TWO

For a variety of reasons (including lack of budget, time, support, and other resources) many educators have been using corporate tools from Google, Twitter, Facebook, and others for their ease-of-use as well as for a range of functionality that hadn’t previously existed in the blogosphere or open source software that many educators use or prefer.

This leaves us and our students open to the vagaries and abuses that those platforms continually allow including an unhealthy dose of surveillance capitalism.

 
 
ONE

Hello everyone! My name is Chris Aldrich. I’m an independent researcher in a variety of areas including the overlap the internet and education. You can find more about me on my website https://boffosocko.com.

Today I’ll be talking about Webmentions for open pedagogy.

 

As I’ve been reading about Zettlekasten for part of the evening, it dawns on me that there are some likely overlaps with both my prior work on statistical mechanics and ideas of mnemonics and techniques like the method of loci. I’ll have to think of how to better memorize and specifically tag pieces of information into such a mental Zettlekasten. I wonder what might evolve?
Read Let's grow online greenspace for healthy sociality & mutual aid by Howard Rheingold (Patreon)
tl;dr Now that so many are forced to use online media to communicate, let's use this opportunity to create many smaller virtual communities and social networks outside the enclosed world of Facebook.

Participating in PressEdConf20 directly from WordPress

Last year I thought it would be fun to outline how people might use their websites to actively participate in by posting content on their WordPress website and syndicating copies to Twitter for those following that way.

(Meta: Welcome to my talk: I know it’s cheating & early, but I’m hoping a few presenters will borrow this method.) 


My general thought was:

The only thing better than A WordPress and Education, Pedagogy and Research Conference on Twitter would be A WordPress and Education, Pedagogy and Research Conference using WordPress itself!

(Meta: Sure, post it to Twitter: but why not own a copy of your presentation on your own website when you’re done?)

Wordpress > Twitter in logos


So let’s give it a spin by providing an outline for how to accomplish it in true #IndieWeb & #DoOO fashion? Perhaps a few people might trying doing this year’s conference this way? Here’s an early presentation to get the juices flowing.

Upside down Twitter Logo(Meta: Hint for those on Twitter: I’m including links to my website, so you can get just a little bit more information than Twitter limits me to–oh, the fringe benefits of having one’s website where they’re not censored by the confines of the platform on which they’re creating!)


First, we’ll start off by making the humble presumption that you’ve got your own domain and an install of WordPress running on it. Hopefully this covers most attendees.

(Meta: If it doesn’t there are lots of options: You could do something similar a bit more manually if you like using WordPress.com. You’ve also got a great community of people who could help you to better own your online identity and domain right here! I’ll bet our friends at Reclaim Hosting could help as well.)


Next we’ll want the Webmention Plugin (+Semantic Linkbacks) which will let our site communicate with other websites as well as to receive replies and reactions on Twitter with the help of Brid.gy. Install and activate both.

(Want to go deeper into the idea of what Webmention is and how one could use it?  I wrote an article for A List Apart that goes into details.)

Cartoon of baseball player hitting a ball with a bat to a waiting player with a tennis raquet
Illustration by Dougal MacPherson
Image courtesy of A List Apart

One could manually syndicate content from WordPress to Twitter, but there are multiple plugins and ways to syndicate it. My favorite is the Syndication Links plugin, which we can use for syndicating to other services. Install and activate. 


Next we’ll want an account on Brid.gy for Twitter. This will allow us to publish from our website to Twitter; it will also allow us to reverse syndicate reactions  from on Twitter back to our posts using Webmention.

(Meta: Publishing this way will require Microformats: Your theme will need the proper microformats support to use this method, but again other methods are available.)


Authenticate your website and Twitter account with Bridgy and enable Bridgy publish on your account page: https://brid.gy/twitter/username.

Bridgy Logo


In Syndication Links settings at example.com/wp-admin/admin.php?page=syndication_links

  • Enable Syndication to Other Sites
  • Enable Twitter via Bridgy

Add a custom provider using the following:

  • name: XYZ pressEdconf20
  • UID: XYZ-pressEdconf20
  • target URL: https://indieweb.xyz/en/pressEdconf20/

Save the settings.

WordPress' cartoon character Wapuu holding a ball with the IndieWebCamp logo(Meta: Syndication Links Settings: These will help you set up syndication targets on other platforms and can be configured for a variety of social media.)
 
 
 
 

Now write all of your posts in your presentation as status updates (without titles) and include any media (photos, videos, etc.) making sure to mark up the photos with a class of u-photo in the HTML. Don’t forget the hashtag .

Meme photo from Ferris Bueller's Day Off with Ferris in the bathroom of Chez Louis with superimposed text: A personal IndieWeb site with Webmention, Micropub, Microsub, and WebSub support is so choice. If you have the means, I highly recommend picking one up.


Set posts for one every minute. Use the SL Syndicate To meta box to syndicate your Twitter account and to the indieweb.xyz sub where everyone can find them (if they’re not following the proceedings via Twitter).

indieweb.xyz logo


Others at with Webmentions can reply to your posts on their sites. Replies will show up in comments depending on settings. Bridgy will also find responses to your content on Twitter & syndicate those back to your website automatically.

(Meta: Give it a whirl!: Reply to this post on Twitter to see it boomerang back to the comment section of my website.)

Webmention rocks logo
Webmention rocks

Those who are paying attention at will see the value in webmention for allowing cross-site interactions without the need for “social media”. WithKnown, Drupal, Grav, and other CMSs are capable of doing this too.

(Meta: Ownership of your Open Pedagogy Anyone? Who needs invasive corporate social media to interact online now?)


With luck, I’ll have created this entire presentation on my own website and syndicated it to Twitter without actually needing to visit Twitter itself. I’m around for questions. Thank you for your time and attention. [more…]

Those looking for more details can find documentation on the IndieWeb wiki at https://indieweb.org/Getting_Started_on_WordPress, or https://boffosocko.com/2018/04/27/setting-up-wordpress-for-indieweb-use/

I’m also happy to help people set things up and make alternate suggestions via video chat or you can find online help in the IndieWeb WordPress chat.

IndieWebCamp Logo featuring the stylized letters "I W C" over the text "#IndieWebCamp"


P.S. There’s still some time to submit your talk for . Since it’s all designed to be online from the start, I’m hoping it won’t be cancelled like all the other events lately.

(Meta: PressEdConf 2020: A WordPress and Education, Pedagogy and Research Conference on Twitter March 26, 2020)

With luck, I’ll have created this entire presentation on my own website and syndicated it to Twitter without actually needing to visit Twitter itself. I’m around for questions. Thank you for your time and attention. [more…]

Those looking for more details can find documentation on the IndieWeb wiki at https://indieweb.org/Getting_Started_on_WordPress, or https://boffosocko.com/2018/04/27/setting-up-wordpress-for-indieweb-use/

I’m also happy to help people set things up and make alternate suggestions via video chat or you can find online help in the IndieWeb WordPress chat.

Those who are paying attention at will see the value in webmention for allowing cross-site interactions without the need for “social media”. WithKnown, Drupal, Grav, and other CMSes are capable of doing this too.

(Ownership of your Open Pedagogy Anyone? Who needs invasive corporate social media to interact online now?)

Others at with Webmentions can reply to your posts on their sites. Replies will show up in comments depending on settings. Bridgy will also find responses to your content on Twitter & syndicate those back to your website automatically.

(Give it a whirl!: Reply to any of the posts in this Twitter thread to see the comments boomerang back to the comment section of my website.)

In Syndication Links settings at example.com/wp-admin/admin.php?page=syndication_links

  • Enable Syndication to Other Sites
  • Enable Twitter via Bridgy

Add a custom provider using the following:

  • name: XYZ pressEdconf20
  • UID: XYZ-pressEdconf20
  • target URL: https://indieweb.xyz/en/pressEdconf20/

Save the settings.

Next we’ll want an account on Brid.gy for Twitter. This will allow us to publish from our website to Twitter; it will also allow us to reverse syndicate reactions  from on Twitter back to our posts using Webmention.

(Publishing this way will require Microformats: Your theme will need the proper microformats support to use this method, but again other methods are available.)

One could manually syndicate content from WordPress to Twitter, but there are multiple plugins and ways to syndicate it. My favorite is the Syndication Links plugin, which we can use for syndicating to other services. Install and activate.