Great Plains Alliance for Computers and Writing explores New Realities in Computers and Writing Oct. 21

This year's Great Plains Alliance for Computers and Writing Conference (GPACW) takes place on Saturday, October 21st, 2017. The Department of Writing Studies at the University of Minnesota–Twin Cities is hosting the 21st annual conference, this year with the theme of “New Realities in Computers and Writing.” Conference program.

I've been involved with GPACW since 2012 and have attended ever since to engage with emerging and veteran scholars--to be with my kind, as my not-so-computers-and-writing spouse likes to say--and this year's conference is shaping up to be one of the most engaging ever. Consider this year's panel themes:  

  • Collaboration, Community, and Civic Engagement
  • Memes and Digital Cultures               
  • FYC and Multimodal Writing
  • Digital Writing Interfaces
  • Embodied Interfaces                           
  • Narrative, Co-Construction, and Emerging Methods
  • Clouds, Veils, and Emerging Literacies                                                              
  • Recovering Berlin for the Digital Era: Possibilities in the First Year
  • Digital Method/ologies
  • Multimodality, Invitational Rhetoric, and Translingualism in the Composition Classroom           
  • Internet Genres and Information Literacies                                              
  • Technical Communication and Emerging Technologies

Response to this year's call has been enthusiastic to say the least. It's been exciting to see the response from regional and national scholars and graduate students to this year's GPACW theme.

I'm looking forward to Aaron Doering's keynote, too. Dr. Doering is a professor in learning technologies at the University of Minnesota and the director of the Learning Technologies Media Lab. He has pioneered several technology-enhanced learning programs, so his keynote promises valuable direction on scholarship and instructional design as we reflect on new realities of computers and writing.

Explore Embodied Tech

And then there's the free pre-conference event, Exploring Embodied Technologies, that takes place on Friday, Oct. 20, in conjunction with the conference. Professor Ann Hill Duin and an interdisciplinary team of scholars has put together a tour of studio spaces on the UMN campus "to explore the intersections and juxtapositions of embodied technologies as studied across multiple disciplines that include art, health, science and engineering, design, education, and composition and technical communication." Space is limited for the pre-conference, so register for the conference soon and select the free pre-conference event when prompted. 

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