I am leaving today for Philadelphia to attend my first ThatCamp ever (and I am sure, not the last).
So what is ThatCamp?
It is an open, very often free or inexpensive meeting where humanists and technologists meet, discuss, learn, build together workshops and sessions proposed on the spot.
At ThatCamp Philly, Friday will be workshops day. In the morning, you can either learn more about mapping (so excited about that), learn how to video edit, understand more about WordPress or Wikipedia, and discover what Programming means with the Processing language. And that’s just for the morning!
In the afternoon, you can participate in a Wikipedia Edit-A-thon, learn how to write a project proposal for a digital humanities project, and attend a hands-on demonstration using the Processing language.
On Saturday morning, between 8.30 and 9.15am, attendees will vote on the sessions that have been proposed on the website beforehand. The most popular topics or most commonly shared problems and questions will be scheduled for the day. This process really leaves the attendees the power to decide what they want the conference to be like. The sessions are informal discussions and working group meetings, which is very different from any conference I have attended before and I can’t wait to see what it looks like.