Explore a new tool

The present situation may leave many of us trying to find productive ways to spend our time. There are no sports to watch. We are nervous and need a distraction that offers some redeeming value. My recommendation for educational technology advocates is to explore a different online service that may have value in a classroom or for professional development. This type of project is flexible enough to fit personal circumstances.

My recommendation would be wt.social. This service is still under development by Jimmy Wales and crew. You may recognize Wales as the developer of Wikipedia. I have explored multiple services on what others have described as the indie web and I think this service has a reasonable chance of gaining traction. One way to understand wt.social is as an alternative to Facebook. I see it a little differently. I would describe the service as a way to identify and subscribe to topics maintained by different groups that collectively result in a feed. In the following image, you should be able to see what I mean. I have subscribed to several topics (subwikis in the red box) that generate a feed (green box).

I endorse the diversification of our collective use of social media for multiple reasons. Among my personal reasons is the need to oppose monopolies as a way to encourage continued development and as an opposition to the collection of personal information as a way to support most existing services (this is different from the issue of displaying ads).

If you decide to give wt.social a try, you will encounter a request to subscribe to the paid version. This may speed up your membership, but I did not pay and I was granted membership within 4 days. My concern which I have shared with the founders was that I would be willing to commit funds ($20 – I have been donating this amount to the startups asking for contributions), but the subscription options available seemed more than the service justified at this point. As a startup, this is the dilemma – the business needs funds to ramp up and the product has yet to get to a level warranting substantial payments. I think as a practical matter this is now, even more, the case than it was a few months ago. People are going to be resistant to adding another expense in uncertain times.

If you decide to give wt.social a try, take a look at the k12-edtech subwiki I have established. This may look like a personal blog at present. This is not the intention. The subwiki offers a place for all members to submit content. I just established the topic. To assure others that some content would be available, I uploaded posts from my blogs. There are too many existing subwikis that have nothing in them when you visit. This is a startup problem and seeding this wiki with content I had available was my solution. This is intended to be a shared space.