And away I go

I will be heading to Ann Arbor, Michigan, for the Computers and Writing Conference tomorrow afternoon. I’ll be there until Sunday, and I’ll present on Saturday morning. This is my first time going to C&W, and I’m a little nervous–I decided to do a “conversation starter” presentation, which is a little different from typical conference presentations. I’ll be sharing a panel with 5 other people: we’ll each speak for 5 minutes on our topics, and then have a 45 minute conversation based on the mini-presentations (typically, a conference presentation is 15-20 minutes long, with 3 or 4 people on a panel).

I like the fact that this conversation starter panel encourages more interaction between the presenters and audience as well as leading us to make connections across presentations. I even created this prezi, which is a re-imagining of the handout I created for audience members. Side note–if you’re unfamiliar with prezi, you should check it out. It’s like powerpoint on crack, in a good way.

I know I’m including more information than I’ll have time to cover in 5 minutes, but I kind of think that’s something you should do–this is supposed to be a conversation starter, which means I want audience members, my fellow panelists, and myself to keep thinking about these ideas once we leave the conference room. I worry, though, that I didn’t make this as relevant to computers and writing as I could have. I always feel just outside of c&w discussions. I can’t quite explain why, and it’s really quite silly, because I often teach digital writing and rhetoric courses and I’ve become the go-to digital person here at SWOSU. That being said, I feel like I need to make a good impression at the conference. . .on whom, I don’t really know. And so continues the anxiety and self-doubt of academia. Yeah, thanks for that, ivory towers.