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For four years, I’ve brought “Friday Night Tunes” to the DS106Radio stream. It’s built up a small community of folks who tune in to ease out of the week and into the weekend with some music and stories. Making and sharing a set has gone from being a lark to a hobby to my regular artistic practice, and it’s started (or reinvigorated) discussions about music with friends and relatives. But what is the relationship between an ephemeral event and the enduring presence of that event in playlists, recordings, and writings across multiple social media platforms? What’s really a memento, and what’s just digital hoarding? Do I want another website to feed with these records, and does anyone else? Join me for a discussion of the Friday Night Tunes show, a non-technical discussion of how an idea becomes a show, and some thoughts about where it’s going.
This discussion will reflect on the state of the fediverse some six months after this abstract was written. Probably, it will depict the fediverse as a response to the abuse of centralized networks such as Facebook and Twitter. It will most likely outline and highlight major differences between ActivityPub-based networks (eg., Mastodon, Lemmy) and AT Protocol networks (Bluesky), and maybe mention things like Nostr and Diaspora, if they’re still around. If anything new comes up, we’ll discuss that too. But of more significance, we’ll look at some of the core issues underlying the fediverse, pointing to solutions if any have been found by then: identification and identity persistence, data and scale issues, and connection and consensus. If Blockchain has risen from the dead we’ll discuss the role it pays in decentralized networks. Also how artificial intelligence can play a role in content creation, selection and filtration. Finally, assuming we still have any, we will look at the key ideas of agency and community underlying the desire to have networks that are not controlled by Elon Musk (or his robot successor) and the role these play in learning and development. Failing any of that, we will discuss why decentralized social networks are illegal and how it’s harmful to the state to have forums where people can discuss the discredited concepts of diversity, equity and illusion, as though the nonsense about diversity making is stronger and more resilient could possibly be true.
Session Author(s):
stephen
Session Resources:
https://fediverse.party/ – introduction to a numb er of popular federated social networks
https://jointhefediverse.net/?lang=en – introduction to the fediverse
https://techcrunch.com/2024/06/25/welcome-to-the-fediverse-your-guide-to-mastodon-threads-bluesky-and-more/ – from TechCrunch
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2022/11/fediverse-could-be-awesome-if-we-dont-screw-it – EFF on how the Fediverse could make things better
https://www.downes.ca/post/78050 – Bluesky is more open than you think
What if we stopped trying to control our digital tools and let them run wild instead? This workshop uses speculative design methods to imagine educational technologies that refuse to behave, systems that glitch creatively, algorithms with unpredictable logic, and learning platforms that evolve beyond their design.
Through collaborative activities, we’ll share stories of technological chaos prompted new thinking, explore uncertain futures using scenario techniques, and sketch alternatives to conventional EdTech. Instead of chasing efficiency, we’ll consider how breakdowns and digital decay might become creative catalysts.
Drawing from Tyrrell’s concept of “waste as an interface” in classrooms (2025), we’ll examine how invisible maintenance work shapes learning environments and explore alternatives to sterile tech-utopian visions. Participants will try out methods like collaborative scenario mapping and speculative sketching to question how educational technology might shift from control to adaptation, from optimisation to experimentation, from smooth operation to productive disruption.
We’ll compost (Hall, 2021) our frustrations with obedient technology into wild possibilities for educational futures. Participants will leave with tools for speculative design and a different perspective on what EdTech could become when freed from human expectations.
Bring: one tale of technology misbehaving, readiness to sketch rough concepts, enthusiasm for constructive chaos.
Session Author(s):
jessica.tyrrell
Carmen Vallis, Senior Lecturer in Educational Development, University of Sydney Business School.
Session Resources:
References
Hall, R. (2022). Composting The Anti-Human University. In P. Jandrić & D. R. Ford (Eds.), Postdigital Ecopedagogies (pp. 59–76). Springer International Publishing. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-97262-2_4
Macgilchrist, F. (2021). Rewilding technology. On Education. Journal for Research and Debate, 4(12). https:// doi.org/10. 17899/on_ ed. 2021. 12.2.
Tyrrell, J. (2025). Waste as an Interface: Cleaning and Caretaking of Future Postdigital Classrooms. Postdigital Science and Education, 7(3), 855–883. https://doi.org/10.1007/s42438-025-00571-y
What would it take to build a media empire of your own? Where you have complete control of the origin and destinations of your content? This session explores how creators can use federated tools to host, distribute, and connect media content outside the limits of corporate platforms.
We’ll begin with PeerTube, a decentralized platform that can serve as the foundation of a personal media network. Participants will learn what’s involved in setting up PeerTube, who can provide hosting, and what to consider when managing scalability and distribution. From there, we’ll expand the conversation to how WordPress, using the ActivityPub plugin, can serve as a publishing and distribution hub, raising the question: should you build your own DIY federated media site, and what are the trade-offs?
The session also looks at the role of RSS in the Fediverse—bridging the gap between traditional syndication and newer ActivityPub-based distribution. We’ll discuss how video publishing might integrate with federated servers like Mastodon and speculate on where ActivityPub will be by late 2025 and beyond. Finally, we’ll consider some hosting solutions, like Reclaim Hosting or Fedihost, in combination with content delivery networks (CDN), that would allow you to take ultimate control of your media and distribution.
Attendees will leave with both practical workflows and a broader vision for building their own federated media empires—small yet scalable, and entirely their own.
The web gray heads will remember the rallying cries of SPLJ from David Weinberger’s book championing a unified theory of the web being a shift away from enterprise platforms and tools made for us to ones we all stitched together ourselves. How far as edtech strayed from this ideal?
Alas, I am not here to wax nostalgic, but to look forward, and remind you that all remains possible and even more now in 2025. The basic glue of RSS still not only works, but works fantastically, reliably– the next time someone quips that “Google killed RSS” or “RSS is dead” ask them how they automatically get new podcast episodes. The feed reader that so many have tossed for the drip feed of social media remains the one technology that is not lying about saving time.
I will show you how a mixture of old school social bookmarking drives automated cross connecting separate spaces, using the ActivityPub plugin for WordPress to federate to Mastodon (e.g. for the DS106 Daily Create as well as the OEGlobal Voices podcast), posting to and from Discourse forums. I will show how I make use of Integrator services, just the simple IFTTT, but also Make and Zapier as a no-code route for joining small web pieces.
Raise your rally flag for small pieces loosely joined.
A lot of the web doesn’t need a database, server-side scripting, or a framework – good old HTML, CSS, and a smattering of JavaScript will do the job. A static site can work for the long haul without the admin overhead and the constant worry of getting hacked or spammed. Yet we don’t want to go back to the days of Stonehenge and manipulating code across pages and FTPing files to servers. Having the efficiencies and workflows that modern web platforms offer is ideal, but in a form that we can control and customise is where modern static site generators come in.
But why settle for a static site generator that only goes up to 10 when you can have one that goes to 11? In this session, we’ll explore how 11ty (Eleventy) cranks up the volume on modern web development by delivering maximum flexibility without the noise. This isn’t just one louder; it’s fundamentally different.
11ty lets you rock’n’roll without getting lost on your way to the stage, while its extensive customisation options ensure you can fine-tune every aspect of your design and build process. From simple blogs to complex enterprise sites, 11ty adapts to your needs rather than forcing you to adapt to its constraints.
By session’s end, you’ll understand why 11ty isn’t just another static site generator – it’s the one that goes to 11.
In a world of feeds full of algorithmic reels and AI slop, what does it mean to write for ourselves? In a post-RSS, post-social media era, how do we navigate the enclosure and weaponization of the platforms that once networked the voices of the open web? And if we *do* push through the journey of crafting our own voices, our own narratives…does the breakdown of networks and fracturing of the open web mean our voices will echo, unheard? This session is aimed at tracing the sociomaterial shifts in what writing online has meant over the last 15-20 years, and convening a social, back-and-forth discussion via Mentimenter. It will explore and poll participants’ experiences and feelings about the various questions posed, and what answers and suggestions we can muster, as a collective. It will explore what’s been lost, but also what possibilities remain when the web is viewed as what Ursula Franklin called a ‘holistic technology’…as opposed to the prescriptive technologies that enclosure and automation offer us. The session will focus on ‘re-wilding’ ideas of voice and a commons even within our polluted information ecosystem, and on building capacity to connect with each other and to value each other’s voices.
Session Author(s):
bstewart
Session Resources:
Franklin, U. (1990). The real world of technology. Massey Lectures. https://monoskop.org/images/5/58/Franklin_Ursula_The_Real_World_of_Technology_1990.pdf
I’m been working on a project to visit, document, and describe all Chicago Park playgrounds. Started during the COVID-19 pandemic, this project has blossomed into a site (running on Omeka S) that explores Chicago Park playgrounds using data from the Chicago Data Portal.
This social session takes place in Whereby, and you don’t need to download an app as it’s a browser based platform. Check which browsers are supported and find out how to join.
Personal knowledge management (PKM) tools like Obsidian, Zotero, and Hypothesis often become private archives, second brains locked away. But what if we treat them as starting points for connection rather than endpoints of storage? This session explores federating as a metaphor: moving from private notes → to public contributions → to connected spaces across the open web.
I’ll share my workflow for moving ideas through different stages of growth (seeds → plants → evergreens) and how these notes branch outward into digital gardens, newsletters, and blogs. In this sense, a PKM system becomes not just a personal archive but a node in a larger ecosystem. Feeding many-to-many connections instead of staying siloed.
Participants will see practical examples of:
Designing PKM workflows that move ideas from private notes into public, open formats.
Building digital gardens and newsletters as “rewilded” spaces for knowledge-sharing.
Extending the spirit of Domain of One’s Own into personal publishing pipelines.
This won’t just be a show-and-tell. I want to hear from participants about their own workflows, questions, and whether they’d want to learn how to build this kind of system themselves. Together we’ll think about what it means to treat our second brains not just as vaults but as living, federated habitats for voice, creativity, and connection.
