An Introduction to the IndieWeb

52 thoughts on “An Introduction to the IndieWeb”

1. Pingback: Michael McCallister

2. @joe4ska A while back I wrote a general introduction to #IndieWeb for AltPlatform.org. You can find an archived copy of it on my site now: http://boffosocko.com/2017/07/28/an-introduction-to-the-indieweb/

   Syndicated copies:

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3. A reflection on developing a site building upon the ideas of the #IndieWeb to bring together all my disparate pieces around the web in one place.

   Just when I thought I had enough sites, I decided to create another one. A feed that could be used in a platform like Micro.blog. My intent this time was to create a space where I could reclaim my pieces on the web. In part I was inspired by Tom Woodward’s API driven portfolio, as well as Alan Levine’s concept of co-claiming.
   I was also interested in exploring the possibility of WordPress beyond the standard post format and the implications that this has with the choice of themes. Associated with this, I wondered if there was a possibility of automating the sharing of content created elsewhere, such as videos and images.
   I started the site by creating three key categories: participation, posts and creations. Each offering the potential to be broken down further.
   Participation
   My first step was to focus on presentations and publications. This involved transferring my various slides, resources and publications from a single page on my main blog to separate posts. The focus on one page worked in the beginning, but started to become busy as more and more items were added, even if I added Page Jumps.
   My next step was to capture the various references and contributions on the web. Similar to what Audrey Watters does with her ‘In the News’ posts. These extracts include:

   Podcasts (Ed Tech Crew, Teachers Education Review, Today in Digital Education and Design and Play)
   Newsletter Contributions (ICTEV, AEU and eSMART)
   Participation (Why a Creative Commons Certificate, Alan Levine’s ‘Story of Connection’, Amy Burvall’s ‘#3ofme’ Project, EduTweetOz and various Twitter chats)

   Although I am still thinking about how I could visually present all these posts to tell a clearer story, as Tom Woodward and Ian O’Byrne have done, I think splitting them into individual posts is more functional. It also means that when I present I can link to resources that might be kept on an event page, rather than continually update a particular blog post all the time.
   Posts
   When I started Read Write Collect, I wondered about creating a feed of all my posts, whether it be on social media, my Wikity site, contributions to other blogs and posts from this blog. I also wanted to somehow automate this process.
   I started by dragging in content from sites that I was no longer using. For example, a few years ago, I created an instance of Known for shorter, incomplete thoughts and ideas. It was framed around the question of ‘what if’? I decided to import this content.
   I also decided to make a copy of my two newsletters (Read Write Respond and eLearn Updates) posted in third-party sites, such as Tiny Letter and Global2. I was not sure whether to publish these or to keep them private. However, I made them public and maybe will stop using those other spaces when I have worked out a clear workflow.
   In regards to other content spread around the web, such as my Diigo bookmarks and Wikity cards, I have yet to work out how I will manage these pieces. I started exploring Zapier and some built-in solutions, but have since fallen back to IFTTT. I am mindful though of depending on third-party solutions.
   For the posts on this site, I have yet to find a workflow I am happy with. In part, I am unsure what Post Kind I should use – Article or Bookmark – and how I would structure each post. I guess I could close the comments and provide a summary, this is something Doug Belshaw does when sharing his DML Central articles, but I am not sure how I would do this for all my 400+ posts, especially as writing extracts has only been a new addition to my process.
   It feels that the further I have dived into the site, the more my priorities changed. I began to explore other aspects of the #IndieWeb. I had installed the plugin when I set the site up, something I had done with this site and had therefore done out of habit. However, I started to wonder what else I could do. My desire to automate was replaced by an interest in control over my presence. This led me to start replying to posts from my blog. Although it can be argued that this process involves more effort, it has resulted in me being more mindful of the comments that I leave. This is something Chris Aldrich touches upon in his introduction to the IndieWeb.

   Many in the IndieWeb community have found that they post more interesting and thoughtful pieces of content when they’re doing it on their own site rather than the “throw away” content they used to post to sites like Twitter. They feel a greater sense of responsibility and ownership in what they’re posting about and this can have a profound effect on the future of the internet and its level of civility.

   It also touches on Audrey Watters’ call for a more ethical (and equitable) practice in her rethinking of comments:

   It’s perfectly acceptable to say to someone who wants to comment on a blog post, “Respond on your own site. Link to me. But I am under no obligation to host your thoughts in my domain.”

   I would like to think that as there is more take-up of the microformats standards that things like this will become more of the norm as further generations take it up.
   Creations
   The other pieces that I wanted to collect together were my various creations on the web, whether they be images, videos and audio. I have tinkered with posting to Flickr before with another Known instance, but gave up when it seemed to break. I think that this was as much frustration at the workflow as it was lack of perseverance. I therefore wonder about co-claiming by posting to Flickr and then collecting a weekly or even monthly summary on my own site. I know that this is something Tom Woodward does. As with my bookmarks, I am currently tinkering with IFTTT for this, but would like my own solution in the long run.
   Like Flickr, I find publishing to YouTube an easier solution in regards to the few videos that I have. One of my interests was exploring the possibility to generate posts for older videos. Although IFTTT will create a post for videos just published, I was after an automated workflow that might go back through a channel and produce a post for each video. I found a plugin that said it would do it, but I have not managed to get it to do anything so am sceptical about purchasing the premium version. I also tested out posting via RSS, but this failed to embed the content.
   In addition to images and video, I have been a long contributor to other people’s podcasts, but never really found the time and space to do my own. I was therefore taken by the idea of microcasting. The intent behind microcasting is that recordings are meant to be short recordings with minimal production. I have therefore taken to recording with Voxer and posting the MP3 in a post. I also syndicate this to Huffduffer so that others can listen as a podcast.

   So that is my new site so far. In my next iteration, I am interested in investigating ‘Post Kinds to further to document other elements, such as what I am listening to and reading, especially in regards to long reads. This may replace my Awesome Tables, especially if they start charging. I am also interested in capturing more of my creations, such as my Instagram posts and gifs shared at Giphy. I am not sure if that constitutes a ‘commitment‘, but it is at least a start.
   So what about you? What is something you are working on at the moment? Do you have any thoughts and suggestions for my new space? As always, comments welcome.
   
   Also posted on IndieNews
   

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   Co-claiming and Gathering Together – Developing Read Write Collect by Aaron Davis is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.
   

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4. Learning by Reflection by Silvia Tolisano globallyconnectedlearning.com

   In this post, I want to share some inspiring resources that show the value of keeping a blog.
   Why do I write posts on a blog?
   Writing on my blog, The Possibility Post, has given me an online space to document my thinking and to add hyperlinks so I can go back to the original sources of my ideas and share with friends and colleagues. In this way, it works as a curation tool that I can go back to as a reference and update with new information. By reflecting and making connections between resources and ideas I am documenting or journaling my learning. This is the heart of my blog.
   The Possibility Post is a global digital journal and portfolio that demonstrates who I am as a teacher and as a learner.
   One downside is that I can find the process of writing a post to be difficult and time-consuming. I use Grammarly for editing and I cut by about a third. By posting frequently, the process becomes easier. I have found it best to keep my writing short with brief comments that connect ideas and resources. Below are the main reasons why I blog and some inspiring resources that show the value of keeping a blog.
   1. Collect and organise resources
   Firstly, a blog gives you a space to collect resources and add digital links to the original sources. This is for my own library of thinking but also gives me a space where I can share resources with others.
   2. Document Learning
   Secondly, it provides an opportunity to document my learning using tags and categories. As Silvia Tolisano says,

   The blogging platform is a natural environment to document learning over time. with strategic and thoughtful tagging and categorization, the learner can organize and archive their work to later access, retrieve and connect their artifacts and reflections of learning. With reflective prompts (ex. KWHLAQ), students are guided through the process. Every step is documented on the learner’s blog, supporting the self-assessment process along the way and making it available for feedback via comments.

   A Global Space
   Thirdly, The Possibility Post is a space to connect with others who share my interests.  People can write comments on my posts to make connections and extend my ideas. Or as Aaron Davis suggests, why not write comments on your own blog instead of in a comment box on another person’s blog?

   ... This led me to start replying to posts from my blog. Although it can be argued that this process involves more effort, it has resulted in me being more mindful of the comments that I leave. This is something Chris Aldrich touches upon in his introduction to the IndieWeb.
   Many in the IndieWeb community have found that they post more interesting and thoughtful pieces of content when they’re doing it on their own site rather than the “throw away” content they used to post to sites like Twitter. They feel a greater sense of responsibility and ownership in what they’re posting about and this can have a profound effect on the future of the internet and its level of civility.

   To see how Aaron replies to other posts go to his blog Read Write Collect. 
   I really like this style as a quick way to document and reflect on articles that add to my learning and share.
    
   More ideas on why and how to use an academic blog space:

   Thinking routines to write comments. Use the Dialogue Toolkit by Out of Eden Learn

   Research Process: watching YouTubes. create a youtube playlist

   Twitter Chats

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5. My Month of December
   One of the weird quirks of working in a central role within education is the measurement of time. Here in Australia, this is usually a time in the year when schools wind down and teachers clean up for the year. However, in project land, there is always something happening. Whether it be supporting schools with timetables, developing new modules or sorting out idiosynciouses with solutions, Christmas provided a welcome break.
   On the family front, December is always a busy month, with three out of four people having birthdays within three days of each other. Other than that, there is the usual festive activities, such as breakup parties, musical concerts and Christmas lights.
   Personally, I have started reading Ben Williamson’s new book Big Data in Education. A fascinating read so far, especially in relation to the Digital Technologies. Other than that, I have been doing a quite a bit of work on my new site collect.readwriterespond.com building on the #indieweb ethos. A reminder of why a domain is more than just purchasing a custom URL.

   Why Would You? an image by langwitches in response to my post
   In regards to my writing, here was my month in posts:

   The Music of 2017 in Review, or The Year I Discovered Jack Antonoff – A reflection on the artists and albums that represented the soundtrack of 2017.

   Is This the End of School as we Know It? – Are schools on the cusp of change? Will all jobs be transformed by 2030? And what is chang anyway?

   When Automation Goes Awry – The future may well involve automation, but the path to getting there is not so clear. This is a reflection on my experience communicating with a telecommunications company.

   Communication Takes Two – 2017 in Review – A reflection on my inquiry into communication this year and all of the lessons learnt along the way.

   Why Would You? – Using Questions to Extend Understanding – If we are to have an influence upon the education of tomorrow, then we need to better understand today. This post explores strategies for getting to the heart of the matter.

   Co-claiming and Gathering Together – Developing Read Write Collect – A reflection on developing a site building upon the ideas of the #IndieWeb to bring together all my disparate pieces around the web in one place.

   Here then are some of the thoughts that have also left me thinking …
   
   @Dogtrax on Maps by mrkrndvs is licensed under CC BY-SA

   Learning and Teaching
   Use Maps & Mapmaking in Your ELA Classroom – Kevin Hodgson discusses the power and potential of maps in extending comprehension and representing understanding. I have written before about visualisation before, however Hodgson’s post provides a range of ideas I had not considered.

   What maps can bring to the writing classroom is a visual connector point, and maps provide an easy connector to the learning going on in the Social Studies classroom, too. While our maps are rooted in imagination, as all maps are, the maps they see in other classrooms give students insights into the interpretations of the larger world. Where you pin yourself depends on where you are situated.

   10 low impact activities to do less of – or stop altogether – Tom Sherrington outlines a range of activities to reassess, such as subject report comments, detailed lesson plans and original teaching resources. In another post reflecting on moving forward, Eric Sheninger suggests letting go of the status quo, drive-by professional development and avoiding technology. Both of these posts are useful in asking the simple question ‘why would you?’

   Teachers and leaders across the country do too many things that have unacceptably high ratios of time and effort relative to their impact and/or they are unjustifiable educationally. Sometimes I think that the debate about workload is tinkering around the edges when actually we need much more fundamental change. I also think that we need to get assessment and accountability machinery back into perspective, making them more organic and more human.

   The World War Two Guide to Office Warfare – Bryan Lufkin discusses a guide developed by the CIA. The document is about doing little things that add up, such as discriminate against workers, complete tasks the long way and be non-cooperative. This is a fascinating historical document and makes one wonder what it might look like if it were written today? What would be different? Would there be anything the same?

   The US urged citizens to become everyday saboteurs in World War Two – and the same tactics might just be found in your office.

   20 ways to take care of yourself over the holidays – Jennifer Hogan provides a list of activities for teachers to take care of their wellbeing during the holiday period. This is something that needs to be considered during the term as well. I also wonder whether some of Hogan’s list might also be useful for students too?

   The days leading up to the holiday break can be event-filled and stressful for educators. I want to encourage everyone to make time for self-care during the holiday break. We have to take care of ourselves so that we can take care of others.

   Predictions for Journalism 2018 – NiemanLab collects together the thoughts from a number of significant figures in journalism on the future of journalism in 2018. Although we need to be sceptical about predictions, the NiemanLab publication, along with posts from Bryan Alexander and Mike Caulfield, provide an interesting perspective of where things are at and might be going.

   The best we can do is to listen to weak signals about emerging technologies in the present, to recognize patterns early, and to build out possible, plausible, and probable scenarios that describe implications. Amy Webb

   
   “Storifried” by mrkrndvs is licensed under CC BY-SA

   Edtech
   Storify Bites the Dust. If You Have WordPress, You Don’t Need Another Third Party Clown Service – Alan Levine reflects on Storify’s announcement that it will be shutting down. He provides a number of options of what to do, including downloading the HTML content and stripping the links from it. This is a reminder why #IndieWeb and owning your content is so important

   There are two kinds of people or organizations that create things for the web. One is looking to make money or fame and cares not what happens once they get either (or none and go back to flipping burgers). The other has an understanding and care for the history and future of the web, and makes every effort to make archived content live on, to not leave trails of dead links. Storify is Type 1.

   Anatomy of Tracking Links in Computer Science PRnewswire – Miguel Guhlin provides a useful explanation for tracking links via email campaigns. After reading Cathy O’Neil’s Weapons of Math Destruction, this is a useful post as to how universities and algorithms combine.

   Those annoying emails and click-tracking links aside, you may find something of value from online graduate programs that are doing anything they can to get you to visit their site and get you to give them your money.

   Fostering Democratic Dialogue with Digital Annotation – Nicole Mirra discusses the hope and potential of sites, such as Hypothes.is, for generating discussion around texts and ideas. Although there are some who mourn the death of the comment, posts like this remind us that maybe comments have just changed. I am intrigued in the possibilities of the #IndieWeb in further organising the disparate parts.

   What I found fascinating was the way that those who engaged with our piece grabbed hold of particular ideas and ran with them in ways we did not predict – it reminded me of the incompleteness of any single text and how texts could only reach their full potential as a sources of knowledge production when engagement continues beyond the page. Annotation made ideas that could have simply died in print live on and flourish collectively.

   Some Fool Use – Austin Kleon discusses the need to embrace what may seem foolish when working with technology in order to create new possibilities. Talking about the potential of Lego, Tom Barrett discusses the challenge of ‘finding the edge of the page’. This was something that I tried to do with my QuickMakes session a few years ago.

   Whether it’s Microsoft Excel or adding tape, pushing against constraints, finding out the limits of the tools, that’s what makes art interesting. It’s not that the tools don’t matter — it’s finding the appropriate tools, or, maybe even better, the inappropriate tools, and finding some fool use for them.

   Coding Will Save You Hours Of Your Life – Alice Keeler provides an introduction to Google Apps Script. This is a useful starting point for creating your own solutions. I have collected some more resources on Sheets and Apps Script here.

   We are teachers, we need to do repetitive tasks all the time due to the fact that we have more than one student. Knowing some basic coding can help you make light work out of repetitive tasks.

   Bounded Systems: Affordances and Breakouts – Naomi Barnes discusses the boundaries and gates developed in online spaces. Associated with Greg Thompson discusses the need for a politics of technics. This is all epitomised by Facebook’s announcement of a messenger app for children. Although these are aspects which we need to support students in developing digital literacies, I think that there are better solutions than adding them to Facebook.

   When we make private trouble public on social media, it is still a private space. It is owned by companies who are intent on keeping our political bodies private. For example, the #metoo campaign encourages women to speak out about incidents of sexual harassment as solidarity. However, unless women speak up outside of social media, the circle is still closed. But if they do speak outside social media, they risk losing jobs or initiating precarity and poverty. Social media is run by the same business plan that mobilised the gig economy as a virtue. Flexibility is the new white male. Being on board and in a team that doesn’t complain, is the new glass ceiling. The circle is rapidly closing.

   
   “Just Innovate” by mrkrndvs is licensed under CC BY-SA

   Storytelling and Reflection
   Excuse Me While I “Just” Go Innovate – Pernille Ripp pushes back on continual call to just innovate, arguing that she innovates every day when she teachers, plans and contacts home. The problem is that these things do not count as innovative in many experts eyes. Bill Ferriter adds his own take on the reality of the classroom teacher, explaining that he does not check his emails during the day, that he is responsible for a range of people and that working with children is his number one priority. It is interesting to compare this with recent discussion between Will Richardson and Bruce Dixon on the Modern Learners podcast in regards to the failure of teachers to engage with learning how to learn, as well as Richardson’s call from a few years back that the system is broken. For more on Ripp’s work, read Jennifer Gonzalez’s profile.

   It has been building for a while. This idea that teachers need to “just” innovate more. That we need to break the system, try a new idea every day. That we need to just do more. Just do it better. Just be more.

   Design Thinking is Contagious and Rots Your Brain – Richard Wells highlights a number of problems with schools, such as engaged learners and grades, suggesting that design thinking provides an answer for improving things. Lee Vinsel clearly does not agree, instead suggesting that Design Thinking belongs in a marketing department, rather than a classroom. makes the case for Design Thinking. Harold Jarche thinks we need sense-making. I wonder if the answer is a cocktail of ideas combined in the development of our own solutions?

   Moran holds up the Swiffer — the sweeper-mop with disposable covers designed by an IDEO-clone design consultancy, Continuum — as a good example of what Design Thinking is all about. “It’s design as marketing,” he said. “It’s about looking for and exploiting a market niche. It’s not really about a new and better world. It’s about exquisitely calibrating a product to a market niche that is underexploited.” The Swiffer involves a slight change in old technologies, and it is wasteful. Others made this same connection between Design Thinking and marketing. One architect said that Design Thinking “really belongs in business schools, where they teach marketing and other forms of moral depravity.”

   Simple strategies to help you transition better between work and home – Steve Brophy discusses developing deliberate habits to support the move from work to home. The key seems to be recognising these changes. Taking a different approach, Maria Popova talks about taking a “telescopic perspective” to identify the work our time asks of us.

   If we think a spaceship docking at the International Space Station, there is so much care given to the transition from one to the other. One wrong move could spell death for many so there are no stones left unturned when it comes to safety protocol. Once the spaceship docks, it locks into the ISS and pressurises a compartment between the two. Once pressurised, the hatch at the spaceship will open and the astronauts will move into the transition space. They close the hatch behind them and then open the hatch at the ISS. The process is done with extreme care. Each space is vital and movement between each is careful and considered. What if we transitioned with the same precision?

   How Schools Can Contribute to Much Needed Civil Discourse in Society – Bernard Bull discusses the need in education to model civil discourse amid truly diverse beliefs and values. In part, this touches on the challenge of civic reasoning that Mike Caulfield has been unpack. Judith Butler reminds us though of the limits of supposed free speech and knowing what that ‘bargain’ means.

   Forget college report cards and standardized tests. How are we doing in helping people learn how to embrace civil discourse, nurturing intellectual virtues, being strong advocates for causes and convictions, but also showing a deep respect for the inherent value in others, as well as their rights? Math and language arts are valuable. STEM education and coding is pretty useful as well. However, if we are really interested in contributing to a better future for young people, we are wise to think about what we will contribute to the future of civil discourse.

   The Contradictions of Good Teaching – Matt Barnum looks at the results of a recent study looking at the impact of teachers. Some of the findings were that teachers do have an impact, statistical models of measurement are often bias and there is a negative association between test scores and happiness standards. This takes me back to the question, “do great teachers make great schools?” For Deb Netolicky it is about the good enough teacher.

   A new study that tries to quantify this phenomenon finds that on average, teachers who are good at raising test scores are worse at making kids happy in class.

   CPD minefield! –The secrets to planning and preparing effective technology CPD – Jose Picardo provides a number of tips to supporting the implementation of professional development, including the suggestion to avoid one-size-fits-all, provide plenty of examples, emphasise the why and make sure you do not forget where the students and parents sit within the wider scheme of things. He also highlights a number of options, such as lunchtime sessions, briefings and teachmeets. I have discussed the idea of starting the learning early, the ingredients that make a good conference and the potential of coaching to support digital pedagogies. I think though that Picardo’s post reminds us is that the best approach is a always a mixed.

   How human beings make and justify their decisions is a fascinating area of study. Psychologists have long warned about our proclivity to fall prey to irrational decision-making, logical fallacies, prejudice and bias, which often determine why new ideas are adopted. Psychology has shown that we instinctively place more importance on our own ideas than on those of others. It’s a well-documented psychological phenomenon called the Not Invented Here Bias. This bias suggests that your idea could be rejected by others simply because it is not their idea, and not on its actual merit.

   Why Teachers are now Gardeners not Carpenters – Richard Wells provides a comparison between the educator as carpenter verses the educator as a gardener. I have written about trees before and the way in which they each grow in their own way, depending on a multiplicity of reasons. Interestingly, Yong Zhao suggests that gardeners are in fact dictators. In part, this is what Bernard Bull touches on when explaining that how we pick the produce impacts what produce we pick. What I find intriguing about gardens is that they do not stop growing if we stop caring for them, something that I learnt when my mother died.

   Carpenters have to work in a controlled environment. Their job is to use their tools to shape each product to a predetermined design and function. The pressure is all on the carpenter to get each product right, money is spent on purchasing quality tools, products are compared to gage quality, and when the wood is not pliable, it is often discarded. Mistakes are to be avoided and taking risks is dangerous to say the least. The finished products are perfected to fulfil a specific job/specialism for life making it obsolete once future requirements change. The carpenter’s workshop is a perfect analogy for the needs of the 20th century and it’s classrooms. The Gardener’s life is messier but just as fulfilling. Compared with other life on earth, humans have a very long childhood. This is because we expect children to learn about and prepare for the world through play and experience. This long childhood lends itself to the gardener’s approach and should lean both parents and teachers to a role of planning and nurturing a nourishing and dynamic space where any number of variables might impact on progress but children learn to adapt and find their space in a ever-changing ecosystem. The gardener is a great analogy for a 21st century teacher.

   
   “@AudreyWatters on Telling Stories” by mrkrndvs is licensed under CC BY-SA

   FOCUS ON EdTech Year in Review
   Each year, Audrey Watters’ unpacks the stories we were told about education technology in 2017. In response to her post about robots, John Johnston stated that he did not know where to start quoting. I think that this can be said about all the posts, especially when they are supplemented by additional resources.

   Education Technology and Fake News – Watters highlights how we are all implicated in the messiness of fake news.

   Education Technology, Betsy DeVos, and the Innovation Gospel – Watters intertwines the appointment of Betsy DeVos to US Secutary of Education and the continual rise of innovation in education.

   Education Technology and the Business of Student Debt – Watters explains how student loans are a part of the entrapenerial spirit.

   Education Technology and the Power of Platforms – Watters explores the battle for education’s OS and how they are shaping public education.

   The Weaponization of Education Data – Watters explains how data is being used to support those in power.

   Education’s Online Futures – Watters takes a look at the promises such as access and choice made by online learning.

   Education Technology and the Future of Academic Freedom – Watters investigates the implications of funding on free speech in higher education.

   “Robots Are Coming For Your Jobs” – Watters discusses the myth of robots and impact that such beliefs have on the structure of education, workplace skills, credentials and vocational studies.

   “Robots Are Coming For Your Children” – Watters looks at the ways in which robots are becoming a part of the lives of children.

   Education Technology and the New Behaviorism – Watters connects together personalisation, classroom management and mindsets to demonstrate ways platforms work together to modify and manipulate behaviour.

   The Business of ‘Ed-Tech Trends’ – Watter suggests we face a future in which private donors wield more influence than the elected officials.

   BONUS: The End of NMC (and the Future of the Horizon Report) – Watters reflects on the sudden death of the New Media Consortium.

   READ WRITE RESPOND #024
   So that is December for me, how about you? As always, interested to hear.
   Also, feel free to forward this on to others if you found anything of interest or maybe you want to subscribe? Otherwise, archives can be found here.

   Cover image via JustLego101.

   Reply

6. Maybe there were some things that I would have changed, however considering the current state of things, I was again pretty lucky this year.
   Personally, our children have continued to grow up. The youngest has progressed from learning how to climb the ladder to get on the trampoline to now utilising a range of objects to seemingly climb anything. Nothing is out reach as I learnt when she poured my coffee all over her resulting in an ambulance trip. Our eldest also had a trip to the emergency after standing on glass. It is moments like this that I am reminded how lucky I am living in Australia to have access to a quality public health system (although we do have private cover as well.) We also went on a couple of trips, including a couple of weeks in New Zealand and a weekend in Warrnambool.
   At work, I saw my role change from that of a technology coach to becoming a ‘subject matter expert’. I think when you are working within an agile project you do what needs to get done. This has included:

   Working collaboratively in the creation of a series of online modules
   Exploring ways to automate the creation of school timetables
   Leading the deverlopment of a biannual reporting solution with the help of Tom Halbert
   Comparing different models for online learning hubs
   Increase understanding data literacy

   I have enjoyed the challenges associated with my job this year, however I must say that I miss working with students and teachers. Being removed from the school environment, it can be strange telling people that I am an educator.
   With my learning, I presented at two EdTechTeam Summits, the National Coaching Conference and EduChange17. I was lucky enough to be invited to present on flipped learning.I also met a few more connected educators in real life, such as Darrel Branson, Alan Levine, Richard Wells and Andrea Stringer.
   In regards to my writing and thinking, I would saying that there are three themes that have existed across my posts this year:
   TRANSFORMATION
   I have wondered a lot about the complexities and parts associated with change and transformation in Education. Whether it be the conditions that are created or the questions we ask.
   WORKFLOWS
   I have explored different ways of working and improving digital workflows, whether it be automating the creation of timetables and the summary of data. smartphone. I have tinkered with a better web. This included spending a month in Google+, participating in #DigCiz and exploring some of the obstacles associated with blogging. I have also developed new spaces, such as Wikity and a site for re-claiming my online presence.
   APPLICATIONS
   I continued to reflect on the feautres and affordances of various applications, such as Google Drawings, Google Sheets, Facebook Pages, Google’s Explore Tool, YouTube and Global2 . I also wrote some curated posts on portfolio platforms and ongoing reporting.

   In regards to my newsletter, here are some of the posts that left me thinking this year:
   Learning and Teaching
   Establishing a culture of inquiry through inquiry – Kath Murdoch encourages teachers to begin the year with questions that can then be the start of a short inquiry, rather than the usual regimented style. For Edna Sackson this involves starting with the child. Sometimes the challenge with inquiry, as Sam Sherratt points out, is having permission.
   
   Inquiry into Inquiry by mrkrndvs is licensed under CC BY-SA
   Why I Hate Classroom Themes – Emily Fintelman reflects on classroom themes and wonders what impact they are really having on learning. She suggests that our focus should be on how spaces are structured and strategies that can be used to give students more voice.
   
   Classroom Themes by mrkrndvs is licensed under CC BY-SA
   The skill, will, and thrill of Project Based Learning – Bianca Hewes reflects on here experiences with Visible Learning and Project Based Learning. She highlights the similarities, such as a focus on stages and structure. The post finishes with a call to work together to strive for a better education for all. It is interesting reading this alongside the David Price’s analyses and a useful introduction to Project Based Learning.
   
   PBL vs VL by mrkrndvs is licensed under CC BY-SA
   Why Journalism Might Actually Be the Class of the Future – John Spencer suggests that the true makerspaces are found in creating texts, an activity best captured by journalism. To support this, Spencer provides a range of practical suggestions to turn every student into a budding journalist. This reminds me of Michael Caulfield’s writing about creating the web and connecting ideas. I wonder how it fits with the Digipo project and whether domain of one’s own is the greatest form of journalism?
   
   Journalism by mrkrndvs is licensed under CC BY-SA
   This free course can teach you music programming basics in less than an hour – Quincy Larson discusses Ableton’s free interactive music course that runs right in your browser. Having taught music a few years ago, I found this as a much more engaging method of grappling with the different principles of music in an interactive way.

   If you enjoy listening to music, but don’t know much about how it all works on a structural level, this course is for you. It will teach you some of the principles at work in popular songs like Queen’s “We Will Rock You” and Björk’s “Army of Me”.

   Catch the Flipgrid fever! 15+ ways to use Flipgrid in your class – Kayla Moura provides an introduction to Flipgrid, an application for visual feedback. To support this, she lists some potential uses, such as a debate, an exit ticket or a book report. In some ways it reminds me of Verso and the way that users can share and respond in a centrally managed space. The main difference is that Flipgrid is built around video.
   
   Catch the Flipgrid Fever by mrkrndvs is licensed under CC BY-SA
   Here (with 2 Years of Exhausting Photographic Detail) Is How To Write A Book – Ryan Holiday unpacks the process involved in developing a book, from the initial proposal to the published copy. This lengthy reflection is a great example of ‘showing your work’. Holiday shares a number of tips, such as recording quotes and ideas on notecards, as well as breaking the book into smaller chunks. It is a reminder of the time and effort involved in developing quality writing, something Mike Caulfield touched on.
   
   Ryan Holiday ‘Here (with 2 Years of Exhausting Photographic Detail) Is How To Write A Book’ by mrkrndvs is licensed under CC BY-SA
   Using ‘Visitors and Residents’ to visualise digital practices – David White and Alison Le Cornu have published a paper continuing their exploration of digital belonging and the problems with age-based categorisations. One interesting point made was the blur that has come to the fore between organisations and individuals. It is interesting to consider this model next to White’s work in regards to lurkers, as well as the ability to ‘return the tools’ without inadvertently leaving some sort of trace.
   
   ‘Using Visitors and Residents to visualise digital practices’ by mrkrndvs is licensed under CC BY-SA
   Asking the right questions – Alice Leung unpacks a range of question types and their place in the classroom, including no hands up and higher order. I have written about questions in the past, while Warren Berger’s book A More Beautiful Question is also an interesting provocation.
   
   Asking the Right Question by mrkrndvs is licensed under CC BY-SA
   Twist Fate – The Connected Learning Alliance challenged teens to pick a classic story and create an alternate scenario through art or story where a famous hero is the villain or an infamous villain, the hero, with the finalists collated in a book. For further insight into the project, Sara Ryan and Antero Garcia provide a reflection on the some of the stories and the project.
   
   Twist Fate @mizuko ‏ by mrkrndvs is licensed under CC BY-SA
   How colonial violence came home: the ugly truth of the first world war – Pankaj Mishra pushes back on the myth that World War I was largely a white European affair, instead suggesting that it was the moment when violent imperial legacies returned home. Along with Nafeez Ahmed’s reflection on Thanksgiving, these critiques remind us of the many forgotten voices during memorial days and national celebrations. Interestingly, TripleJ have decided to move the Hottest 100 Count from Australia Day, ‘a very apprehensive day’ for the Indigenous people of Australia. This is all a part of what Quinn Norton describes as ‘speaking truth’ against racism.
   
   How colonial violence came home: the ugly truth of the first world war by mrkrndvs is licensed under CC BY-SA
   Use Maps & Mapmaking in Your ELA Classroom – Kevin Hodgson discusses the power and potential of maps in extending comprehension and representing understanding. I have written before about visualisation before, however Hodgson’s post provides a range of ideas I had not considered.
   
   @Dogtrax on Maps by mrkrndvs is licensed under CC BY-SA
   Edtech
   Don’t Blame the Tools – Jose Picardo points out that blaming technology overlooks that the tool is only one part of the pedagogical canvas. I think things like SAMR can confuse the conversation. Instead, we need to start with a wider discussion of education.
   
   ‘Don’t Blame the Tools by mrkrndvs is licensed under CC BY-SA
   Against Expressive Social Media – Mike Caulfield makes the case to break with our dependence on the social media generated dopamine hits to develop the type of critical collaboration needed for the future. Reflecting on his own history of the web, Caulfield suggests that we need new ways of working that challenge our collective thinking, not just confirm our biases. Along with Audrey Watters’ post on edtech in the time of Trump, these posts ask many questions to address for a different imagining of educational technology and a democratic society. It also provides a useful background to the intent beyond such tools and technology as Hypothes.is, Wikity and Smallest Federated Wiki.
   
   Against Expressive Social Media by mrkrndvs is licensed under CC BY-SA
   Dear Twitter. It’s not me, it’s you – David Hopkins reflects on some of the changes that have occurred lately within Twitter, both socially and technically. There seems to be a lot of talk around Twitter of late, whether it be around alternatives, possible changes or how it is being unbundled.
   
   On Twitter by mrkrndvs is licensed under CC BY-SA
   Reconceptualising Online Spaces To Build Digital Capacity – In notes from a webinar Naomi Barnes presented, she explores the question of integrating digital technologies. Building on the work of Marshall McLuhan, she discusses the idea of dialectics. This reminds me of Belshaw’s eight elements of digital literacies. Along with Jonathan Wylie’s presentation on good technology integration, these posts offer some alternatives to the usual reference to the SAMR model as the solution to talking about technology.
   
   Technology by mrkrndvs is licensed under CC BY-SA
   What should teachers understand about the snapchat back-channel? – Benjamin Doxtdater questions the place of Snapchat and other such backchannels in the classroom. Sachin Maharaj goes a step further to calling for it to be actively banned. For Steve Brophy, this is about waterholes. This takes me back to the question about what sort of teacher you are: limiters, enablers and mentors. However, as Bill Fitzgerald’s investigation into Edmodo demonstrates, there is also an ethical side to be considered. This was also highlighted by Twitter’s changes to privacy.
   
   Benjamin Doxtdater ‘What should teachers understand about the snapchat back-channel?’ by mrkrndvs is licensed under CC BY-SA
   A Sociology of the Smartphone – Adam Greenfield shares a portion of his new book, Radical Technologies, unpacking smartphones. In this assemblage of parts he looks at what actually makes smartphones work, the changes they have brought to our habits and the impact on our environment. On this matter, Kin Lane documents the valuable bits in a smartphone that everyone wants, Doug Belshaw discusses email and notification literacy, Aral Balkan asks who owns the data, while Mike Caulfield rues the impact smartphones have had on research. Greenfield’s essay also serves as an example of how technology can construct a ‘templated self’. This is timely with the tenth anniversary of the iPhone. In another extract from Greenfield’s book, he reflects on the internet of things.
   
   A Sociology of the Smartphone by mrkrndvs is licensed under CC BY-SA
   I Deleted All But The Last Six Months Of My Gmail – Kin Lane describes his process of taking back control of his digital bits from the algorithms. He is doing this by deleting archived data often used to develop marketing profiles. In addition to Gmail, he has documented cleaning up Facebook and Twitter. Lane and Audrey Watters also discuss this further on Episode 62 of the Contrafabulists podcast. Coming at the problem from a different perspective, the Guardian Tech Podcast discussed the new movement of platforms designed to support people in archiving their digital memories and moments.
   
   Kin Lane ‘I Deleted All But The Last Six Months Of My Gmail’ by mrkrndvs is licensed under CC BY-SA
   What Do You Want to Know about Blogging? – Silvia Rosenthal Tolisano responds to number of questions about blogging, such as how to start out in the classroom, setup precautions, develop a habit and extend your thinking beyond the simple view of blogging. Kathleen Morris’ post on why every educator should blog, Marina Rodriguez’ tips for student blogging and Doug Belshaw’s guide how to write a blog post add to this discussion.
   
   What Do You Want to Know about Blogging? by mrkrndvs is licensed under CC BY-SA
   Why RSS Still Beats Facebook and Twitter for Tracking News – David Nield provides an introduction to RSS and why it can be better than social media for consuming content. One of biggest benefits is that it is unfiltered by the stacks. Nield provides some strategies for working with RSS, such as IFTTT and feed readers. Alan Levine lifts the hood on RSS, explaining how it works and what OPML is, while Bryan Alexander states why he decided to rededicate himself to RSS reading. In the end, it comes back to Doug Belshaw’s question of curating or being curated?
   
   RSS Still Beats FB by mrkrndvs is licensed under CC BY-SA
   We Are All Using APIs – Kin Lane explains how APIs are a part of our daily existence. Although we may not be able to do APIs, we need to be aware that they are there and what that might mean. This focus on the ethical as much as the technical relates to Maha Bali’s post about adding humanity back to computer science and Ben Williamson’s call to explore the social consequences associated with coding. Providing a different take on the ‘Hour of Code’, Gary Stager explains that the epistemological benefit of programming comes over time as we build fluency.
   
   We Are All Using APIs @APIEvangelist by mrkrndvs is licensed under CC BY-SA
   Learning Machines – Ben Williamson takes a dive into machine learning. He breaks his discussion down into three key areas: algorithms, hypernudges and personalised learning. Associated with this, Williamson also wrote about wearable brainwave training. Approaching this from the perspective of automating education, Naomi Barnes provides her own thoughts and reflections.
   
   Learning Machines by mrkrndvs is licensed under CC BY-SA
   Storify Bites the Dust. If You Have WordPress, You Don’t Need Another Third Party Clown Service – Alan Levine reflects on Storify’s announcement that it will be shutting down. He provides a number of options of what to do, including downloading the HTML content and stripping the links from it. This is a reminder why #IndieWeb and owning your content is so important
   
   Storifried by mrkrndvs is licensed under CC BY-SA
   Storytelling and Reflection
   Media, Technology, Politics – Data & Society: Points – In light of technology, fake news and democracy, a group of researchers led by danah boyd have applied their thinking to a range of issues with some attempt to make sense of the current state of being in the US (and the world at large).
   
   ‘Did Media Literacy Backfire? by mrkrndvs is licensed under CC BY-SA
   Will the AFLW herald changing times for gay players in the men’s game? – Kate O’Halloran reflects on first openly gay AFL players and wonders whether this will bring about a change in the men’s game. I have been left wondering what other impacts that the women’s competition might have on AFL and women’s sport in Australia in general. All of the sudden women are not only playing prime time, but also getting involved off the field in areas such as commentary as experts. In a sport that has seemingly pushed women to the margins, I am left wondering what impact AFLW will have on such jocular institutions as The Footy Show? As a father of two daughters it leaves me with hope.
   
   Changing Times by mrkrndvs is licensed under CC BY-SA
   Clash Of Ideas: The Tension Of Innovation – David Culberhouse outlines the importance of tension to foster innovation. Coming back to the ‘learning well’, he highlights the importance of difference and the way in which heavily managed environments undermine this.
   
   Clash of Ideas @dculberhouse by mrkrndvs is licensed under CC BY-SA
   Collaboration – Gary Stager considers all the hype surrounding Google Docs and it’s collaborative edge. In discussing his decades of experience, he suggests that writing is selfish and collaboration should not be forced, rather it needs to be natural. Along with Peter Skillen’s reflections on technology, these posts offer a useful provocation in thinking about modern learning.
   
   Collaboration by mrkrndvs is licensed under CC BY-SA
   No Me Without Us: Reflections After the UNIR #SelfOER #OpenTuesday Webinar – Reflecting on the call in regards to OER, Maha Bali discusses some of the challenges associated with the privilege around sharing. This is a continuation of a discussion around OER as a way of being.
   
   @BaliMaha ‘No Me Without Us’ by mrkrndvs is licensed under CC BY-SA
   Tweeting and blogging: Selfish, self-serving indulgences? – Responding to Clare Narayanan and her critique of the guru teachers who spend their time at Teachmeets and on Twitter, Deb Netolicky discusses finding balance between self care, family time and service to the profession. This is a reminder that being online is a choice with consequences. Something Claire Amos touches upon. Benjamin Doxtdater also suggests, maybe our primary focus should be on self-care and private journals.
   
   Tweeting and blogging: Selfish, self-serving indulgences? by mrkrndvs is licensed under CC BY-SA
   Competition – Dale Pearce highlights three key factors involved in creating a culture of competition in Australian schools: increased funding to non-government schools, public reporting to celebrate ‘winners’ and residualisation of public education. None of these aspects have been addressed with Gonski 2.0, (although Gonski has been brought on to help identify what practice works best.) To me, this is a part of a wider conversation about education, involving issues such as managing stress, providing the appropriate support, dealing with the rise of digital abuse, working together as a system and engaging with what it actually means to be a teacher.
   
   Competition in Education by mrkrndvs is licensed under CC BY-SA
   #rawthought: On Ditching the (Dangerous) Dichotomy Between Content Knowledge and Creativity – Amy Burvall explains that the key to joining the dots is having dots to join in the first place. Reflecting on the dichotomy between creativity and critical thinking, Burvall illustrates arts dependency on knowledge and skills. The challenge is supporting students in making this learning experience stick. Deb Netolicky also discusses some of these points in here discussion of ‘21st Century Learning’, while Bill Ferriter questions what comes first.
   
   On Ditching the (Dangerous) Dichotomy Between Content Knowledge and Creativity @amyburvall by mrkrndvs is licensed under CC BY-SA
   Tackle Workload. This bandwagon actually matters – Tom Sherrington discusses the problem of workload piled on the modern teacher. He highlights a number of elements to reconsider, such as report comments and pointless assessment. Considering the problem from the perspective of the teacher, Jamie Thom advocates becoming a minimalist and cutting back. Steve Brophy suggests looking after our own wellbeing by putting on your oxygen mask first. One thing that matters is our own development.
   
   Tackle Workload by mrkrndvs is licensed under CC BY-SA
   Should men or society stop the Harvey Weinstein’s of this world – Marten Koomen explores where to now with Harvey Weinstein and the way women are treated in society. He suggests that we need a collective effort by government to develop legislation and policy. Along with Rebecca Solnit’s post on blaming women for men’s actions and Julian Stodd’s investigation of the wider cultural problem brought out in the #MeToo movement, they touch on a wider problem around gender and inequality. On the Gist podcast, Mike Pesca discusses the challenges associated with reporting such topics. Jenny Listman adds a reminder that such power is abused by regular people too.
   
   Should men or society stop the Harvey Weinstein’s of this world @Tulip_education by mrkrndvs is licensed under CC BY-SA
   Bias Thwarts Innovation – Harold Jarsche explains why gender equity is so important when fostering a culture of innovation as it provides more dots to connect. This is a clarification of an initial post Jarsche wrote about our networked future. I have touched on the importance of gender equity before. Julian Stodd also wrote a useful post that breaks innovation down into six ‘thoughts’.
   
   Bias Thwarts Innovation by mrkrndvs is licensed under CC BY-SA
   Excuse Me While I “Just” Go Innovate – Pernille Ripp pushes back on continual call to just innovate, arguing that she innovates every day when she teachers, plans and contacts home. The problem is that these things do not count as innovative in many experts eyes. Bill Ferriter adds his own take on the reality of the classroom teacher, explaining that he does not check his emails during the day, that he is responsible for a range of people and that working with children is his number one priority. It is interesting to compare this with the discussion between Will Richardson and Bruce Dixon on the Modern Learners podcast in regards to the failure of teachers to engage with learning how to learn, as well as Richardson’s call from a few years back that the system is broken. For more on Ripp’s work, read Jennifer Gonzalez’s profile.
   
   Just Innovate by mrkrndvs is licensed under CC BY-SA
   FOCUS ON … Books
   I did not read as many books this year, but here those that I did:

   The Circle
   The Handmaid’s Tale
   The Blood Meridian
   National Testing in Schools, An Australian Assessment
   The Global Education Race
   Light and Shadow
   Any Given Team
   #EdTechRations

   So that was 2017 for me, what about you? Who have been the voices that have stood out for you this year? As always, comments welcome.

   If you enjoy what you read here, feel free to sign up for my monthly newsletter to catch up on all things learning, edtech and storytelling.Share this:EmailRedditTwitterPocketTumblrLinkedInLike this:Like Loading…
   
   Read Write Review – Voices from the Village in 2017 by Aaron Davis is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.
   

   Reply

7. inessential on Twitter (Twitter)

   2018: Some Hope: http://inessential.com/2018/01/03/2018_some_hope

   Brent, I think you’ve hit the nail directly on the head. I’m glad someone working on a feed reader has these ideals. It may be a bit pedantic for you, but since you mention it in the close, here’s a reasonable primer which may help: http://boffosocko.com/2017/07/28/an-introduction-to-the-indieweb/
   Syndicated copies to:

   Syndicated copies:

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8. «An Introduction to the #IndieWeb: There’s a better way to own and
   control your online identity»
   ~ http://boffosocko.com/2017/07/28/an-introduction-to-the-indieweb/

   Syndicated copies:

   • website

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9. «An Introduction to the #IndieWeb: There’s a better way to own and control your online identity» ~ boffosocko.com/2017/07/28/an-… (hugo.soucy.cc/note/2018/01/a…)

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10. I like to DIY. I built my own synthesizer, I run my own webserver, and I pickle my own pickles (sometimes). I really, really like learning new things. Lately I’ve been learning more about internet privacy, security, and the nitty-gritty code-stuff that makes the Internet work.
    The past few days I’ve been reading a lot about the “Indie Web,” and it is really resonating with me. There’s a lot of jargon but this person has some nice sentences:

    Is there a better and more robust solution than these multitudes of social media sites which all come with their own onerous terms of service, limitations on your creativity, reach, ownership, and control of your online identity?
    A growing number of people on the web are sure there is and they’re working together in an open yet coordinated way to improve the democratized nature of the decentralized internet. This movement is known as the IndieWeb.
    – Chris Aldrich

    I spun up a new WordPress installation at https://chrisbeckstrom.com/feed to get into this IndieWeb thing. I installed a bunch of plugins that make it do cool stuff, like grab comments out there on Twitter and Facebook and stick them back on my site.
    I used to write long-form blog posts regularly, usually about fishing adventures. Perhaps I’ll get back into that, maybe with some combination of long-form (“blog posts”), microblogging (“status updates”), and random shares (“listening to…”, “reading…”). I like the idea of a decentralized, more free Internet. I’d love to be a part of it!

    Syndicated copies:

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11. It’s easier to #DeleteFacebook when you’ve got somewhere to go…http://boffosocko.com/2017/07/28/an-introduction-to-the-indieweb/

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12. @Jorge_Romeo I’ve written a short intro to some of the pieces if you can’t wait: http://boffosocko.com/2017/07/28/an-introduction-to-the-indieweb/

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13. An Introduction to the IndieWeb

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14. Such a useful post by Chris Aldrich on the #IndieWeb!
    https://t.co/zDqnyUwjkc
    

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15. This, Sir, is so well written. I’ll definitely use your article for reference while satisfying someone else for the #indieweb. Thank you.

    Reply

16. An Introduction to the IndieWeb

    Syndicated copies:

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17. Warum ist das eigentlich nicht Standard auch bei kleinen Firmen und Institutionen? (Wie bei uns in der #VHS.)
    

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18. typo: “disappears with liitle”

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    1. Fixed. Thanks!

       Reply

19. 
    An Introduction to the IndieWeb
    

    April 17th, 2018

    A thorough run-down of the whys and wherefores of being part of the indie web, from Chris.

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20. An Introduction to the IndieWeb boffosocko.com/2017/07/28/an-…

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21. “An Introduction to the IndieWeb”boffosocko.com/2017/07/28/an-…

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22. The problem here is the following:
    1) It is very difficult for most of the people to manage domain name, hosting, cms…
    2) There is a mental barrier for people: “I don’t have anything important to say other people. Own site and domain name automatically means that this is serious, that I have something important to share with the world. But I don’t!”. From other hand, account in twitter or FB doesn’t require be serious! I can repost stuff and memes by just single click! I can write post something like “now I am drinking coffee in hipster cafe! it’s cool! :))))” in twitter, but it is shame to use own domain and hosting for such kind of posts.
    3) If I want to quickly find readers I will use social media. Because, it is very easy to follow people – just one click! Most of the people don’t know about RSS.
    4) Twitter as well as FB try to push people write something. Text form for making new post is in the same page as feed. In the case of indieweb the feed and post making form separated. So, I will think twice do I need to post something.
    5) Comments. A lot of different formats of comments in the big web is the thing which is the barrier for commenting. In the common wordpress comments there absent identification. Anyone can write comment with using my nickname and my blog address. So, I install the Disqus comments in my blog. This is not ideal solution, but this is popular, and this is the thing what really connects “indie web”.

    Sorry for my English, this is not my native language.

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    1. Thanks for sharing your thoughts. Your English is more than adequate. Thanks as well for translating a large portion of the article into Russian.

       Many of the issues you bring up are problems that those in the IndieWeb are well aware of and attempting to fix or improve. I suspect it won’t take long for companies to begin springing up to make some of the one-click user interfaces you indicate a reality. Why couldn’t companies provide simple services for domain names, hosting, and CMS for the broader public? The function isn’t that much different than that of Facebook or Twitter, it’s just the revenue model that is different (i.e. subscription fees instead of advertising fees).

       I would hope that in owning their own web presences that people would take a greater level of ownership and responsibility than they currently do on many social media platforms. However, this doesn’t mean that one can’t have fun. In particular, with relation to meme tools, someone has recently created a gif-related service for posting to IndieWeb sites via micropub. Why should it be any more shame to use one’s own website to post silliness on Twitter? They’re both on the internet and they’re both communication. The small difference is that in doing it on your own website is that you’ve got more control over the content in the end.

       I agree with you that RSS and feed readers could be far easier to use and provide additional functionality. With tools like SubToMe, subscribing to or following people is much simpler. There’s also an upcoming wave of feed readers with better integrated functionality for commenting and replying using one’s own website while sending the reply to the original website. (A great example is the one Aaron Parecki is currently working on.) And why shouldn’t this happen? When I think about Twitter and Facebook, they’re simply proprietary feed readers with integrated replies built in. Their problem is that they’re neither open nor distributed which means if I want to converse with friends on any of the hundreds of social media sites, I have to register an maintain an account on all of them that my friends are on primarily because these services are unable to talk to each other. I’ve now got hundreds of these accounts and at some point it’s just not a sustainable model for me. Members of the IndieWeb community are tackling and improving all of these problems because they believe there’s a better way than the current social media models.

       You right that services like WordPress lack solid identification in comments, though I rarely find this to be a serious issue in practice. I could just as easily game an identity on Disqus, but it’s more difficult, expensive, and less productive to spin up an entire website to spoof comments using Webmention. The Webmention spec does go quite a way toward remedying this as it allows people a much more solid way of owning their online identity and commenting on other sites.

       I think that if you look at some of what is growing out of the IndieWeb community, you’ll find a lot that is moving toward making the web a more valuable and interesting place to be and fixing many of the specific issues you’ve brought up.

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23. I discovered the IndieWeb about six weeks ago and wrote then about why I think it’s an important movement and community. Since that time, I’ve made a concerted effort to update my web site so that it looks like I want it to look. Although I’m not yet done, I’ve made good progress. I recently read Chris Aldrich‘s excellent post An Introduction to the IndieWeb. Near the end of the post, Chris writes:

    Everyone’s desires and needs will be different. Work on what you find most interesting and useful first (the IndieWeb calls these itches). Make a list of what you use most often on your old social media silos or wish they had and work on that first.

    In a conversation with Greg McVerry last night, I came to realize what I’ve been focusing on and why. To understand my focus, I first need to explain a little bit about how I set my site up.
    I have a Domain of One’s Own site through my university. This means that I can install applications on my web site very easily through a tool called Installatron. Because I was very familiar with WordPress, I first decided to install my own instance of WordPress for my blog. One of the first choices to make when you set up a WordPress site is the theme you want to use. The theme specifies how the site will look. I chose a minimalistic theme called Rebalance. I liked the grid layout of the theme as well as the fact that it would show an excerpt of a post on the main page. I also liked the fact that the main page would show an image associated with my post if I wanted but that I could also post without an image. Here’s the main page of my blog which can also be seen below:
    
    I then wanted a place to post my photographs. I wanted the photos to be all together but separate from my blog posts. I envisioned a main page with small images and when a viewer clicked on an image, it opens in a larger format. I tried a number of different options (a separate page, a portfolio, a project) and realized that I didn’t like the way the Rebalance theme handles images. But WordPress doesn’t allow multiple themes on a single WordPress site. So I decided to install another instance of WordPress and link it to my blog WordPress instance. I settled on the Pictorico theme for my photography WordPress instance which you can see below (and here). This theme is also minimalistic and is in a grid format. When I post an image, I add it to the text of the post and I don’t add a featured image. Instead, the Pictorico theme uses the first image in a post as the featured image if one is not added. This means the image only shows up once on an individual post.
    
    Then I learned about the IndieWeb. So I installed yet another instance of WordPress so that I could use one of the three themes that fully supports the IndieWeb plugins. I chose Sempress because it is minimalistic in ways that remind me of the Rebalance and Pictorico themes. I put a link to my blog WordPress instance and to my photography WordPress instance on the menu for my main web site which can be seen below (and here):
    
    As I learned more about the IndieWeb, I started to think about my work flow on corporate web sites. One of the things I do a lot on Twitter, for example, is retweet stories that I find interesting in order to come back to them later. I thought about how I might do something like this on my own web site instead of on Twitter. (I’ll write about the work flow for this process in my next post.) I had a vision of what I would want such a page to look like and, perhaps not surprisingly, I wanted something that had an appearance that was different than any of the pages that I had created up to that point. So I installed a fourth instance of WordPress and used the Carton theme. This theme is also minimalist and uses a grid layout but it looks great without images which is what I imagined my notes page would look like. You can see it below (and here):

    
    As I was telling Greg about the four instances of WordPress that I have installed on my web site and why I wanted to use each one, I realized that I use various corporate social media sites for different purposes and the way they look and feel matters to their use. And so as I try to replace the use of the corporate sites with my own site, I want the various pages to look and feel different from each other in ways that are suited to my use of them. It’s a lot of work to set up and maintain four instances of WordPress but it’s worth it to me to get the look and feel that I want. And this realization made me wonder if we could develop a plugin or a theme that allowed one installation of WordPress to have a different look and feel on each page. We already can filter posts by type so that we can have a separate page for each post type. Could we allow those pages to look different from each other based on the type of post that was on each page? I have created a couple of simple themes using a Udemy class that I took in January but I would need a lot more knowledge and experience to begin to develop this idea. I wonder what other people think about it.

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24. Chris Aldrich provides an introduction to webmentions. This includes unpacking the specification, the notion of mentions, the idea of kinds and way in which sites are potentially able to connect two-ways. This continues Aldrich’s efforts to document the IndieWeb, which has included a thorough overview of the IndieWeb and the future of feed readers. This introduction is different to Aaron Parecki’s guide to sending your first webmentions or breakdown of the oAuth standard.

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25. My Month of July
    LinkedIn recently reminded me that it has been two years in my current position. I was shocked, time has flown. As I touched on recently, it has been a whirlwind of an experience as is the nature I imagine of working within a transformational project. The biggest lesson learnt is that in a lean environment (or at least an attempt at a lean environment) you sometimes get stuck doing what needs to be done, rather than what you may prefer to be doing, which in my case is working with teachers and schools. I am currently working on refining a scale-able implementation process associated with student reporting.
    At home, the common cold came back, again. I swear we had overcome it for this season, but no. Also, new term and new song for my daughter’s school. So I think I am up to 20+ listens of Try Everything from Zootopia. Another great growth mindset anthem. Might also say something about the algorithms at play.
    I am learning through practice that the easiest way to learn something is to watch and copy somebody else. Scary how quickly our youngest picks everything up. Understanding Mal Lee and Roger Broadie’s point about the young being digitally proficient by the age of three.
    I attended DigiCon18. Although I went to some interesting sessions and sparktalks, what was great were the conversations in-between. This included discussing the Ultranet with Rachel Crellin, the pedagogy associated to ongoing reporting with Chris Harte, connected learning with Jenny Ashby, parenting and partnerships with Lucas Johnson, implementing the Digital Technologies curriculum with Darrel Branson, purpose and leadership with Riss Leung and direct instruction with Richard Olsen.
    In other areas, I have been listening to Amy Shark, Florence and the Machine, DJ Shadow, The National and Guy Pearce. I started reading Adam Greenfield’s Radical Technologies. I also updated my site, moving back to ZenPress and adding in a new series of header images developed by JustLego101.
    In regards to my writing, here was my month in posts:

    REVIEW: New Dark Age – Technology and the End of the Future

    My Life in Black and White

    Here then are some of the thoughts that have also left me thinking …
    Learning and Teaching

    Teaching Game Design with Bill Cohen (TER Podcast): Cameron Malcher interviews Bill Cohen about game-design through play-based learning. Cohen goes beyond the usual coding and computer-aided approaches to focusing on ‘low-tech’ games. This included engaging with board games and outdoor games. This play-based approach focuses on developing clear metalanguage, feedback for mastery and working with an iterative design process. This reminds me in part of Amy Burvall’s notion of ‘rigorous whimsy‘ and BreakoutEDU. Some resources Cohen shared include Boardgame Geek and Lady Blackbird, while in a seperate post, Clare Rafferty shared a list of games associated with History. For a different take on games, in a recent episode of the IRL Podcast, Veronica Belmont and Ashley Carman take a look at gamification in everyday life. Some examples of this include notifications on smartphones, likes and retweets on Twitter or the endorsements on Linkedin.

    If there is one thing that I have learnt as a teacher is that nothing leaches out fun more than dropping a layer of education over the top of it – Bill Cohen

    Encountering harmful discourses in the classroom: Ian O’Byrne discusses the challenges of engaging in harmful discourses. He provides some ways to responding, as well as a number of ways to be proactive. This touches on what danah boyd describes as the weaponisation of worldviews.

    Howard C. Stevenson from Penn’s Graduate School of Education indicates three steps to address these harmful discourses as they enter your classroom.

    Start with you – Process your own feelings, and address your own vulnerabilities before entering the classroom. Develop a support system with your colleagues.
    Practice – Classroom reactions usually happen in a split second. Prepare yourself for these instances by role-playing with colleagues in your building, or online with your PLN.
    After an incident – Resist the urge to condemn the action or content. First try to understand the motivation if is disseminated through your classroom or building. Allow the school’s code of conduct to address instances where students actively spread this information. Strongly explain to students that these harmful discourses and the messages being spread about individuals and groups are not accepted. You will not accept the silencing of voices.
    Keep talking – After these events, the best course of action is to keep talking. Difficult discussions will often ensue, but children and adults alike need to be able to process their feelings and reactions. This is an opportunity to shut down and be silent, or engage and promote change.

    How well do we ‘face up to’ racism?: Anna Del Conte provides some take-aways from a course on racism. Some of the activities included what racism is, a timeline of diversity in Australia and listening to stories. Another resource I am reminded of is Dan Haesler’s interview with Stan Grant. In part this stemmed from Grant’s speech addressing racism.

    Multiculturalism is not an outcome but a process. Racism may not be deliberate BUT anti-racism is always deliberate.

    Can Reading Make You Happier?: Ceridewn Dovey takes a look at bibliotherapy and the act of reading as a cure. Some argue that readers are more empathetic, while others suggest that it provides pleasure, whatever the particular outcome maybe, reading has shown to provide many health benefits. As Kin Lane suggests, when in doubt, read a book. Zat Rana suggests that this reading is not about being right or wrong, but rather about being open new ideas and lessons.

    So even if you don’t agree that reading fiction makes us treat others better, it is a way of treating ourselves better. Reading has been shown to put our brains into a pleasurable trance-like state, similar to meditation, and it brings the same health benefits of deep relaxation and inner calm. Regular readers sleep better, have lower stress levels, higher self-esteem, and lower rates of depression than non-readers. “Fiction and poetry are doses, medicines,” the author Jeanette Winterson has written. “What they heal is the rupture reality makes on the imagination.”

    Historic Tale Construction Kit – Bayeux: This site allows users to recreate the Bayeux Tapestry. Clearly this is a great resource for history students, but it is also an interesting approach to storytelling.

    Two German students originally wrote the Historic Tale Construction Kit, with Flash. Sadly, their work isn’t available anymore, only remembered. This new application is a tribute, but also an attempt to revive the old medieval meme, with code and availability that won’t get lost.

    Edtech

    Webmentions: Enabling Better Communication on the Internet: Chris Aldrich provides an introduction to webmentions. This includes unpacking the specification, the notion of mentions, the idea of kinds and way in which sites are potentially able to connect two-ways. This continues Aldrich’s efforts to document the IndieWeb, which has included a thorough overview of the IndieWeb, the future of feed readers and reimagining academic research. This introduction is different to Aaron Parecki’s guide to sending your first webmentions or breakdown of the oAuth standard.

    Breaking down the walls between the internet’s many social silos, Webmentions offer a new level of freedom for web interactions.

    Twenty Years of Edtech: Martin Weller looks back at twenty years of EdTech, highlighting the various moments that have stood out across the journey. This brings together many of the pieces that he has written for his 25 years of EdTech series that he has written to celebrate 25 years of ALT. As he points out in his introduction, we are not very good at looking back. This post then offers an opportunity to stop and do so in a structured manner. Another interesting take on history is Ben Francis’ post on the Firefox OS.

    What has changed, what remains the same, and what general patterns can be discerned from the past twenty years in the fast-changing field of edtech?

    Learning To Code By Writing Code Poems: Murat Kemaldar discusses the connections between coding and poetry. He re-imagines the various rules and constructs in a more human form. This continues a conversation started between Darrel Branson, Tony Richards and Ian Guest on Episode 234 of the Ed Tech Team Podcast about whether everyone should learn poetry and coding. This is also something Royan Lee shares.

    In all languages, there is probably a word for love. You kinda know what it means, but not really, because it is so subjective. But still, there is a word for it. But in JavaScript, there is no “love,” until you say there is. It can be whatever you want it to be.

    18 best practices for working with data in Google Sheets: Ben Collins provides a guide for working with data in Google Sheets. Some of the useful steps that stood out were documenting the steps you take, adding an index column for sorting and referencing, creating named ranges for your datasets and telling the story of one row to check the data. This is all in preparation for his new course on data analysis. Another tip I picked up from Jay Atwood has been to import data, if moving from Excel to Sheets, rather than simply copying and pasting.

    This article describes 18 best practices for working with data in Google Sheets, including examples and screenshots to illustrate each concept in action.

    Zuck’s Empire of Oily Rags: Cory Doctorow provides a commentary on the current state of affairs involving Facebook and Cambridge Analytica. Rather than blame the citizens of the web, he argues that the fault exists with the mechanics in the garage and the corruption that they have engaged with. The question that seems to remain is if this is so and we still want our car fixed, where do we go? Doctorow has also recorded a reading of the article.

    It’s fashionable to treat the dysfunctions of social media as the result of the naivete of early technologists, who failed to foresee these outcomes. The truth is that the ability to build Facebook-like services is relatively common. What was rare was the moral recklessness necessary to go through with it.

    How the Blog Broke the Web: Amy Hoy reflects on the early days of publishing on the web, where people would handcraft pages and connect them using a contents page. This was superseded by Moveable Type and the chronological blog, subsequently killing off the non-diariest. I was not really engaged in the web back then so it is hard to comment as Jeremey Keith, Duncan Stephen and Kicks Condor have, but it does remind me of the current debates around blogging. I think that all these spaces are forever changing and developing. Sometimes this is based on wholesale changes, but usually people have their own particular reason. Maybe some people will drop off with Gutenberg, but then again sometimes these things have their day.

    Movable Type didn’t just kill off blog customization. It (and its competitors) actively killed other forms of web production.

    Are We Listening?: Jose Picardo argues that the question about whether we should have more or less technology in schools misses the point. What matters is how it is used. For example, those who argue for more knowledge often fail to put the effort into actually understanding how technology is used in education. This comes back to the importance of why and having a framework to guide you. For a different perspective on technology in the classroom, read David Perry’s thread.

    The very teachers who read William and nod vigorously about the need to know stuff before you can understand or do stuff in the context of curriculum are unable to draw parallels between their dismissal of digital technology and their own lack of knowledge about it. Rather than finding virtuosity and pride in learning about how what technology works best and in what context—so as to be able to discern the best tool for particular tasks—we seem happy to eschew whole new toolkits on the dodgy grounds of ignorance and misconception.

    Storytelling and Reflection

    Throwing Our Own Ideas Under the Bus: Ross Cooper discusses the idea of putting your worst foot forward taken from Adam Grant’s book Originals. This involves trusting the idea at hand and starting with reasons why it might fail. Cooper suggests that this can be useful as it disarms the audience, critique involves effort, helps to build trust and leaves audience with a more favourable assessment. He also looks at this alongside Simon Sinek’s concept of ‘start with why’, highlighting the reason why and the challenges that might be faced. I wonder if the challenge in focusing on the why and why not is about finding balance? This reminds me of Malcolm Gladwell’s discussion of Generous Orthodoxy.

    As an elementary school principal, here’s the approach I’ve been taking with change: “Here’s what we’re doing, here’s why we’re doing it, and here are some of the ways I will support you!” Now I’ll be toying around with the idea of also proactively addressing the elephants in the room. Furthermore, we should allow for teachers and staff to respectfully and honestly discuss these obstacles, as opposed to us trying to sweep them under the rug. After all, flaws will be talked about in one way or another, and critical conversation that gives everyone a voice is preferred to potential venting in the faculty room.

    The future will be dockless: could a city really run on ‘floating transport’?: Alex Hern discusses the rise of floating transport, something that I touched on recently with the demise of oBike in Melbourne. Hern captures a number of stories from around the world of hope for efficiency, but also issues associated with shared spaces. I am taken by Hern’s closing remarks concerning reliability over flexibility. This leaves me thinking that sometimes what is required is community and sometimes that involves patience. What is the cost to the public/private transport industry when everyone relies on private personal transport models like Bird or Uber?

    Ultimately, floating transport is going to have to learn another lesson that conventional transportation bodies have taken to heart: flexible may be fun, but cities run on reliable.

    i am sorry: Pernille Ripe reflects on life as a connected educator. She discusses the stress, anxieties and perceived responsibilities that come with being an educelebrity. Although we often talk about the technicalities associated with being (digitally) literate, what is sometimes overlooked are the social consequences. This is something that Austin Kleon also recently reflected upon.

    So it is time for me to step back a bit. To do less work publicly, to share less, to not be so immediately available. To be just Pernille, the person who doesn’t have all of the answers necessarily. That only creates something because she cannot help it. That gives all of her when she is in a public space, but then steps back when she is private.

    Facebook’s Push for Facial Recognition Prompts Privacy Alarms: Natasha Singer discusses Facebook’s continual push for facial recognition. She traces some of the history associated with Facebook’s push into this area, including various roadblocks such as GDPR. She also looks at some of the patent applications. This made me wonder how many patents actually come to fruition and how many are a form of indirect marketing? Elsewhere, Doug Levin explains why facial recognition has no place in schools, especially the way Curtin University is using it.

    Cameras near checkout counters could capture shoppers’ faces, match them with their social networking profiles and then send purchase confirmation messages to their phones.

    The anti-cottonwool schools where kids stare down risk in favour of nature play: This article from the ABC discusses a couple of schools in Western Australia that have reduced the rules on outdoor play. This reminds me of Narissa Leung’s use of old bricks and Adrian Camm’s use of odd material to engage with play.

    Mr Smith said whereas students would previously come to the office complaining of injury, they are now too busy to make a fuss. “Students are becoming more resilient and getting on with it.” The school has just three rules — no stacking milk creates, no walking on the large wooden spools and no tying rope to yourself.

    The Dangers of Distracted Parenting: Erika Christakis discusses the challenges of parenting in a digital age. This all comes down to distractions and as I have touched on before, this is not always digital. I really like danah boyd’s strategy for dealing with this, that is to say why you are using a device. This openness offers a useful point of reflection. I think that the conclusion to this article says it all though, “put down your damned phone.”

    Parents should give themselves permission to back off from the suffocating pressure to be all things to all people. Put your kid in a playpen, already! Ditch that soccer-game appearance if you feel like it. Your kid will be fine. But when you are with your child, put down your damned phone.

    FOCUS ON … SPACE

    I was recently challenged on the place of space in regards to learning. I recorded a microcast on the topic, but I haven’t had the chance to put all my thoughts together. In the interim, I have collected together a number of posts on the topic. If you have any others to add to the mix, I would love to read them.

    Imagining Different Learning Spaces: Jon Corripo provided his suggestions for redesigning a classroom space which again sparked my imagination.

    Flexible Seating: What’s the Point?: Chris Wejr reflects on his experiences in reviewing flexible learning spaces. This includes the reasons to re-design, as well as a series of thoughts associated with the process of re-imagining.

    Why I Hate Classroom Themes: Emily Fintelman reflects on classroom themes and wonders what impact they are really having on learning. She suggests that our focus should be on how spaces are structured and strategies that can be used to give students more voice.

    Flexible Classrooms: Research Is Scarce, But Promising: What is interesting about this report is that rather than discussing furniture in isolation, it is considered as a part of a wider conversation about learning and environment. The impact of flexible spaces though can be almost incidental at times, as is with the case of Maths. This speaks of agency as much as it does of the chairs in the classroom.

    Adding the Learning Back to Space: A reflection on an outdoor learning space and the potential of technology to increase learning and engagement.

    Benefits of Flexible Learning Spaces #1 Teaching in Teams: Stephen Rowe explains that teachers working in teams is a significant benefit that arises from teaching in an open learning space.

    Designing Learning Spaces – putting the cart before the horse: June Wall and Jonathon Mascorella define learning environments as a set of physical and digital locations, context and cultures in which students learn.

    Learning Space Design Inspiration: Steve Brophy collects together a number of ideas and inspirations associated with learning spaces.

    Beanbags in Space: Matt Esterman suggests that what most teachers want is a more shiny version of what they have, because they are not trained as designers (usually) and are so often hemmed in by the expectations of current reality.

    Inquiry, noticing and the changing seasons… A tribute to the late Frank Ryan: Kath Murdoch reflects on the potential of the environment associated with inquiry.

    Coalescent Spaces: Dave White considers the impact of digital technologies on the creation of coalescent learning spaces.

    Seeing Spaces: Bret Victor reimagines the makerspace built around tinkering and argues that it is in ‘seeing’ that we are able to make this a science.

    Communities, Networks and Connected Learning with Google: Technology enables us to easily develop digital communities and networks inside and outside of the classroom. The reality though is that connected learning is as much about creating spaces for learning and building on that.

    READ WRITE RESPOND #031
    So that is July for me, how about you? As always, interested to hear.
    Also, feel free to forward this on to others if you found anything of interest, maybe you want to subscribe or buy me a coffee? Archives can be found here.

    Cover image via JustLego101.

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26. Replied to Equity Unbound Webcomic: Splintered Digital Identities by Kevin Hodgson (dogtrax.edublogs.org)

    I am dipping into Equity Unbound, a new online course/collaboration with Mia Zamora, Maha Bali and Catherine Cronin. They will be working with university students as well as opening things up to other spaces where folks, like you and me, can jump in. (The Twitter tag is here: #unboundeq)  I am always interested in seeing how new offerings can be riffs off previous open learning networks, such as NetNarr, Rhizo, Digiwrimo, CLMOOC, and others.

    Kevin, your comic really resonates, particularly for someone who’s got over 200 social media related accounts and identity presences in various places on the internet.
    It reminds me of a line I wrote a few months back in an article about the IndieWeb idea of Webmentions for A List Apart entitled Webmentions: Enabling Better Communication on the Internet:

    Possibly worst of all, your personal identity on the internet can end up fragmented like so many horcruxes across multiple websites over which you have little, if any, control.

    Inherent in this idea is that corporate interests and others who run social sites can disappear, delete, or moderate out of existence any of my writing, photos, audio, video, or other content into the memory hole at any time and for almost any reason. And just like a destroyed horcrux, their doing so takes a bit of my soul (identity) with it each time.
    A few years back, I decided to take back my own identity on the web and post everything of interest to me on my own website on my own domain first–a digital commonplace book if you will. Only then do I syndicate it into other communities, websites, or areas as needed. (Even this reply is on my own site before I syndicate it to yours.) As a result, I own a tremendously large part of my online identity (though even at that, a lot of it is published privately for myself or select small audiences).
    I hope that as Equity Unbound continues and we explore the ideas of identity, public/private, and related topics, people might consider some of these ideas and implications and potentially work on expanding solutions for students, teachers, and the rest of the world.

    Reply

27. Replied to Equity Unbound Webcomic: Splintered Digital Identities by Kevin Hodgson (dogtrax.edublogs.org)

    I am dipping into Equity Unbound, a new online course/collaboration with Mia Zamora, Maha Bali and Catherine Cronin. They will be working with university students as well as opening things up to other spaces where folks, like you and me, can jump in. (The Twitter tag is here: #unboundeq)  I am always interested in seeing how new offerings can be riffs off previous open learning networks, such as NetNarr, Rhizo, Digiwrimo, CLMOOC, and others.

    Kevin, your comic really resonates, particularly for someone who’s got over 200 social media related accounts and identity presences in various places on the internet.
    It reminds me of a line I wrote a few months back in an article about the IndieWeb idea of Webmentions for A List Apart entitled Webmentions: Enabling Better Communication on the Internet:

    Possibly worst of all, your personal identity on the internet can end up fragmented like so many horcruxes across multiple websites over which you have little, if any, control.

    Inherent in this idea is that corporate interests and others who run social sites can disappear, delete, or moderate out of existence any of my writing, photos, audio, video, or other content into the memory hole at any time and for almost any reason. And just like a destroyed horcrux, their doing so takes a bit of my soul (identity) with it each time.
    A few years back, I decided to take back my own identity on the web and post everything of interest to me on my own website on my own domain first–a digital commonplace book if you will. Only then do I syndicate it into other communities, websites, or areas as needed. (Even this reply is on my own site before I syndicate it to yours.) As a result, I own a tremendously large part of my online identity (though even at that, a lot of it is published privately for myself or select small audiences).
    I hope that as Equity Unbound continues and we explore the ideas of identity, public/private, and related topics, people might consider some of these ideas and implications and potentially work on expanding solutions for students, teachers, and the rest of the world.

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28. If you’re interested in personal ownership of your content rather than relying on social media platforms #IndieWeb is worth a look. In short you post content on your personal website and syndicate it out to platforms. It’s also possible to message between sites and blogs with a little work.
    
    

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29. This Article was mentioned on morethemes.baby

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30. I want to spark joy in people’s lives so they don’t Konmari my ass out of their life.

    Reply

31. Replied to a tweet by Jorge Toledo (Twitter)

    I think it’s worth a close look.Also, thanks to @jgmac1106 for jumping in. Check his replies (which are somehow connected/made from his own site in a way I still have to understand 😉 https://t.co/OWChQnaSeF— Jorge Toledo (@eldelacajita) January 31, 2019

    https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js

    If it helps a bit, I’ve written a primer on IndieWeb basics which might be helpful.
    Often I think it’s more illustrative to see what IndieWeb is by seeing what it can do. Greg and I are both publishing first on our own websites, and only then syndicating our replies to Twitter, where you’re seeing them. Then any responses to those posts are being fed back to our websites via the Webmention protocol with the help of Brid.gy in a process known as backfeed. The nice part is that he and I can have a website to website conversation (I’m on the WordPress CMS and he’s using WithKnown as his CMS of choice) without needing to use Facebook, Twitter, etc. as corporate intermediaries–typically unless we want to include others like you who aren’t using their own platforms yet.
    To a great extent, we’re using simple web standards and open protocols so that our websites function like our own personal social media services without giving away all the control and the data to third parties. If you prefer, you can also think of IndieWeb as what the old blogosphere might have become if MySpace, Friendster, Facebook, Twitter, et al. hadn’t happened.
    As another example of what IndieWeb related technology is about: I haven’t quite finished all the moving pieces yet, but my personal website is also federated in the sense that you can follow me @chrisaldrich on Mastodon or other parts of the Fediverse. (Don’t judge the output too harshly just yet, I’m still working on it, but it’s at least a reasonable proof of concept that many are also doing now. I also don’t have direct replies via Mastodon working just yet either…)
    Please do let us know if you have other questions. We’re happy to help.

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32. A primer into the #IndieWeb by @chrisaldrich
    https://boffosocko.com/2017/07/28/an-introduction-to-the-indieweb/
    On Wandering.shop

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33. I can’t believe I only just found this. As good an introduction to the IndieWeb as any. Also worth a read is the newer reply in a discussion about what the IndieWeb is, which led me to find it.

    Reply

    1. If you’ve only just found this, it likely means you probably don’t know about my larger IndieWeb Collection either. There are some other useful tidbits you might find hiding in there as well.

       https://boffosocko.com/research/indieweb/

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34. This Article was mentioned on lsinrc.wordpress.com

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35. I’ve written about why I think we need the IndieWeb before. I’m going to the Popular Culture Association Conference in April and will present about this there as part of the Internet Culture track. I’ve been talking to friends about what they might want to know about the IndieWeb as a way of getting a sense of what to present about. I realized that I have additional thoughts about the importance of the IndieWeb community so that’s what this post is about. Once the presentation is complete, I’ll make the slide deck available as a supplement to this post.

    The Early Web

    First, a little bit of a brief history so that we can understand where we are now and why we need an alternative to the corporate web. The World Wide Web was proposed by Tim Berners-Lee 30 years ago, back in 1989. Berners-Lee worked at CERN and was frustrated that so often when someone proposed a large scale scientific experiment, someone would raise the question of how they would keep track of all the individual components involved in the experiment and the mass of data and information that would arise from the experiment. As a solution, Berners-Lee proposed the development of a “non-linear text system” that would represent the various pieces of the experiment (people involved, equipment used, input data, output data, documents created, etc.) and the relationships (links) between those pieces. Information about the experiment would no longer be in danger of being lost because you could find anything you were looking for simply by following the various links in the larger system. Berners-Lee was given time by his boss to work on this proposal and by 1991, he had built enough of the system to invite people outside of CERN to participate. This was the birth of the World Wide Web.

    The implementation of the early web involved people like me having static web pages that were designed to serve static information to those who stumbled across my pages. I tracked down my web site from 1997, the year I finished grad school. Looking at these pages, you can see how static they are. For example, there is no place for anyone to enter comments in order to engage in a conversation with me. In fact, there is no indication on the pages that I would regularly update the information found there. Despite how static and basic these pages seem now, the barriers to entry for a person to have a site like this were pretty high. First, you needed to have some fairly significant tech skills because the pages were built by hand coding HTML, the mark up language of the web. Second, you needed to have access to a server that would store your pages for the world to find. This was no small barrier back in 1997. The only reason I had access to a server was because I was a Computer Science PhD student (and then later in the year, a new faculty member at a different institution).

    Web 2.0

    In 1999, an experience designer named Darcy Dinucci described an updated vision of what the World Wide Web might look like. She dubbed this new vision “Web 2.0.” (In the course of researching this presentation, I realized that Dinucci does not have a Wikipedia page. This is a whole different aspect of Internet Culture that I would like to write about.) As a new faculty member, I was very excited about Web 2.0. The idea was a web that required little technical skill in order to participate. It was powered by sites that allowed user interaction and collaboration, facilitated the sharing of user-generated content, and was a space that created a community of users who could easily interact with each other. This vision promised the democratization of the World Wide Web. This was the web that cultural studies scholar Henry Jenkins was looking at when he wrote about participatory culture. Users with little technical skill could write reviews of products and services, comment on the news of the day, interact with others who shared their cultural interests, share their creative works, teach each other about their individual areas of expertise, and more. The most important part of Web 2.0 was that it facilitated connections between people. It helped to build communities. It was exciting!

    We are now living with Web 2.0. People regularly do all of the things that I described above using sites like Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Youtube, Pinterest, Amazon, Yelp, etc. These sites have indeed empowered people. But that empowerment has not been entirely positive. I won’t get into all the negative aspects related to trolling, flaming, bullying, and so on. Instead, I’m interested in the negative aspects of Web 2.0 that are related to individual loss of control of their own data. Lots of problems arise when a person’s digital identity is spread across corporate silos. When I post something on Facebook, for example, my friends who aren’t on Facebook, who are maybe only on Twitter, cannot see what I’ve said. Even more concerning is the fact that the content I post on these corporate silos belongs to the corporations and not to me. We know that sites like Facebook surveil their users so that they can serve advertisements that might be interesting. Some people find this targeted content to be a positive thing. But there are darker sides to corporate surveillance on these Web 2.0 sites. The Cambridge Analytica scandal in which a third party company collected data about participants and, more disturbingly, their friends without a clear explanation that they were collecting and what they were doing with that data serves as a particularly horrifying example. The fact that this firm used the data they surreptitiously collected to influence elections in the US is ironic given our hope that Web 2.0 would democratize our online world. But the problems go deeper. Because the corporations control the data and information shared on their sites, some users (and larger organizations) have found themselves shut out of their own accounts when the corporations decide they have violated some rule. Users have lost their content when particular corporate sites shut down. Many users have documented the difficulties they encounter when they try to completely leave a particular corporate web site.

    The IndieWeb

    These numerous problems with our current implementation of Web 2.0 led me to look for an alternative to the corporate web and I found the IndieWeb. What is the IndieWeb? According to the IndieWeb web site, it is a people-focused alternative to the “corporate web.” The web site also says that the IndieWeb is a community of technologists, makers, and educators who have come together over a shared set of principles. The IndieWeb is also an openly shared commons of tools, projects, and documentation related to building personal spaces on the Web. What does all of this mean? The IndieWeb is a group of people who build their own web sites but in the process of doing so, they also build tools that will help others to more easily build their own web sites and make those tools freely available.

    There have been other initiatives that try to do this but the current IndieWeb movement differs from those other projects in some key ways that are encapsulated in the stated principles of the community.

    1. Principles over project-centrism: A community developing many projects following a set of principles is more robust and produces better results than a monoculture focused on one project.
    2. Build what you need, use what you build: Scratch your own itch, by creating for yourself on your personal domain and iterating (the community calls this “selfdogfooding” which is a word I hate).
    3. Design and user experience first, formats and protocols second: Focus on user experience first, and then re-use, subset, implement, iterate, develop simplest minimal formats & protocols needed to support that user experience.

    Remember that I said that in Web 1.0 it was difficult to build your own site for a variety of reasons. Web sites have typically gotten more complex rather than less so because of the desire for interaction. But the tools to build sites have gotten easier to use so that average people can pretty easily set up basic sites that allow various types of interaction. A bigger problem is that if everyone is doing everything on their own sites, there is no obvious, easy way to find other people that you might find interesting to connect and interact with. In other words, the corporate web sites create a community that is challenging to recreate without those centralized sites. This challenge is one that the IndieWeb community is specifically trying to address via the commons.

    The members of this community build tools that aid in interaction and community building that others can begin to use on their own sites. These technologists, makers, and educators build modular tools for themselves, document those tools and their processes, and share their work openly.

    For example, WordPress is the platform that is behind about one third of all sites currently on the World Wide Web. It is one of the tools that I use to build and maintain my personal site. When I put content on Facebook or Twitter, the corporation owns that content but it is displayed to everyone I’ve connected to on that site (but not to those I’ve connected to on other sites). When I put content on my personal WordPress site, I own it but it is challenging to get others to see that content. The IndieWeb community subscribes to an idea called POSSE (Publish on your Own Site, Syndicate Elsewhere). The idea is that you make your content available on your own site but then you share it on other sites. How can we do that?

    We might do it manually. When I publish a post on my blog, for example, I can then copy and paste the link (or the full content) of the post on Twitter (or some other site) where my community on that site can find it. In fact, I do this all the time. It’s how I’ve created connections with lots of other professionals interested in the same things I’m interested in. But it’s kind of a pain to write a post, publish it, and then copy the link to Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, Yammer, and maybe Instagram. I’m a member of other communities that I never bother to post my content to (primarily because I’m not particularly active in those communities).

    Here’s where the IndieWeb community can play a role. Members of the community are working on multiple projects that make syndicating your work to other places easier. One of the projects is a service  called Bridgy, which provides support for POSSE. Part of the project is a WordPress plugin that is easy to install and use. The plugin can be configured to automatically post any content you put on your WordPress site to your Twitter feed. Another part of the service allows any Comments or Likes you receive on Twitter to feed back to your web site to be posted there as well. Here’s what it will look like on your personal web site:

    

    These are the comments on my WordPress site for a recent post. The first actual comment was made directly on my web site. The Likes and Reposts were backfed from Twitter to my site. In other words, this list of 5 people interacted with the tweet containing the link to my post and those interactions fed back through Bridgy to my post.

    As I said, Bridgy allows you to consolidate your web activity from across multiple corporate silos onto your personal web site. A caveat is that Facebook, which owns Instagram, made changes to their Application Programming Interface a while ago so that this kind of consolidation is not possible.

    In order to allow POSSE to work, you need to make a connection between your web site and Twitter and the other corporate silos. The IndieWeb community has tools to help with that as well. For example, there is an IndieWeb plugin for WordPress that can help you establish your identity online, as well as recommending other plugins to support additional Indieweb features. Once the IndieWeb plugin is installed and activated, you simply complete your user profile, adding in links to other websites that you use. This allows you to connect your identity on those sites to your website, creating a consolidated digital identity.

    Web 3.0

    One last point: IndieWeb web sites use microformats, which are meta-data tags. For example, in order to establish a consolidated digital identity, the HTML for a post from my web site would contain the following:

    • <a href=”https://twitter.com/cathieleblanc” rel=”me”>@cathieleblanc</a>

    @cathieleblanc is my Twitter handle and https://twitter.com/cathieleblanc is the URL of my Twitter feed.

    When I add my web site to my profile on Twitter, the following HTML is generated:

    • <a href=”https://cathieleblanc.com” rel=”me”>https://cathieleblanc.com</a>

    https://cathieleblanc.com is the URL of my personal web site. The rel=”me” tag on each of these is the microformat that tells each site that this is a relationship that is all about “me.” This meta-data is important to help computers start to understand the relationships between the various pieces of code on the Web. This is called the semantic web and actually represents Web 3.0, which was proposed by Tim Berners-Lee (the inventor of the World Wide Web) in 2001. If all web sites used these microformats that describe what the data actually contains, we would be able to develop software that could read and understand anything on the web and display it in many different ways. For example, I might have some data on my web site that represents an event. I could have a calendar system that reads that data and displays it appropriately for the calendar. I might also have an attendance app that reads the data and allows people to sign in as attendees of the event. I might have a third app that allows people to give feedback on the event. I will be very excited when we rely on meta-data of this type because then I wouldn’t have problems like my Google calendar not being able to speak to my Outlook calendar. They would both read and display the same set of marked up events and I could go back and forth between the calendar applications seamlessly.

    Conclusion

    Chris Aldrich has written a great Introduction to the IndieWeb. In it, he says that the goal of the IndieWeb is to help us to gain more control of our web presences, to have a true sense of ownership of our content, and to help us be better connected to our friends, families, colleagues, and communities. To participate in the community, we can start by owning and using our own domains. (I recommend Reclaim Hosting.) We can then progress to owning our data by using POSSE and backfeed tools like Bridgy and microformats. And finally, we can all participate in the development of the tools that will allow this ambitious project of making the Web less corporate to succeed.

    Image Credit: Screen Shot of my web site from 1997 taken from The Wayback Machine

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36. Get started on the indieweb by connecting with the indiewebcamp community, getting a personal domain, a place for your content, and setting up your home page and other indieweb essentials.

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37. Welcome to news about the IndieWeb where recent notable articles about the IndieWeb are cited and linked to keep you up to date.

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38. Kambo practitioner currently living in the Norwegian woods.
    Current mission: Rediscovering ancient wisdoms and growing a bigger heart.
    Transitioning into an independent, decentralized and personal web space through this site. Wonder why? Because there’s a better way to own and control your online identity.
    Writes mostly in English.
    Pura vida.

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39. Will you look at this?! Twitter has recreated the WordPress Gutenberg editor interface into their web product. Currently it only has a few blocks for text, photos, gifs, video, embeds, and polls, but it’s not completely horrible and it’s relatively fast and convenient.
    The Gutenberg editor in WordPress:

    Screen capture of the new Gutenberg interface
    In fact it appears that they’ve pared the editor down substantially. A few more tweaks and it might be as clean as the Medium editor experience.
    Want to add a video, just drop a youtube link:
    [youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HNmKO7Gr4TE?version=3&rel=1&fs=1&autohide=2&showsearch=0&showinfo=1&iv_load_policy=1&wmode=transparent&w=840&h=473%5D
    Want to embed a blog post from somewhere else? Add the link in your tweet and get a spiffy Twitter Card (just like oEmbed!)

    An Introduction to the IndieWeb

    I can see people getting awfully tired of clicking that “plus” button interminably though. Maybe if the interface could algorithmically choose where to break text the same way it determines what tweets I’m going to see?
    Now they just need an edit button and they’ve got a “real” blogging experience, but one that’s editable in tiny 280 character chunks. Who has the attention span for more content than this anyway?
    I can already tell that newspapers and magazines are going to love this. Just imagine the ease of doing shareable pull quotes this way?!
    I can see journalistic institutions rebuilding their entire platforms on Twitter already!
    Old CMS -> Tumblr -> Medium -> Twitter!
    What is your favorite editing experience?

    The Tweetstorm-o-matic
    WordPress’ Gutenberg
    WordPress Classic Editor
    Medium

    Uh oh! I’m noticing that they’ve neglected to put a block in for a title area. Maybe we could just do a really short tweet up at the top of the thread instead? If only we could drag and drop tweets to reorder them? At least you can add new tweets into the middle of the stream.
    Besides, who’s going to read anything but the headline tweet anyway. No one is ever going to read this far into a tweetstorm. Maybe a blog post where they at least know what they’re getting into, but never a 20+ card tweetstorm.
    And would you look at that? They almost jumped ahead of Medium on inline annotations by allowing people to reply to very specific pieces of the text. I’m kind of disappointed that they don’t have the pretty green highlighter colors though.

    An inline annotation on the text “Hey Ev, what about mentions?” in which Medium began to roll out their @mention functionality.
    Now if only I could register a custom domain on their service and have control over the CSS, Twitter could be a first class open web CMS.
    #​I​CanOnlyDream
    Sigh I suppose until then I’ll just stick with my humble little website that allows me to own and control my own data on my own domain name and communicate with others using simple web standards.
    #​​IndieWebForever

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40. Last @btconf I headr @t talk about the #indieweb. Interesting talk. Now did read boffosocko.com/2017/07/28/an-… it also explains what the #indieweb is about. Taking more control over ones own data.

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41. #indieweb

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42. Mom is on Facebook because she thinks that’s what the internet is

    Not my mom, of course 🙂

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43. I’ve built this website as an experiment, to gather my social activity on the internet. I believe that the internet should be inhabited by many small independent websites which communicate among themselves, as opposed to one or two omnipresent platforms like Facebook or Twitter that manage all our activity for us but also take away our freedoms. Chris Aldrich wrote a nice article about it here.
    How does this website work? I use either Indigenous, Quill or Micropublish to write new posts. Once I save, the content is sent to my Github repository via Indiekit. Afterwords, Netlify is notified, which then builds and serves the website. Works like charm 😉

    I don’t want to write a tutorial on how to do it, there is a plenty of good resources out there. If you also want to try it out, the good place to start is
    indiewebify. One tip: start slowly, only build the basic functionality first, see how you like it and only after some time add some more.

    Useful references

    Tantek Celik, “Why We Need the IndieWeb”
    Webmentions: Enabling Better Communication on the Internet <!– copied here: –>
    IndieWeb Collection
    Key Principles of the indie web
    IndieWeb guides

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44. IndieWeb (opens new window) is “a people-focused alternative to the corporate web.” About Chris Aldrich (2018), “Defining the IndieWeb” (opens new window) Chris Aldrich (2017), “An Introduction to the IndieWeb” (opens new window) IndieWebify.me (opens new window) is “a guide to getting you on the IndieWeb.” WebMentions Amber Wilson (2020), “Grow the IndieWeb with Webmentions” (opens new window) Shawn “swyx” Wang (2020), Clientside Webmentions (opens new window) How webmention.io parse mentions (opens new window) Syndication PASTA (opens new window), PESOS (opens new window), POSSE (opens new window)

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45. Get started on the indieweb by connecting with the indiewebcamp community, getting a personal domain, a place for your content, and setting up your home page and other indieweb essentials.

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46. Get started on the indieweb by connecting with the indiewebcamp community, getting a personal domain, a place for your content, and setting up your home page and other indieweb essentials.

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47. I am writing a blog post every day from December 1st to December 24th, 2021, about a blogger whose writing or site I follow. My aim for this series is to help you discover new blogs and to help get the word out about content creators whose blogs I appreciate. You can read more about this series in the inaugural Day 1 post.
    Chris Aldrich’s Website (boffosocko.com)
    I encountered Chris Aldrich’s site before I learned about the IndieWeb, a community of people who are interested in making personal websites and taking control over their data. When I started diving deeper into the IndieWeb, I realised that Chris was part of the community. Chris had even written about quite a few IndieWeb topics, including an introductory guide to the IndieWeb community which helped me get started and learn how the community worked.
    Chris’ website is an excellent example of how you can take control of your data without using code. Chris posts likes, comments, bookmarks, and over a dozen types of posts on his website. Some posts are created elsewhere and syndicated to his site using an approach called POSSE (publish on your own site, syndicate elsewhere). Other posts are written on his site. You can go to lists like drinks or annotations or bookmarks to see posts that fit under those categories. Want to know what blogs Chris finds interesting? Check out his Follows page. These posts are all well categorised which means you can easily follow along with what you find most interesting.
    In the “About” section of Chris’ website, he talks about how his site works. One page shows the plugins he uses in WordPress, the content management system he uses. Another page shows the philosophy and structure behind his site. Chris’ documentation is an excellent resource. Documenting what you build with your site makes it easy for others to learn. Notably, WordPress does not require code to use. As a result, Chris’ documentation may be especially useful to those who want to make a powerful site without using code.
    Chris posts longer form content on his site regularly. He blogs about many topics from the IndieWeb to websites to digital gardens and commonplace books. If you are new to the IndieWeb and want to learn more about the community, I cannot recommend the called “An Introduction to the IndieWeb” guide I mentioned at the beginning of this article. If you are interested in organising information using wikis and similar structures, a quick search around Chris’ site will yield lots of information you can use to dive deeper.
    Chris’ site has a lot of pages to explore. They are organised with a sidebar that appears on the left of the page. I love this arrangement. The sidebar has a clear logical order even as you expand each menu to look at other parts of the site. There are also category and tag links as well as a search bar that are useful for navigating around the site. Chris’ is open about how his site is both a blog and a commonplace book. Thus, the architecture may be different to some blogs you have seen, but that only means that you’ll definitely learn a thing or two about how sites can be organised.
    Before I finish, I have to mention that Chris’ site currently has a seasonal background that comprises his “holiday theme,” a change in a website based on particular events. The IndieWeb wiki has a dedicated page showing examples of holiday themes if you want to learn more about decorating your site for events.
    That’s it for this post! I could spend many more words discussing Chris site — and indeed all of the other sites in this series — but I want to encourage you to explore every site you find interesting yourself. Only through exploration will you be able to find the hidden gems and interesting articles that resonate most with you. I shall see you tomorrow for the next edition of this series.

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48. Get started on the indieweb by connecting with the indiewebcamp community, getting a personal domain, a place for your content, and setting up your home page and other indieweb essentials.

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49. Websites are cool. You can visit them and they have stuff on them, pretty sweet. Why not make your own?
    To tell the truth, most people probably never even considered creating their own website at all for any reason, and the next largest group of people thought about it but decided it would be too hard, take too long, require too much maintenance, or some other excuse. But I’m still telling the truth when I say those people are all wrong, and there are very few good reasons not to make your own website.
    Are you an artist? Musician? Writer? Put that on your website. Full time memer? Have opinions on things? Put that up there too. Do you do anything? Do you exist online at all? Reason enough to make a website if you ask me. Whatever you do online, whether it’s creating media, sharing thoughts, exploring ideas, writing reviews, doing a podcast, building a brand or anything else, you can do it all on your own personal website.
    If you ask me, I believe everyone should at least consider having their own website. Along with the obvious benefits of being able to do literally whatever you want with it and being able to centralize everything you do in one location, another huge reason I advocate for this is because with your own website, you truly own and control all of your data. How valuable that is to you is – wouldn’t you know it – entirely up to you, but I think it’s a pretty big plus. Having total control and freedom over your own little corner of the internet is one of the most powerful ways to solidify your identity and presence online, no matter what it is you do.
    And that’s exactly why I’m going to show you how to make a website for yourself.
    In this quick and dirty guide, I’ll show you how to get set up with a server host and a basic WordPress site. None of that Squarespace nonsense, we’re making something of actual worth. WordPress is by far the most popular content management system, supposedly powering over a third of the open internet, so there’s always a wealth of information available if you have questions about it, tons of customization options already freely available, integration with just about everything, and it’s simple and easy to use to boot. You don’t need any coding knowledge to use it, or even any more than very basic tech literacy and some patience. While its original purpose was just to be blogging software, these days you can do just about anything with it. There are other options out there of course, but my goal with this guide is just to get you up and running with something easy and versatile as quickly as possible, because all I want is to see more people with personal websites. If you decide to do something different, that’s great too. And of course, if you ultimately decide that having a website isn’t something you want, I can’t fault you for that.
    Full disclosure: Absolutely none of this content was sponsored or influenced by anyone, it’s 100% my own independent thoughts. However, I did use referral links to the hosting services I recommend, Veerotech and Linode. They hold no influence on the content, but you should be aware they’re there.
    But why though?
    To elaborate on what I just said, I believe there are five main reasons why having a website is worth everyone’s consideration. First is centralization. With your own website, you have one central location for hosting everything you do, where everyone else can find it all in one place. The only thing you can’t easily host yourself is video content because it eats a ton of storage and bandwidth, which can get expensive, but it’s not impossible. That’s not to say you should abandon existing platforms in favor of this though, you should by all means keep using them, you can even have a page on your website that holds all of the links to all of your existing profiles in one place, making it easier to find you on said platforms. Having one central nexus for everything though can also do more than just be convenient, it can boost your visibility by ranking on search engines, which in turn helps your other profiles rank higher as well.
    The next two go hand in hand, being total control and freedom. By being in control of your own server, as long as you aren’t doing anything illegal, you are in control of everything that goes on, you set your own rules, and you’re free to do whatever you want with the space. Every aspect of the site can be exactly as you want it to be, giving you the ability to establish a genuinely unique presence, rather than just the typical circular profile picture and small banner image available on social media. You can make it pretty, retro, horrible, sleek, and so on and so forth, you get the idea. You also never have to see a single advertisement anywhere, or share space with people or content you don’t want to be associated with.
    Fourth is extensibility. When you get an idea for a new thing, you can make a new part of your website for it, whatever it may be, rather than opening up a new profile somewhere. An easy example would be if you wanted to set up a storefront, because you can do that in a variety of ways on your website and keep it all in one place. Maybe you want to host a podcast all of a sudden, or you took up art and want to display a gallery, or decided to dabble in some kind of journalism. Whatever you want to do, it just adds right on, in place.
    Finally, is ownership. It’s true that by creating something, you automatically own the rights to that thing, but many other platforms require extended licenses on that work or even partial – occasionally total! – ownership of the copyright. But of course with your own website, that’s not a problem. If that matters to you, you should read the terms of service agreements for the other platforms you use a bit more carefully. Aside from that, though, reducing your reliance on third party corporate platforms is never a bad thing if you can manage it. When you have your own website, all of your data stays with you as you intended it to be, it moves with you, isn’t at risk of being suddenly lost or taken down, and can be easily and reliably archived. An extra potential plus is that by posting on your own website first, it should be easier to prove your ownership of things if it comes down to that, but don’t quote me on that one, I’m no lawyer.
    Whether or not any of these things are important to you, is entirely up to you. If you think about these things and conclude that they aren’t important to you, that’s completely fine. Of course, I personally hold all of these things in high regard, but not everybody does and that’s fine. What I really want from this post isn’t just to get you making websites, but for you to think about why you may or may not want to, and to then make an informed decision. But if you think about all those things and see some value in them, kind of like the idea, but still can’t decide… ask yourself “why not?” instead.
    So if you’re ready to get started, bear in mind that while this isn’t free, it’s inexpensive at easily less than $10 total per month, and it can easily be worth its weight in gold for the above reasons and more. If you have no experience at all with anything similar to this, it might take you a day or two to work through this, but you’ll be able to do it, I know you can. It’s easy and simpler than you might think. And once you’re done, the extent of maintenance you’ll want to do should amount to nothing more than a couple button presses a few times a year, but you might be able to get away with even less.
    Getting set up
    Before we actually start getting set up, you have to make a choice. Shared hosting, or VPS hosting?
    Both options have their pros and cons, and for our purposes with this guide, will do exactly the same thing and perform about equally. The biggest pro of a shared host is its simplicity, because you will never have to touch a terminal interface or worry about maintaining the server. In exchange, it’s also relatively limited in terms of possibilities and expansion, and has the potential for worse performance and security since you’re sharing server space with other users. VPS hosting avoids those problems by allocating resources exclusively to you and being capable of basically anything, including running your own VPN or any number of dedicated game servers, but in exchange you have to use a terminal occasionally.
    Personally, I recommend going the VPS route for the flexibility, and I can assure you that while it’s not quite as simple as a shared host, it’s neither difficult nor very complicated, so don’t be intimidated by the increased number of steps or by the idea of using a terminal. Either way, I’m covering both. You can also host your own email servers with both of these, but that’s something I won’t be covering here because that is rather complicated, but now you know you can.
    If you choose a shared host, I can recommend Veerotech. Tripulse was hosted with them for years before I made the decision to switch to a VPS host. Their customer service is particularly good, which is very important to me. Feel free to do your own research and choose a different host if you want to though, however, there are some hosts you should definitely avoid, like BlueHost and HostGator. They’re owned by a company called Endurance International Group, and they are terrible. Go here if you want to know why, and see a list of hosting companies to avoid.
    If you choose the VPS route, I can recommend Linode. This is the host Tripulse currently uses and will likely stick with for the foreseeable future. They also have great customer service, plus substantial and helpful documentation, and it’s cheap. Again though, please feel free to research your options yourself and choose the host that looks best to you, much of what I’m going to cover in this guide should apply no matter what you choose.
    Initial steps
    The very first thing you need to do is buy a domain name. You can use whatever domain registrar you want, they’re all the same for the most part, where they differ may or may not matter to you… except GoDaddy, they’re bad, stay away. Feel free to do your own research on good domain registrars, but I’ll recommend Namecheap for the price, or Gandi for any other reason. You don’t necessarily need a .com or .net TLD, so don’t worry if those are taken, just grab a domain that you like and is easy enough to remember. There are a lot of TLDs, you can even have a .pizza one, go wild. Just make sure that the TLD you choose supports WHOIS privacy, and preferably DNSSEC as well.
    Next, you should sign up with Cloudflare. This isn’t a requirement, but consider it highly recommended. Your website will be faster and more secure with Cloudflare’s free service, and could even save you money if your host charges you for bandwidth usage. Just create an account though, no need to do anything else with this yet. If for whatever reason you don’t want to use Cloudflare though, I’ll be covering the setup both with and without it. Cloudflare also has a domain registrar service that I didn’t know about, which might also be worth investigating.
    Shared hosting
    Before we start, please remember that if you’re confused about anything here, you should consult the knowledge base. Don’t be afraid to contact support either.
    Sign up for Veerotech and choose a shared hosting plan. The SSD One plan will likely serve you well, but if you already know you’ll need more than 5GB of storage space, the SSD Micro plan has you covered for just slightly more. Aside from storage space, you more than likely won’t notice a difference with what we’re doing here. You can upgrade and downgrade your plan at any time through the dashboard though, so don’t worry about choosing poorly.
    
    After you select a plan, choose the I have a domain option when presented and enter your domain before continuing to checkout and creating an account. After you’re done with that, log in and it will take you to the dashboard. Click on the big Services button, then click on your plan, and on the left under Actions, click on Login to cPanel. It will open cPanel in a new tab.
    
    Scroll all the way to the bottom of the page and you should find the Softaculous Apps Installer, and WordPress should be right there as an option, so click on it if you see it. If instead you only see a Softaculous button with no other options, click on that one and then WordPress should be right there as an option.
    
    Click on the install button, then make sure to select HTTPS as the protocol (https://) and that the directory field is empty. Set the name, description, and admin account info to whatever you want, and under advanced options, you can enable automatic updates both for WordPress itself and for the plugins and themes you install later. When the installation finishes, click the cP button on the top right to return to cPanel.
    Now find the Cloudflare button in cPanel, click on that, and log in to your Cloudflare account. Then, click on the domains button and choose Provision Domain with Full Zone Setup. It will give you two nameservers to use, so copy those down. If you don’t want to use Cloudflare, skip all that and just copy the Veerotech nameservers, which you can find in their knowledge base if they don’t appear somewhere in the client area.
    Next, log into Namecheap, click Manage next to your domain, then under Nameservers, set it to Custom DNS and add the nameservers you copied earlier, then click the green checkmark. This should be pretty similar and probably simpler on other registrars, so don’t worry about that.
    
    There’s a bit of a wait after this because it takes a while for the nameserver update to actually go through. It could be a minute, it could be a day, but it will most likely be no longer than ten minutes. Any DNS changes you might need to make will be done in cPanel after this. After it’s done, connecting to your domain should greet you with a default installation of WordPress, showing that it’s working. One final step though. Return to cPanel and click on the Let’s Encrypt SSL option under Security, and issue a new certificate for your domain.
    Now you’re good to go, and will most likely not need to sign into cPanel for anything other than backups for a long, long time. Remember to take regular backups of your server! Now you can move on to the WordPress section.
    VPS hosting
    Before we start, let me remind you that if you get confused about anything here, you should first look at the documentation for Linode and/or CyberPanel, and don’t be afraid to contact Linode support if you have questions.
    Edit: Linode actually has an even simpler method to set up a WordPress website! If you don’t think you’ll ever be experimenting with multiple websites, or you would rather have an entirely separate Linode for that anyway, you can use this method instead of following the rest of this section.
    First things first, once you set up your account, create a new Linode. Select the latest Ubuntu LTS image (20.04 at the time of writing), use their speedtest page to choose a datacenter, and choose the 1GB Nanode plan. You will almost definitely never need to upgrade from this plan unless your website gets incredibly popular or you have bigger ideas for what to do with it. Unless you run out of storage space, that is.
    
    Label it whatever you want, then set your root password. This is the password that gives you absolute control over the server, so make it a strong one. You can opt for the Linode backup service as well if you want to pay a little extra for the simplicity of having constant automatic backups managed for you, but there are multiple other options for backing up your stuff as well, so it’s up to you. Don’t worry about any other optional things and hit that create button.
    Once it’s up and running, click on the Launch LISH Console link on the top right of your node dashboard. When it prompts for you to log in, enter “root” as the username and then enter the root password you set earlier. When you enter the password, it will appear as though nothing is happening, but don’t worry, that’s normal behavior, the password is entering invisibly. After logging in, enter this command:
    apt-get update && apt-get upgrade
    Enter Y when prompted, and when that finishes, enter this command next
    sh <(curl https://cyberpanel.net/install.sh || wget -O - https://cyberpanel.net/install.sh)
    Should look something like this by now.
    
    This will start an installation sequence with a lot of prompts. As they appear, enter: 1, 1, Y, N, press enter, S, enter a strong password, Y, Y, Yes. This password needs to be different from your root password, but just as strong since this one allows you into the web control panel. Once again, it’ll look like nothing is happening when you enter the password, but don’t worry, that’s normal.
    
    After all that, the installation will begin. Once it’s done, enter N, then close the console and reboot the server. After it’s up and running again, you should be able to access your control panel by connecting to :8090 in your browser. If for some reason that doesn’t work though, log into the console again and it’ll display the correct IP and port for you, so copy those down and log out by typing logout. We won’t need to open the console again from now on. Just two commands and some guided prompts for the whole installation!
    When you first connect to your control panel, your browser will probably display a security warning, but it’s safe to ignore since this is your server that you just made. You can log in with the username “admin” and the password you entered during the installation process. First thing to do in CyberPanel is to click on the Packages button, then Modify Package, select Default, and change domains, disk space, and bandwidth to 0 for unlimited.
    
    Return to the dashboard after that and click on Websites, then Create Website. Select the default package, admin as the owner, enter your domain name and email, select the most recent PHP version, and check the boxes for SSL, DKIM support, and open_basedir protection, then click that create button.
    

    Once that’s finished, go back to the dashboard again, click Websites, then List Website, and your new website should appear in the list.
    Next to it on the right will be a link that says Manage. Click on that and it will open a new tab.
    Scroll to the bottom and click on the WP + LSCache option under Application Installer, fill in the fields as prompted but leave the path field empty, then click install now.
    When it’s done, it’ll tell you to connect to your domain, but nothing will happen because we haven’t set up the DNS yet.

    This next part seems more complicated than it is, I promise. It’s just a bit tedious, but we only have to do it once, so bear with it.

    Go to Cloudflare and log in, then click your avatar at the top right corner and click on My Profile, then click the API Tokens tab.
    Click the view button next to Global API key, enter your password, and copy the key.
    Now return to CyberPanel and click on the DNS tab on the left, then click Cloudflare.
    Enter your Cloudflare email, the API key you just copied, and enable syncing local records, then click save. It will automatically set up your domain with Cloudflare and synchronize any DNS changes you make within CyberPanel from now on.

    Next, click the DNS tab again, then Add/Delete records. Select your domain, then click on the CAA tab.
    Enter your domain in the name field, 3600 in the TTL field.
    The value field will show you what to enter itself, 0 issue "letsencrypt.org", so enter that and click Add.
    Now click on the AAAA tab, and if there’s nothing there, enter your domain and 3600 for name and TTL again.
    Then go to your Linode dashboard, copy your IPV6 address, paste it in the IPV6 field, and click Add.

    Finally, return to the Cloudflare dashboard (click the avatar again and then Account Home), and look at your newly added domain. It should say it’s pending a nameserver update. If you click on it, you will see the nameservers you’re supposed to use, so copy those and set them on your registrar as I explained already in the shared hosting section. You’ll do all your DNS editing from CyberPanel from now on, if it comes up again.
    If you’re not using Cloudflare, you can ignore all of that. Instead, go to your Linode dashboard and click the Domains tab, then click the Create a Domain button on the top right. Enter your domain and email, then choose to insert default records from one of your Linodes and select your node, then click Create Domain.
    

    Scroll down to the bottom and click Add a CAA Record and enter letsencrypt.org as the value, leave the rest unchanged and click save.
    Next, return to your CyberPanel dashboard, click Add/Delete records under the DNS tab and select your domain.
    Then copy over all the missing CNAME, MX, and TXT records from CyberPanel to Linode.
    You may get an error when adding the www CNAME records, so you can either skip it or delete the existing ones under A/AAAA and try again. Finally, copy the nameservers from Linode and add them to Namecheap, same as before. You’ll do all your DNS editing from Linode from now on, if it comes up again.
    Whichever choice you made here, after updating your nameservers with your registrar, you’ll have to wait a bit, probably about ten minutes. Try connecting to your domain after that long, and if you see a default WordPress page, you’re golden, otherwise you just have to wait longer.
    Once it’s ready, return to the CyberPanel dashboard, click Websites, List Website, then click the Issue SSL link next to your website. Once that finishes, after clicking Manage you should see that you have SSL from Let’s Encrypt and it will expire in 89 days.
    Then, if you’re using Cloudflare, click the DNS tab, then Cloudflare, select your domain, and check the Proxy box for everything that doesn’t say “mail” under A, AAAA, and CNAME.
    To finish it all off, scroll down and click Manage Services on the left sidebar, then Applications, and install Redis.
    After that, click Security, then CSF, install and enable that, then you should have a new tab on the left called ConfigServer Services.
    Click on that, then Security and Firewall, then scroll down and click the Firewall Configuration button.
    Select IPv6 Port Settings from the dropdown box at the top and make sure IPV6, IPV6_ICMP_STRICT, and IPV6_SPI are all ON, then scroll down and click the Change button.
    I recommend enabling 2FA for your account as well, which you can do by clicking the Users tab on the left, then Modify User, but only if you use something better than Google Authenticator (like Authy) so you can be sure you won’t lose access to it.

    
    Once you’ve done all that, you shouldn’t have to do much of anything with any of these controls again from now on, it’s set up and will keep running. You should do some occasional maintenance though, but even that’s simple and you’ll only need to consider it once every six months or so.
    To update the server, just log into Linode, launch the console, log in as root, and enter these two commands:
    apt-get update && apt-get upgrade
sh <(curl https://raw.githubusercontent.com/usmannasir/cyberpanel/stable/preUpgrade.sh || wget -O - https://raw.githubusercontent.com/usmannasir/cyberpanel/stable/preUpgrade.sh)
    Then log out again. That’s it. Any other maintenance you may have to do is the simple stuff you’d have to do on a shared host as well.
    Again, remember to take regular backups of your server! CyberPanel has multiple options for backups itself, so consult the documentation to learn about what those options are and how to utilize them.
    Extra Cloudflare stuff
    Once you have your server set up – be it through shared hosting or a VPS – and WordPress is running, if you’re using Cloudflare, now is the time to configure your domain settings there if you’re going to so you never have to think about it again. So go to Cloudflare and log in, and click on your domain. Pretty much all of this is optional, but I recommend it. If you want to learn more about any of these things or you’re unsure about something, all of these things have help links right under them, and if those aren’t enough, the help center is extensive.

    First, click the DNS tab, scroll down and enable DNSSEC. You’ll get a bunch of codes and stuff.
    In another tab, go to your registrar and look at your domain settings, there should be an option to enable DNSSEC. You won’t actually need all of the information Cloudflare provides you for this, so just copy and paste in the parts the registrar asks for.
    Next, in the SSL/TLS tab under Overview, change the encryption mode to Full (strict). Bear in mind that if you can no longer connect to your website, this is the first setting to change to troubleshoot.
    Then under Edge certificates, enable Always Use HTTPS, Opportunistic Encryptions, TLS 1.3, Automatic HTTPS Rewrites, and set up HSTS.
    In the Speed tab under Optimization, enable Brotli and Rocket Loader if they aren’t already.
    In the Caching tab under Configuration, enable the updated version of Always Online.
    Finally, in the Network tab, just enable everything except Pseudo IPv4.

    Now you never need to think about Cloudflare again unless you need to troubleshoot something.
    Setting up WordPress
    Connect to your domain and you’ll see a blank, default WordPress page. There should be a login button somewhere, but if there’s not, you can navigate to /wp-login.php and log in with the account information you entered during installation. Once you log in, get used to this dashboard, because this is what you’ll be using to do pretty much everything from now on. It’s quite simple and easy to figure out, and you’re not going to break anything just by looking around, so feel free to explore all the different menus and familiarize yourself.
    
    As I mentioned in the beginning, WordPress is the most popular content management system on the internet, so there’s a wealth of information already available, always a google search away. Because of that and the fact that it’s simple and easy to learn and use, I won’t be going into detail about how to customize your site and make it look pretty or anything like that. Instead I’m just going to give you a framework to get up and running and build off of, and show a couple examples of potential use cases.

    First couple things you should do are change your user profile if you want to, then click on Settings.
    Under general, change the WordPress address and Site address to HTTPS instead of HTTP if it isn’t already
    Uncheck the anyone can register box, set your time zone, change the time and date format if you want to, and change the day the week starts on to Sunday like it honestly should be by default.
    Then under permalinks, I’d recommend changing it to post name if it’s not already set to that, but that’s up to you, just make sure you set it to what you want now and don’t change it again later or you could end up creating 404 errors for yourself.
    After that, click on Plugins, and disable/delete Hello Dolly and Akismet Anti-Spam if they’re there, along with anything else that might be there that you don’t want.
    However, if you see LiteSpeed Cache, let that one stay enabled. If it’s not there, install it first by clicking Add New on the left sidebar and search for it in the search bar, it should pop up as the first result, by LiteSpeed Technologies. This plugin will be almost single-handedly responsible for most of the performance improvements your site will experience, and while there are a lot of options, we should only need to go through them once, so we’ll set this up first.

    
    With that plugin installed and enabled, you should have a dedicated LiteSpeed Cache tab on the left near the bottom of the list. Roll over that and click General. Enable the automatically upgrade option, and click on the request domain key button. You can sign up for a QUIC.cloud account too if you want, but it’s not needed unless you intend to pay for the service.
    

    Now click on Cache under the LiteSpeed Cache tab on the left.
    On tab 1 (Cache) make sure that every option except for Cache Mobile is ON and save changes.
    In tab 7 (Browser), turn ON Browser Cache and save changes.
    Finally, if you followed the Linode guide, go to tab 6 (Object) and enable Object Cache, select Redis, and change the port to the default Redis port displayed on screen and save changes. If you followed the Veerotech guide, you will most likely need to contact support for help setting up Redis.

    If you’re using Cloudflare, go to the CDN tab on the left, then scroll down and enable the Cloudflare API and enter your information. If you’re not using Cloudflare, you can enable the QUIC.cloud CDN instead, but that’s up to you to research and decide on.
    Next, go to the Image Optimization tab. Turn ON Auto Request Cron, Create WebP Versions, Image WebP Replacement, and WebP For Extra srcset.
    Make sure Remove Original Backups and Preserve EXIF/XMP Data are both OFF.
    If you’re primarily posting art or photography, you should also enable Optimize Losslessly, but for everyone else, the lossy compression is worth it and nowhere near as bad as the compression you see on social media.

    
    The Page Optimization tab has the highest number of important options for sure.

    In tab 1 (CSS Settings) enable CSS HTTP/2 Push.
    In tab 2 (JS Settings) enable JS HTTP/2 Push and Load JS Deferred.
    In tab 3 (Optimization) enable HTML Minify, DNS Prefetch Control, and Remove WordPress Emoji, then choose one between Load Google Fonts Asynchronously or Remove Google Fonts, it should be obvious why you’d choose one over the other.
    After that, enable everything in tab 4 (Media Settings) and tab 6 (Localization).
    If you want to try to squeeze out more performance from your site after you’re done with it, you can come back here and experiment with enabling Minify, Combine, and Combine External and Inline for both CSS and JS. These carry a small risk of visual glitches on parts of your site though so it does take a bit of trial and error.
    Finally, go to the Crawler tab on the left, and enable Crawler in tab 4 (General Settings).

    Now your site should be light and fast, and all images you upload will be automatically compressed. If you get a 403 error when trying to save any of these settings, it’s because of ModSecurity. We didn’t install that in the Linode guide, but many shared hosts have it enabled by default. You can disable that, save these settings, and then enable it again. Everything else from here on should work fine without having to do that.
    After this point, it’s all up to you. It’s a blank canvas now. You can do whatever you want, make whatever you want. I’d recommend looking for a theme before doing anything else though, you can do that by rolling over Appearance on the left, clicking Themes, and then clicking the Add New button, or by searching on wordpress.org. Some general purpose themes that might be worth trying are Kadence, PopularFX, OceanWP, Astra, and Hestia. Some of the more specific themes, like portfolio themes, may come with extra features for that specific purpose though, and you have a lot of options so don’t rush it, spend some time looking through your options and trying them out, find the one that feels right. Or don’t and just change it later, Tripulse has changed its look many times.
    I will not be covering how to actually customize these themes. Please understand, because every theme is different and has different options in the theme customizer, will respond differently, and give different results. What I will tell you is that to customize any theme, just roll over the Appearance tab on the left and click Customize to bring up the customizer. Looks like this.
    
    If you need more specific information on how to customize your theme, you should refer to the documentation for that theme, most well made freely available themes will have decent documentation. If that doesn’t help or doesn’t exist, then I hate to be that guy, but searching on Google or just trying to learn by doing will help you better than I can here.
    A word of advice: You will find a LOT of themes and plugins that aren’t free, but if you just look a little harder, you can almost always find a free option that’s at least equivalent to what you wanted. Never feel the need to settle on a paid theme or plugin unless it’s truly the only option for what you want.
    General plugin recommendations
    Because of the sheer amount of plugins out there, here’s a list of some that I’d recommend taking a look at. You may want to do a bit of research on some of these yourself though to decide if they’re really right for you.

    Elementor – As far as I’m concerned, this is the page builder plugin. If you want to easily make static pages of any kind with a drag and drop what-you-see-is-what-you-get style editor, with no code knowledge necessary, install this. There’s a pro version but I’ve never felt it was needed, you can do a lot with the free version already, and if you really want more, there are a bunch of other separate free plugins that add more options to this, like Essential Addons or Master Addons.
    UpdraftPlus Backup Plugin – I talk a lot about the importance of backing up your stuff, and here’s another way to do that. This is a great plugin for backing up WordPress exclusively in a quick and simple way, so if you don’t already have another backup solution in place, you should use this.
    All In One WP Security & Firewall – A solid, free security plugin. Web security is an infinite rabbit hole, so it’s understandably daunting. While there are probably a ton of different methods to keep your site secure that may be better in some ways, a potentially less-than-ideal option is still preferable to nothing at all, so you should consider installing this or something like it unless you know better.
    WP DoNotTrack – Privacy is cool. Why not make it the default for your visitors?
    WP Statistics – Along the same lines as the above plugin, you can use this to track your visitor statistics while also preserving your visitors’ privacy by foregoing something like Google Analytics. A note though, you may have to uncheck the Use Cache Plugin box in the plugin settings, because even though you are using a cache plugin, checking that box sometimes causes stats to stop tracking. You can test it yourself by visiting your site in an incognito window and seeing if it counts your view with it checked or unchecked.
    Disable Comments – Self explanatory for the most part, but even if you do want comments on your site, this plugin can still be useful to fully disable them on everything but your basic posts.
    wpDiscuz – But if comments are your thing, you should be using a comments plugin because the default WordPress comment system is kind of terrible. This plugin is free, highly customizable, and keeps the whole system and the data on your server, no cloud service nonsense.
    LH Wayback Machine – Want your site to be in the Internet Archive? This plugin will automatically keep your posts and pages up to date in the wayback machine in the background, no configuration necessary.
    Better Search – Self explanatory. The default WordPress search sucks, this makes it better. Probably not necessary unless you intend to make a lot of posts though.
    WPForms – If you want visitors to be able to contact you from your site, here’s a good way to do it.
    Kadence Blocks – If you want to expand what’s possible in the standard WordPress block editor, there are many plugins available for that. I like this one though, it covers everything I could ask for.
    The SEO Framework – You may or may not have any need for an SEO plugin, it depends on what you’re trying to accomplish. But if you do want one, give this one a try instead of the typical choice of Yoast.
    AddToAny Share Buttons – If you want to encourage visitors to share your posts elsewhere, a plugin like this is a good idea to make it easier and faster for them.
    PowerPress – Do you host a podcast? Do you want to host a podcast? This is the plugin to do it with.
    ActivityPub – This will make your website a fully functioning part of the fediverse. If you don’t know what that is, it’s worth learning about sometime I think. Users of federated social platforms like Mastodon will be able to follow your site and interact with your posts seamlessly from their platform.
    IndieWeb – This one will take a lot more words to explain than ActivityPub, and to be honest, I’m probably not the right person to do that. I like the IndieWeb concept and feel that it’s worth sharing, so if you want to learn more about it, there’s a lot of reading material available about that. If you do end up using this and some of its extensions, you can use Brid.gy to make replies to your posts on social media appear as comments on your site using webmentions, which also allow entire websites to network back and forth which is much cooler.

    The Big Example
    If you need an example for what to do with your site, here’s an example of how to do many different things with basically the same process and a single page. If you didn’t install Elementor yet, do it now because that’s what we’ll be using for all of this. The first step for all of the coming examples is to click on the Pages button on the left of the WordPress dashboard, and either edit the sample page or create and edit a new one, then click on the Edit with Elementor button at the top of the screen. You’ll end up here.
    
    Click on the tiny cog on the bottom left corner of the sidebar and change Page Layout to Elementor Full Width, or if you want this page to have absolutely nothing on it except for what you specifically add to it, Elementor Canvas. Your result will look like this, and you’ll have the full page to play with instead of whatever small area your theme restricts you to.
    
    Changing that option should automatically bring you back to the element selection screen, but if it doesn’t, you can get back there by clicking the grid icon at the top right of the sidebar. Now we can get started.
    Art gallery
    Want to make an art/photo portfolio? Install the Essential Addons plugin, linked above. When you activate it, I’d recommend choosing the Custom option and deselecting everything you don’t think you’ll use. You can enable the other options later if you want, but for now all we need is Filterable Gallery. Don’t install the extras after clicking next either. Go back to editing the page, then scroll down in the menu on the left until you find the Filterable Gallery option under Essential Addons, then drag and drop it onto the page.
    
    Most of the options should explain themselves, so feel free to experiment. You can add or remove items from the gallery in the Gallery Items section, and to make it filterable, you add a category name under Filterable Controls, then copy and paste that name into the Control Name box for each item you want in that category. When you want to add more stuff, you come back here to do it. As far as I know, there’s no limit to how many things you can add to a single gallery, so make sure to enable the Load More button if you have a lot of stuff to show.
    
    Is your maximum upload size too low? We can fix that. If you followed the VPS guide, do this – there will be a Restart PHP button on the advanced config page, no need to enter a command like that says – and it should be fixed just like that. If that didn’t work, click Websites, List Websites, click Manage next to your website, scroll down and click on File Manager, then find and edit the files as shown here. That article also applies to you if you followed the shared hosting guide, but if none of those solutions work for you in that case, submit a ticket to your host and they should help you out.
    Video gallery
    If you have a YouTube channel that you want to show on your site, you can add videos one by one using the same method as above, or install Embed Plus for YouTube to make it much easier. They have extensive documentation and how-to videos about all the different features if you want to learn more about all the details, but for all we’re doing, it’s very simple. Edit your page in Elementor again and drag the Text Editor element onto the page. At the top of the sidebar on the left, there should be a YouTube button. Click on that and you’ll be greeted by this window that walks you through whatever it is you want to do.
    
    Once you add your link, it will give you a code. Copy that code, close the popup window, and paste the code into the text editor in the sidebar. It may not display properly in the editor, but once you publish and view the page, it’ll be there.
    
    Embedding a whole channel or a playlist in gallery layout requires an API key to function and show up, however, but there is a simple step-by-step guide on how to get an API key in both written and video form linked above.
    Music gallery
    Want to show all your music in one place? That’s easy too. First, click on the big plus button in the editor and select the structure you want. I’m going with three columns. Click on one of the plus signs in an empty column to bring back the element selector on the sidebar, scroll down and find the HTML element and drag it in.
    If you’re not using Bandcamp for your music already, I urge you to start now, because it’s a fantastic platform. To embed a Bandcamp album or track, simply go to the Bandcamp page for it and there will be a Share / Embed link below the cover art. Click on that, click on the embed option, choose a style, and you’ll see a window where you can change the appearance of the embed. Once you have it set the way you want it, copy the HTML code it gives you, and paste it into the HTML box in Elementor.

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