👓 Indieweb.xyz: Difficult or Silo? | Kicks Condor

Read Indieweb.xyz: Difficult or Silo? by Kicks CondorKicks Condor (kickscondor.com)
Ok, Indieweb.xyz has been open for a month! The point of the site is to give you a place to syndicate your essays and conversations where they’ll actually be seen. In a way, it’s a silo—a central info container. Silos make it easy. You go there and dump stuff in. But, here in the Indieweb, we want No Central. We want Decentral. Which is more difficult because all these little sites and blogs out there have to work together—that’s tough! Ok so, going to back to how this works: Brad Enslen and I have been posting our thoughts about how to innovate blog directories, search and webrings to the /en/linking sub on Indieweb.xyz. If you want to join the conversation, just send your posts there by including a link like this in your post:

This was also posted to /en/linking.

If your blog supports Webmentions, then Indieweb.xyz should be notified of the post when you publish it. But even if your blog doesn’t support Webmentions, you can just submit your link by hand. How Indie Do I Need to Be? One of my big projects lately has been to make it very easy for you all out there to participate. You no longer need a ton of what they call ‘microformats’ everywhere on your blog. You literally just need to: Include the link above in your blog post. (You don’t even need the class="u-syndication" part, but I would still recommend it. If you have multiple links to Indieweb.xyz in your post, the one marked u-syndication will be preferred.) Send the Webmention. It helps if you have the microformats—this makes it easy to figure out who the author of the post is and so on. But Indieweb.xyz will now fallback to using HTML title tags (and RSS feed even) to figure out who is posting and what they are posting. The Blog Directory A feature I’m incredibly excited about is the blog directory, which lists all the blogs that post to Indieweb.xyz—and which also gives you a few hundred characters to describe your blog! (It uses the description meta tag from your blog’s home page.) I think of Indieweb.xyz as an experiment in building a decentralized forum in which everyone contributes their bits. And Indieweb.xyz merges them together. It’s decentralized because you can easily switch all your Indieweb.xyz links to another site, send your Webmentions—and now THAT site will merge you into their community. In a way, I’m starting to see it as a wiki where each person’s changes happen on their own blog. This blog directory is like a wiki page where everyone gets their little section to control. I’m going to expand this idea bit-by-bit over the next few months. Just to clarify: the directory is updated whenever you send a Webmention, so if you change your blog description, resend one of your Webmentions to update it. Bad Behavior and the Robot Police We are a long way off from solving abuse on our websites. We desperately want technology to solve this. But it is a human problem. I am starting to believe that the more we solve a problem with technology, the more human problems we create. (This has been generally true of pollution, human rights, ecology, quality of life, almost every human problem. There are, of course, fortuitous exceptions to this.) Decentralization is somewhat fortuitous. Smaller, isolated communities are less of a target. The World Trade Tower is a large, appealing target. But Sandy Hook still happens. A smaller community can survive longer, but it will still degenerate—small communities often become hostile to outsiders (a.k.a newcomers). So while a given Mastodon instance’s code of conduct provides a human solution—sudden, effortless removal of a terrorist—there will be false positives. I have been kicked out, hellbanned, ignored in communities many times—this isn’t an appeal for self-pity, just a note that moderation powers are often misdirected. I moved on to other communities—but I earnestly wanted to participate in some of those communities that I couldn’t seem to penetrate. So, yeah: rules will be coming together. It’s all we have. I’m impressed that the Hacker News community has held together for so long, but maybe it’s too much of a monoculture. HN’s guidelines seem to work. Commenting Last thing. A recent addition is a comment count on each submission. These comment counts are scraped from the blog post. It seems very “indieweb” to let the comments stay on the blog. The problem is that the microformats for comments are not widely supported and, well, they suck. It’s all just too complicated. You slightly change an HTML template and everything breaks. Not to mention that I have no idea if the number is actually correct. Are these legit comments? Or is the number being spoofed? I will also add that—if you submit a link to someone else’s blog, even if it’s an “indieweb” blog—the comment count will come from your blog. This is because the original entry might have been submitted by the author to a different sub. So your link contains the comments about that blog post for that sub. Really tight microformat templates will need to become widespread for this to become really useful. In the meantime, it’s a curious little feature that I’m happy to spend a few characters on.
I really should be syndicating to Indieweb.xyz more. It’s the type of interesting experiment I’m really enjoying watching unfold.

👓 The Right Time to Burn A Match | Spoke and Hub

Read The Right Time to Burn A Match by Alyson IndrunasAlyson Indrunas (Spoke & Hub)
There’s a saying in bike racing that I always find interesting. “You need to be strategic about where you’re willing to burn a match in a race.” In race reports, you might r…

👓 Marginal Syllabus at 2018 Connected Learning Summit | Remi Kalir

Read Marginal Syllabus at 2018 Connected Learning Summit by Remi KalirRemi Kalir (marginalsyllab.us)
The Marginal Syllabus project is excited to participate in next week’s 2018 Connected Learning Summit at the MIT Media Lab in Cambridge. First, the following Marginal Syllabus researchers, partners, and collaborators will be attending: Christina Cantrill, National Writing Project Joe Dillon, Aur...

👓 Hypothesis and how it is changing how we read online | Shannon Griffiths

Read Hypothesis and how it is changing how we read online by Shannon GriffithsShannon Griffiths (essentiallyshannon.blogspot.com)
Today I just wanted to quickly review an awesome tool called Hypothesis that I've been using all semester for two of my English classes (Currents in American Lit and Critical Theory).

👓 My Open Textbook: Pedagogy and Practice | Robin DeRosa

Read My Open Textbook: Pedagogy and Practice by Robin DeRosaRobin DeRosa (actualham)
I’ve spent some time talking about open pedagogy at several universities this Spring, and in each of those presentations and workshops, I have usually mentioned The Open Anthology of Earlier American Literature, an OER anthology that my students and I produced last year for an American literature survey course I taught.  When I talk about the anthology, it’s usually to make a point about open pedagogy.  I began the project with the simple desire to save my students about $85 US, which is how much they were (ostensibly) paying for the Heath Anthology of American Literature Volume A.  Most of the actual texts in the Heath were public domain texts, freely available and not under any copyright restrictions.  As the Heath produced new editions (of literature from roughly 1400-1800!), forcing students to buy new textbooks or be irritatingly out of sync with page numbers, and as students turned to rental markets that necessitated them giving their books back at the end of the semester, I began to look in earnest for an alternative.

Highlights, Quotes, Annotations, & Marginalia

Most of the actual texts in the Heath were public domain texts, freely available and not under any copyright restrictions.  As the Heath produced new editions (of literature from roughly 1400-1800!), forcing students to buy new textbooks or be irritatingly out of sync with page numbers, and as students turned to rental markets that necessitated them giving their books back at the end of the semester, I began to look in earnest for an alternative.  

Repackaging public domain texts and charging a steep markup too much above and beyond the cost of the paper is just highway robbery. Unless a publisher is adding some actual annotative or analytical value, they shouldn’t be charging outrageous prices for textbooks of this nature.
August 13, 2018 at 12:14PM

If OER is free, what hidden costs exist in its production? Making these textbooks is taking me a chunk of time in the off-season.  Thanks to my salaried position, I feel ok about putting in the overtime, but it’s a privilege my colleagues who teach under year-to-year part-time non-contracts can’t afford. Who should be funding OER creation? Institutions? Students? For-profit start-ups? How will you invest time in this project without obscuring the true costs of academic labor? Right now, we pass the corruptly high cost of academic publishing onto the backs of academia’s most vulnerable members: students. But as OER gains steam, we need to come up with funding models that don’t land us back in the same quagmire of exploitation that we were trying to get out of.  

This is a nearly perfect question and something to watch in the coming years.
August 13, 2018 at 12:35PM

working in public, and asking students to work in public, is fraught with dangers and challenges.  

August 13, 2018 at 12:36PM

What David told me was his energy, enthusiasm in the class was at a much higher level with the OER approach. Sure we choose the polished “professional” textbook because of its assumed high standards, quality etc, but then its a more passive relationship a teacher has with it. I make the comparison to growing and/or making your own food versus having it prepared or taking it out of a package. Having produced our own food means we know everything about it from top to bottom, and the pride in doing that has to make the whole experience much more energized.  

As I read both this post and this comment from Alan, I can’t help but think again about scholars in the 14th century who taught students. It was more typical of the time that students were “forced” to chose their own textbooks–typically there were fewer, and at the advent of the printing press they were significantly higher in price. As a result students had to spend more time and attention, as Robin indicates here, to come up with useful things.

Even in this period students often annotated their books, which often got passed on to other students and even professors which helped future generations. So really, we’re not reinventing the wheel here, we’re just doing it anew with new technology that makes doing it all the easier.

As a reference, I’ll suggest folks interested in this area read Owen Gingerich’s The Book Nobody Read which I recall as being one of the texts I’ve read that references early teaching and textbook practices during that time period.
August 13, 2018 at 12:44PM

👓 From OER to Open Pedagogy: Next Frontier in Learning | Center for the Advancement of Teaching

Read From OER to Open Pedagogy: Next Frontier in Learning by Steven Bell, Associate University Librarian, Temple University (Center for the Advancement of Teaching)
Imagine a jet plane cruising down a road. It’s possible, though a clear case of underutilization of the technology. Now take that imagery and apply it to Open Educational Resources (OER). While they are available for adoption by faculty as learning content, the full potential of OER goes underutilized. How so? At the Open Ed ’16 Conference, held November 2016, I learned how faculty are taking on that challenge and finding new ways to create and use OER.

Highlights, Quotes, Annotations, & Marginalia

Our work, said Campbell, is not to graduate more students, but to enable students to graduate themselves.  

August 13, 2018 at 12:01PM

Disposable assignments are the ones students hate to do, faculty hate to grade and are quickly forgotten. Think ten-page term papers.  

There’s no reason that the 10 page term paper couldn’t be repurposed for the greater good. Why not post it up on your own website and allow it to be part of the bigger part of academic research?
August 13, 2018 at 12:03PM

👓 Eight Qualities of Open Pedagogy | NextThought

Read Eight Qualities of Open Pedagogy (NextThought)
A week ago, I got into one of those spontaneous Twitter discussions with two of my good friends from the University of Oklahoma, Laura Gibbs and Stacy Zemke. Laura and Stacy are passionate advocates for open content, and innovative thinkers when it comes to online course design. Our Twitter conversation focused on the relationship between OER and open pedagogy. Not surprisingly, our tweets soon became a phone conversation that, in turn, became a draft list of qualities for open pedagogy.

Highlights, Quotes, Annotations, & Marginalia

They are allowed to operate independently and explore with personal freedom.  

There is still typically a “thing(s)” they need to learn, a goal they need to reach, or standards that are typically set, so the freedom only goes so far.
August 13, 2018 at 10:48AM

👓 I’m joining the campaign to deactivate my Twitter account on August 17 | BoingBoing

Read I'm joining the campaign to deactivate my Twitter account on August 17 by Mark Frauenfelder (Boing Boing)
I deleted my Facebook account a few months ago and am not sorry I did. For the last couple of months, I've been thinking about deleting my Twitter account, too. It has become a creepy, toxic place. I'm stunned that Twitter has no problem with people who want to inflict additional misery on the parents of murdered children. It's not about the first Amendment. Twitter is a company -- it can choose whomever it wants to be on its platform. As my friend Sean Bonner posted, Twitter "didn’t start as an open forum for free speech, it started as a way for people to see what their friends were doing. Enforcing the same rules for everyone to promote civil discourse isn’t censorship. Bots spewing hate and attacking people isn’t fun." He's right. I'm joining Sean and others on August 17 by deactivating my Twitter account. The hashtag for this action is #DeactiDay. If Twitter doesn't fix its hate enabler problem in 30 days, I won't reactivate my account, after which it will be permanently deleted. It's very likely it will be deleted, because Twitter has demonstrated that it badly wants Alex Jones and his ilk on its platform. When CNN reported that Jones violated at least a dozen of Twitter's rules after Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey said Jones hadn't and therefore couldn't be kicked off, Twitter didn't do a thing about it. Then Twitter admitted that Jones had indeed violated rules that had resulted in bans for other people, but said it wouldn't ban Jones. Twitter can have Jones, and I'll be happy to be the hell away from the place.
I’ve been watching lots of folks jumping ship over the past weeks and months. I think I could be in for just exactly this. I’ve already got my own website that handles all of my personal content and some great interaction at micro.blog. I’ll even help build sites for others who need a place to go to from Twitter, please ping me at my site. #deactiday

👓 Cage the Mastodon | Join Mastodon

Read Cage the Mastodon (joinmastodon.org)
An overview of features for dealing with abuse and harassment
Along with some of the strategies practiced by micro.blog and their community, these are some intriguing methods for tamping down abuse within social spaces online. The are certainly worth studying and delving into deeper.

Highlights, Quotes, Annotations, & Marginalia

So that’s already a huge advantage over other platforms due the basic design. And in my opinion it’s got advantages over the other extreme, too, a pure peer-to-peer design, where everyone would have to fend for themselves, without the pooled resources.  

Definitely something the IndieWeb may have to solve for.
August 13, 2018 at 07:41AM

Mastodon deliberately does not support arbitrary search. If someone wants their message to be discovered, they can use a hashtag, which can be browsed. What does arbitrary search accomplish? People and brands search for their own name to self-insert into conversations they were not invited to.

What you can do, however, is search messages you posted, received or favourited. That way you can find that one message on the tip of your tongue.  

August 13, 2018 at 07:41AM

Another feature that has been requested almost since the start, and which I keep rejecting is quoting messages.  

August 13, 2018 at 07:43AM

Each individual message can either be:

  • Fully public, appearing to your followers, the public timelines, anyone looking at your profile
  • Unlisted, appearing to your followers and anyone looking at your profile, but skipping the public timelines
  • Private, appearing only to your followers and people mentioned in it
  • And direct, appearing only to people mentioned in it

  

August 13, 2018 at 07:45AM

👓 The harm of harmless jokes | lu popolvuh – Medium

Read The harm of harmless jokes by lu popolvuh (lu popolvuh – Medium)
A #MeTooSTEM story about requesting a change in tradition
I’ve followed bits of this story for a while since it touches on an area I follow, but I had no idea the harassment was so terrible. The Romeo and Juliette business is just deplorable.

👓 Why decentralized social networking never makes it — ever heard of Crossing the Chasm? | Upon 2020

Read Why decentralized social networking never makes it — ever heard of Crossing the Chasm? by Johannes ErnstJohannes Ernst (Upon2020)
The problem — and it is the same problem that is never being addressed — is that your decentralized social networking app doesn’t actually solve any of your users problems that haven’t already been solved! And often fails to solve problems that the centralized guys have solved and that their users depend on.
Solving for real problems is important. The tough part is solving for those that don’t necessarily scale to millions or billions…
Read Differences in #indieweb readers using microformats or RSS as your feed source by David John MeadDavid John Mead (davidjohnmead.com)
I’m currently using a beta of Aperture as my microsub endpoint and it’s working very well. I can point two Indieweb readers, Together (web) and Indigenous (Android), at it and see posts. This also gives me the power to like, reply, and re-post any of those too – Syndicating them to my blog and to Twitter if I want.
Read Titles or Not by John JohnstonJohn Johnston (johnjohnston.info)
Since joining micro.blog I’ve been messing around with my blog and its RSS on and off. I had settled on removing the titles for status post RSS feed. This means short status posts (<280 characters) were passed over to micro.blog and displayed the whole content there. Longer posts are truncated and linked. Unfortunately this meant that microblog looks quite ugly sometimes, especially when it posts a truncated indieWeb reaction that includes a quote. So I’ve changed how it works a little to only remove titles from the RSS id there are <280 characters. This is a status post, so hopefully it will show up on Micro.Blog as a linked title. Details in this gist: functions that have do with micro.blog and microblogging that live in my child theme’s functions.php Before and after display of a post in micro.blog   Like this:Like Loading...

👓 Portmanteau | Wikipedia

Read Portmanteau (Wikipedia)
portmanteau or portmanteau word is a linguistic blend of words, in which parts of multiple words or their phones (sounds) are combined into a new word, as in smog, coined by blending smoke and fog, or motel, from motor and hotel. In linguistics, a portmanteau is defined as a single morph that represents two or more morphemes.