Propose

How do I propose a session?

As soon as we approve your Bmore Historic registration, you should receive an email notification with your user account and password for this website. Any time before October 10, you can log in, create a new post and publish your session proposal. As soon as you publish your proposal, any other registered participant can read and comment – starting the discussion before we even get together in person. If you have not used WordPress before, see codex.wordpress.org/Writing_Posts for more information on how to create and edit posts.

On the morning of the event, all Bmore Historic participants will vote on those proposals (and probably come up with several new ones), and then all together will work out how best to put those sessions into a schedule.

Remember that you will be expected to facilitate the sessions you propose, so that if you propose a hacking session, you should have the germ of a project to work on; if you propose a workshop, you should be prepared to teach it or find a teacher; if you propose a discussion, you should be prepared to summarize what that is, begin the discussion, keep the discussion going, and end the discussion.

When do I propose a session?

You can propose a session as early as you like, but most people publish their session proposals to our blog during the week before Bmore Historic. It’s a good idea to check back often the week before to see and comment on everyone’s session proposals. You can also come up with a last-minute idea and propose it to the Bmore Historic participants during the scheduling session, which is the first session of the unconference.

Why are sessions proposed this way?

Proposing sessions just before Bmore Historic and collaboratively building a schedule during the first session of the event ensures that sessions are honest and informal, that session topics are current, and that unconference participants will collaborate on a shared task.

What do I propose?

There are roughly four approaches you can take to an unconference session:

  1. Talk: offer to lead a group discussion on a topic or question of interest to you.
  2. Make: offer to lead a small group in a hands-on collaborative working session with the aim of producing a draft document or a new tour program.
  3. Teach: offer to teach a skill, either a “hard” skill like a digital tool or a “soft” skill like engaged scholarship.
  4. Play: anything goes — you can suggest literally playing a game, or spend the time however you like!

Examples of past Bmore Historic session proposals include:

If you requires access to a laptop, projector or internet access, please let us while we scheduling the sessions! Most but not all rooms will have presentation equipment.