‘Compojing’: Writing with Emoji for Fun and Profit

Over the past year and a half, I have been working closely with a group of researchers and teachers in Northern Colorado on a co-designed curriculum project called Compose Our World. While there is plenty to share about that project at a future date, today I want to talk a little bit about composition practices within our online communication tool, Slack. Specifically, I want to talk about “reactions” within the platform.

While many readers may be presently using or are familiar with Slack, what I most appreciate is how seamlessly it moves communication from text to image and back. A bit of background: Slack is essentially a series of private and public channels for your team to communicate, collaborate, and share information (imagine a couple dozen online chatrooms happening all the time and you get a loose approximation of how Slack can function). Like other teams using Slack, ours is one with its own cultural practices: GIFs, assorted memes, and other miscellany add to both the “noise” of online communication and to its possibilities for personalization.