In brief
An unconference is to a conference what a seminar is to a lecture, what a party at your house is to a church wedding, what a pick-up game of Ultimate Frisbee is to an NBA game, what a jam band is to a symphony orchestra: it’s more informal and more participatory. To get the most out of THATCamp, have fun, be productive, and stay collegial. Don’t bring a presentation (unless you’re teaching a workshop). Propose a session and take charge of running it. Talk, make, teach, play. Listen. Help take notes. Sign up for Dork Shorts. If a session isn’t useful for you, go to another one (that’s the Law of Two Feet). Bring a laptop, not a tablet. Dress comfortably. Consider volunteering to teach something. Keep a record of the experience. Don’t forget to fill out an evaluation.
Further resources
- Unconference 101: A Quick Guide to Transparency Camp and Beyond by Laurenellen McCann
- How to Prepare to Attend an Unconference by Kaliya Hamlin from Unconference.net
- Unconference – Wikipedia
THATCamp Ground Rules (4:50)
A video we didn’t make (2:50)
Here’s a great video about unconferencing at Transparency Camp: just about everything in it applies to THATCamp as well.
Thanks, Bryan. My sense is that campuses per se won’t adopt the iPhone (or any phone for that maettr) for just the reasons you identify. It would be tough to get the George Mason IT and budgets people, for example, to agree to let us buy a bunch of iPhones and AT T contracts to use in our classrooms or even in our grant projects. However, I do think the new iPhone raises the bar so significantly that soon all other handset makers and service providers will have to follow suit. Indeed we’re already seeing this with the upcoming release of the Sprint/Samsung Instinct, and we’ll seeeven more in the fall when Andriod is finally released. Pretty soon I think all of our students and the audiences for our research and public projects will have these iPhone-like devices in their pockets already. It’s at that point that we’ll really be able to take advantage of the new opportunities afforded by the iPhone’s feature set. I certainly don’t expect our administrations to provide much leadership in this area.