own records, but usually I ended up doing one or the other,
or not having time to read other Inksheds.
I also think that there are some innovative solutions to this problem. I
have attended mini-conferences where people display their presentation on a
flip chart or poster and then stand by it to answer questions from the other
participants. The audience sees all presentations at their leisure. If we
decided to do this, we could keep this small -- four presentations per
one-hour poster session, and perhaps two poster-sessions per conference,
with a 15-20 minute Inkshed at the end of each poster-session.
I noticed that many of us were struggling with similar problems -- the
creation of technical writing courses, or helping students develop reading
strategies. Another format we could use would be to have three-member
"panels" with a moderator discussing a topic. About three months before the
conference, the moderator would pose questions which each member of the
panel would consider in a short paper which would be sent to the others on
the panel about one month before the conference. The presentation would
include a ten-minute summary of each paper by the members of the panel,
followed by a general discussion of the topic. This could take an hour,
with a full half-hour set aside after it to do Inkshedding.
In my university, I cannot get funding to attend a conference unless I
present at it. However, I am sure that my Dean would accept that either of
these formats would constitute a legitimate presentation and I would be
willing to give a presentation in either format--poster or as a member or
moderator of a panel. What do the others think?
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