I’m not exactly sure how it happened or whether it matters, but somehow I’ve found myself in the middle of another online course. I must admit that I’ve had a few failures of late in regards to participation, so it will be interesting to see how I go.
Organised by Alan Levine, Howard Rheingold and Jim Groom, Connected Courses is a course revolving around facilitating online learning. I am really interested in this being a part of the TL21C program currently being offered by DEECD, which not only supports teachers in grappling with some of the challenges associated with 21st century learning and teaching, but also what it means to be a connected educator.
One of the challenges that I am really interested in exploring is how to syndicate all of the different posts and activities relating to the program. Although applications like Tagboard or Paper.li allow you to curate hashtags and feeds, they have their limitations, whether it be when they are published or what they show. What I am interested in is a feed which is constantly change, bringing in informatio from a range of spaces, including blogs, tweets, bookmarks and Google+ posts.
In addition to this, I am really interested in owning my own space. I have been considering purchasing my own domain for a while, but have come to the realisation that maybe I need to go all the way. Maybe, to borrow the analogy that has been bandied around quite a bit, I have borrowed my parent’s car for long enough and it’s time to buy my own and start maxing it out.
I was always under the impression that creating a space would require a complicated knowledge of coding. However, what Jim Groom has helped with is the simplicity of using CPanel to install open source platforms like WordPress or Known. Although this means that I am more open to some risks and I may need to apply a bit more effort, so what, life was never meant to be easy and if it is then maybe it’s not really learning.
So it’s time, this little granny who posts once a week or so about this and that is stepping out. I am not exactly sure what is ahead of me and that is what makes it all so exciting.
@jimgroom @mrkrndvs it’s a low down model, used by a little old lady just once a week to blog about …
— Alan Levine (@cogdog) September 19, 2014
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A low down model, used by a little old lady just once a week to blog about … by Aaron Davis is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.
Greg, thank you for your thoughts on Doug Belshaw’s microcast discussing the IndieWeb. I really liked your point about the egalitarian web.
Like you, I have not found a home in the fediverse and am happier in my own castle, or car as Alan Levine and Jim Groom put it.
I am not sure if the ‘IndieWeb‘ is the answer, however for now I will hold on tightly and let go lightly. As Angus Hervey states:
As a white male, I do find Belshaw’s point about power an interesting one. However, I am not convinced that the Fediverse solves that. Happy to be convinced otherwise.
To be far, I am happy with doing what I am doing at the moment at the very least as a model of how things could be. My philosophical position comes via Jean-Paul Sartre: