The third Midwest SoTL Twitter Conference (#MWSoTL) will be the afternoon of March 30, 2023. Note: This is the day before the in-person conference.
The conference will be taking place on Twitter, so you don’t need to be anywhere, or travel, or even get out of bed. Each ‘speaker’ will get a ten minute slot. During this time, they can tweet between 8-10 tweets using the relevant hashtag about their paper. There will then be five minutes for folks to catch their collective breath, reflect, and pepper the presenter with questions using the appropriate Twitter handles and hashtags.
Speakers can include any kind of media in their tweets, from images to GIFS (as long as they are suitable for a conference where there will inevitably be a global audience of different ages.)
2022 Twitter Program & Presentation Abstracts
What is a Twitter Conference?
A Twitter conference is a social media event that occurs from the comfort of your desk/sofa/bed/bus/whatever. This event is meant to bring together instructors from around the Midwest (but it can extend further) in an online setting to encourage communication and collaboration. It also happens to be easy to follow and allows for multi-stranded communications, without the hassle of long drives, accommodations, and canapés.
How do you participate in a Twitter Conference?
All you need is a Twitter account (that’s your @joebloggs name). You can sign up for one these very easily at https://www.twitter.com if you are not there already. After getting a Twitter profile, you only need to search for the hashtag #MWSoTL to see all posts that are related to the conference. If you are interested in “spectating only,” you can follow the hashtag online, but you won’t be able to interact without a Twitter account. If you don’t have a Twitter account or don’t know how to use Twitter (or are not confident doing so), we will provide support materials and signpost ‘how-to’ guides online, so no one is excluded as far as possible.
How much time am I expected to spend on this if I participate?
Presenters will be allocated a time slot during which you are required to present your Quick Hits presentation. We do strongly encourage people to interact during the conference using the hashtag as well. It is especially vital that you will be available during your presentation time slot to present and then to answer potential questions you might receive, like at a real conference. If you are unable to be present during your allocated time slot, you can schedule your tweets (using services such as Tweetdeck, Hootsuite or Buffer), so that they get posted automatically without you having to be online – although this means you won’t be able to answer any questions in real time.
Warning:
There will inevitably be some crossover, over-tweeting, discussion and problems with it all. This is an ongoing experiment, using a public, open and accessible format. We should expect it to be a bit playful, a bit messy, a bit daft at times and for it not to look or feel like a real-life conference. You are participating in something fun and supportive, and the presenters and organizers have given up their time for free to be part of it.
Please maintain a level of good humor and forgiveness accordingly.