Replied to Susan Ward on Twitter (Twitter)
“Why social media ain't all that when it comes to engaging parents and how schools can unlock its real potential https://t.co/mRBaxMi5xc @ITLWorldwide @SBCEducation1 @DigitalscotNews @DigiLearnScot @Wilson722Wilson @TESScotland @TeacherToolkit @TeamSCEL @pedagoo”

Great stuff Susan. I wonder if blogging is a better approach to sharing than twitter. Easier for pupils to be part of the process? I know twitter is seem as simpler but I worry about encouraging pupils to a service which may not haver their best interests at heart.

I wonder if the problem is part of the solution? As I slowly explore the IndieWeb ideas and tools I find that quite a few don’t do exactly what I want. So I slow down. Think. Tweak. Often delete a draft.

For example, I am starting to understand Indigenous, I’ve Micropub posts set to be drafts. I don’t like the way my theme presents these posts. I remove the auto generated excerpt, tweak the title and perhaps the quote. This helps me think the post through. It becomes a little less knee-jerk.

I’ve a long way to go. I get distracted, meander, I click and like, but I think the IndieWeb is making me a happier blogger.

Replied to Experimenting with turning on comments for a week (Doug Belshaw's Thought Shrapnel)
I noticed a general downwards trend in the quality of online comments.

Hi Doug,
Glad to see this. There has a been consistent drift to twitter & other social for comments. I think this is a pity for several reasons.

I am responding to this with a webmention, which it looks like you have adopted. I’d hope that the quality of comments received via webmention might be better given that the comments will be published on the commenter’s own site. These might be less knee-jerk or throwaway than a tweet or toot?

There are still a few wrinkles to be ironed out of webmentions but I have high hopes that they will be more widly adopted and be a good thing.

Replied to Extending The Spaces You Need To Innovate (Further considerations) by Aaron DavisAaron Davis (Read Write Collect)
P.S. If comments are the cassette tape of the digital world, not sure what metaphor you would recommend for a comment syndicated from your own site?

Fascinating post Aaron, and an great example of why comments, linking and blogging. Just starting to follow the links in this comment took me into both familiar and new; people, places and ideas.

Just on the comment quote, your post, a comment exemplifies the power of commenting from your own site. A comment on Tom’s would probably have tripped the too many links flag for spam detection.

I do wonder how you approach commenting on sites with out webmentions, like Tom’s? Do you regard them as notes to yourself and your readers rather than replies?

Reposted Frances Bell on Twitter (Twitter)
“@suebecks @suewatling @catherinecronin @ambrouk @LTE_Hull Could I gently encourage you Sue to publish your reflection as a blog post where it can be commented and found, possibly curated in future? :) It's great having this conversation on the Twitter stream but it's more likely to disappear under the surface than bob along on top :)”

I think this every day about a tweet, so I am posting to my blog.

 

The linked post: Teachers Are Moonlighting As Instagram Influencers To Make Ends Meet and the thread on @audreywatters’s tweet are fascinating.

 

I think of instagram as a nice silo for sharing and liking photos in a casual way (I like being liked too). It went bad when it removed the ‘time’ from the timeline. (I don’t like its lack of interoperability much either).

I don’t think I follow any influencers so this is a world outside my ken.

The idea of using instagram as a way of showing a shiny classroom has some of the same problems at tweeting to my mind. Not that my blogging is a great example of sharing classroom practise.

I am not sure about the Teachers Pay Teachers, concept. I feel a slight distaste, but am not sure why.

Firstly; I’ve removed most of the post formats leaving the 2 I actually use here. Standard goes to the front page, status to the status. I organise kinds with the post kinds plugin. My Format box now looks like this:

add_action( 'after_setup_theme', 'childtheme_formats', 11 );
function childtheme_formats(){
add_theme_support( 'post-formats', array( 'status') );
}

I added the above to my child themes function.php

Based on Post Formats Formats_in_a_Child_Theme in the WordPress Codex. Standard Format is formatless, so you just add the ones you want in addition.

Secondly; I’ve moved the quote and content generated from the Post Kinds plugin to below the post. This is in the Post Kinds setting so was simple. Having them above my remarks meant that the quote was going to micro.blog and twitter rather than my comment.

I hope to have a bit more time over the summer holidays to rethink and rewire the blog. Some of the decisions I’ve made were perhaps not the best.

Most of the functions that have do with micro.blog and microblogging that live in my child theme’s functions.php in a gist.