Rather than the familiar panels consisting of three 15-20 minute papers, a pitcher of water, and a brief Q&A (time permitting), these meetings were structured as “electronic poster sessions.” Multiple presenters stationed around the perimeter of the room in front of easel displays and laptop computers demonstrated their projects and spoke to anyone who stopped by with questions. —Steven E. Jones —The Significance of Electronic Poster Sessions (Inside Higher Ed)
This scholarly genre is nothing new. I’ve given several myself, one at a medieval drama convention, and one or two at the 4Cs.
What’s significant is that the Modern Language Association is interested in it.
I had high hopes for the Higher Ed Blog Con, which starts today, but both of the first presentations are delivered as downloaded linear files. The first one is an argument for screencasting — a lecture alternative. I can certainly understand why it would be useful to download a screencast about the value of screencasting, but the other is presented in 2 parts, which together will require almost an hour to watch. Were I actually at the conference, I could spend the time, but since I’m going to have to fit this conference in an already busy week, I don’t think I’m going to watch many hour-long linear, old-fashioned presentations. New wine, old wineskins.
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The poster session is a hot-button issue with me. I am always opposed to poster sessions because instead of conference attendees "interacting" with presenters standing in front of the poster, it becomes a silent parade of Who's Who, completely wasting all of the time spent on designing and constructing the poster. I swore never to do another poster session after experiencing that situation five times.
I prefer 15-20 minute papers because during that time, an audience is focused on you, along with your paper. People listening to a conference panel are ones who care about the subject and truly want to engage presenters in that one-on-one capacity, whether through question and answer, or simply listening. They don't have the option of getting away with glancing at a poster and saying something like "That's nice" before walking off.
I was playing with that metaphor, since the content of the lecture is pesumably new (being about new media in higher education), but the linear format is traditional (thus, the old wineskin). I concede that the result was awkward, though... oh, well. That new wine in an old wineskin is being delivered by a new... uh... wineskin-conveyance vehicle.
Dennis - are you sure your metaphor isn't backwards? Linear presentations delivered in an alternative format seems like old wine in new skins :) Although there is that scene from the movie "Real Genius" where the room is full of tape recorders and even the professor is a giant reel-to-reel machine...