THATCamp sessions typically include four activities: Talk, Make, Teach, and Play.
- Talk Session Proposal: You propose to lead a group disscussion on a topic or question of interest to you.
- Make Session Proposal: You propose to lead a small group in a hands-on collaborative working session with the aim to produce a draft document or piece of software.
- Teach Session Proposal: You propose to teach a skill.
- Play Session Proposal: You propose some quality group playtime with one or more technologies.
Use these broad categories to help you formulate your idea, which might contain elements of all of these activities. For more information, take a look at the THATCamp guidelines for proposals. You can also look at THATCamp New England 2012 session proposals for ideas and guidance.
To propose a session, you will need to register for THATCamp. Once you register and are approved, you will receive a user account on the THATCamp website and your login information by email. To submit a session proposal, before the THATCamp, you should log in to the THATCamp site, click on Posts -> ADD New, then write and publish your session proposal. Remember to include a session proposal title, summary and information about yourself (name, title and affiliation). Your session proposal will appear on the front page of the THATCamp site where campers can read and comment on your proposal. THATCamp is a WordPress site. If you haven’t worked with WordPress before, see codex.wordpress.org/Writing_Posts for help. The morning of the event, all THATCamp 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 your 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 on the Digital Public Library of America, you should be prepared to summarize what that is, begin the discussion, keep the discussion going, and end the discussion.
