Serendipity35

You say that you're getting more Web 2.0. You believe in the read/write web and collaboration. Here's a chance to act.

I asked on an earlier post for readers to contribute to a presentation that I will be doing this month, and I created a "disposable" web page which I will share at the event.

It's for a panel presentation for the New Jersey College English Association spring conference. NJCEA is an organization of college English instructors and graduate students interested in language, literature, pedagogy, and other aspects of the teaching and study of literature and writing. The event is on March 29 at Seton Hall University in New Jersey (USA).

My presentation is titled "Open Everything: How the Open Source Movement Will Change Writing." I am addressing the idea that open tools like Moodle, blogs, wikis, collaborative editing software, instant messaging and even podcasting change, as the word processor did, the way we write.

I'm thinking about writing for the web, but also about traditional pen/keyboard to paper. I'm also concerned with how we now "publish" and present our writing. I think most people would agree that the word processor changed how people write (revision, for example) and grammar/spell checkers have changed things (not always for the better), and our ability to be very easily "published" on the web has changed how we present our writing. The process has always been recursive to some degree with the publishing/presenting changing how we write.

Surprisingly, my brief research on the use of the open source movement and philosophy in other fields didn't turn up anything of substance related to writing. So, I decided to use the tools themselves to try to gather information. I did reach out to colleagues in the traditional ways, but I also created a "Disposable Web Page" for collaboration, posted a link on my Facebook profile, blogged about it and posted to other peoples blogs.

What I'm asking you to do is contribute to the conversation. As of this writing there were 10 contributions to the page. Not bad; not great.

I seeded the conversation by asking 4 questions, but feel free to add your own.

• What open source writing tools do you use?
• Has it changed HOW you write?
• Has it changed WHAT you write?
• Has it changed how you teach students to write?

The web page (they are really wiki pages, as you will see if you participate) is at: http://disposablewebpage.com/turn?page=Et1s0SIZEw and all you need to do to collaborate is enter the "editing master key" openwriting, then enter a name for yourself (real name or a pseudonym - most people have been identifying themselves after their addition) and have at it. Please share this post and the information to others who have any interest in writing and technology.

The page will literally be disposed of automatically after April 6, 2008 , and I will post an entry here about the whole experience.