In my teaching I have designed assignment sequences that combine the use of wikis and archival research. In doing so, I intend to introduce my students to the critical dimensions of collaborative digital forms of knowledge production as well as the experience of classic hands-on archival research. In this session I hope to discuss strategies of using wiki-style technologies as a collaborative tool for students to engage in writing as well as interacting as a community of writers and editors with an eye to the public dimension of knowledge production. I also want to explore ways of  exciting our students about the possibilities of original research and the importance and experience of pre-digital archival work.

As a relatively recent convert to Scrivener, I feel that I am only starting to scratch the surface of some of the features that it offers. Despite its lack of a seamless interface with Zotero (another tool with which I could not do without), I have found myself using Scrivener increasingly over more familiar word processing tools for projects both small and large. But after seeing a post (or a comment on a post? or somewhere else entirely?) on ProfHacker, I have now started to use Scrivener for other purposes including course management. And now I can no longer imagine organizing a course and teaching it without the program. I am interested in traveling further down this slippery slope and talking with other members of the Scrivener cult to discuss how you are using it. Ideally, this session would provide a venue for hardened Scrivener vets and newbies alike, allowing us to share best practices for the use of the tool for writing and for whatever else people have found themselves using it.

4/12/14 Update
Links mentioned in session:
1. Overview of Scrivener Features
2. Tutorial Videos
3. A fantastic post by Ryan Cordell on ProfHacker discussing academic use of Scrivener
4. Case Studies
5. Using Zotero and Scrivener

I’ve become interested in the scholarly possibilities of Twitter bots. From bots that tweet a line from Walt Whitman’s Leaves of Grass, “over and over” (@TweetsOfGrass), to generating tweets that sound like Buddhist koans (@Horse_ebooks), to automating the writing of Modernist poetry (@MoPoBot), Twitter bots have invaded our timelines faster than we can block them. I’m proposing a session where participants can discuss ways in which scholars could use bots for our own pursuits. This would include using bots to isolate lines from longer pieces of literature, creating algorithmic methods for writing poetry, randomizing highlights from a collection, helping with vocabulary learning, or just making witty comments to amuse ourselves during office hours. If interest exists, we could also try to hack together a Twitter bot of our own.

I’m very interested in how people research, read, and write together, and I”m also an avid user of Zotero. I’m proposing a session where Zotero users (both new & old) talk about ways to use the tool to do more than just collect and manage citations.

This would include strategies for using Zotero in writing and collaboration, approaches to using Zotero in the classroom for projects and for syllabi, practical tips and tricks for reading & note-taking, and ways of visualizing, understanding, and enhancing Zotero libraries. I’d also like to discuss the plugins that extend Zotero and, time permitting, provide a brief introduction to how one may write a Zotero translator to import citations from a source  not currently supported by the tool.