Kimberly Hirsh

What, you DON’T have a bunch of Harry Potter role-playing names just lying around?

This has me thinking about the dangers of algorithms and the role of social media silos in the blogging economy. I have been watching hobby blogs become businesses for about 15 years. Affiliate links have always been one of the top ways to monetize a blog or website, but I think social media has changed how that traffic moves. (I haven’t paid as close attention to this sphere in the past 5 years or so but I’m sort of always a little bit aware of it.)

I’m thinking about the relationship between this phenomenon and the IndieWeb, of course. The thing is that all of the bloggers quoted in the article have their own domain names and seem to run their own independent blogs, but clearly get a lot of traffic from Instagram. Publishing on your own site and syndicating on Instagram wouldn’t protect you from this kind of content scraping. The way this affiliate economy seems to work, telling these creators to just wean themselves off Instagram seems like telling them to stop having their primary source of income.

If I were in a position to give them advice (as, say, a librarian whose job it is to advise young people on smart practices for information creation and dissemination), I’m not sure what advice I’d give them.

This has illuminated for me several issues I want to research/revisit, though:

• The current state of affiliate marketing
• The difference between a blogger and an influencer
• The relationship between an influencer's blog and social media presence (Is their content being syndicated or do they publish different things in each venue?)

My friend who is a fifth grade teacher told me that all her students are already YouTubers and expect to monetize their content and support themselves full-time. Once of the bloggers quoted in this Racked article, Nita of Next with Nita, finished law school and then moved to LA “to pursue [her] dream as an influencer.” (She has over 210,000 Instagram followers. I can’t imagine telling her to just quit Instagram would be good advice.)

Those jobs that didn’t exist yet that those of us who were teaching 10 or 15 years ago were preparing kids for? Influencer is one of them. YouTuber is one of them. Educators and technologists need to think about how to talk to youth about their creations, how they are monetized, and who gets to monetize them.

When my mind is sharp, I work on my comprehensive exams. When it’s fuzzy but not dull, I work on IndieWeb stuff. When it’s dull, I work on my podcast. When my body has energy, I tidy. When I’m ready to trade outputs for inputs, I listen to podcasts. In any given moment, I check in with myself and let how I feel guide my next action.

Was watching Silicon Valley S5E3 and Richard started waxing poetic about redecentralizing the internet and users owning their data and I got all ?.

I’ve always enjoyed The Bloggess when she came across my radar (And that’s why you should learn to pick your battles is a particular favorite). For some reason, though, I’ve always resisted becoming fully obsessed with her. Maybe because she’s popular and I’m inappropriately contrarian? Well, no more. After listening to her episode of THWoD I’ve decided we should be BFFs, and you obviously can’t befriend someone without reading their books and blog, so off I go…

Haenyeo: Women Divers of Korea - Marked to-read on 04/20/2018.

Found via Broadly via Laura Olin.

Splash (1984), Labyrinth (1986), Beetlejuice (1988), Beaches (1988) Tagged by @allieacts. Tagging @tceles_B_hsup, @ailuruscosmos, @Folio_Ninja, @WhitneyEllenB

Mars and Her Children - Marked to-read 4/19/18.

Found via Laura Olin.

This morning, I popped M. in the stroller and walked him the three quarters of a mile to the doula offices for their Movers & Shakers meeting. As the first babies they ushered into the world became toddlers, the community of parents who had worked with them wanted to continue meeting with each other beyond the New Parents hangout, and even some of the babes who had not technically aged out of the New Parents Hangout group got so mobile and handsy that the parents of said babes (mine included) started to wonder how safe it was for the little ones to be exposed to our friendly acrobats. So the doulas started a group for older, more mobile babies up to age two. Michael and I make it out about once every three weeks. This is a much better attendance rate than we had for the New Parents Hangout, probably because as he’s gotten older and more mobile I’ve lost any illusions I had about being able to get work done as he played, so we might as well go play with other families.

So, as I said - this morning, I popped him in the stroller - and when I say “popped” I mean that I strapped him in his five-point harness, ensured he had plenty of pretzels in the cupholder, realized that I had left his water bottle on the floor, picked up his water bottle, put that in the grown-up’s cupholder (because again, M’s was full of pretzels) and headed out to the doula office.

Michael was the only toddler in attendance, but he had the time of his life playing with the seven-year-old son of one of the owners. As the Movers and Shakers time ended and time for the New Parents Hangout approached, other families started to arrive, including one family with a very new baby.

I told Michael it was almost time to leave. I sang him the relevant Daniel Tiger song. (There is a relevant Daniel Tiger song for almost every toddler/preschooler parenting moment. A mom used the same “It’s almost time to stop” one on a playground recently and when I said, “Hey, M! We know that song!” she replied, “Daniel Tiger is my co-parent.”) I re-filled his cupholder, this time with veggie straws. I strapped him into the stroller and asked him to wave goodbye to everybody.

As I was strapping him in the stroller, I remembered my earliest New Parents Hangout, sitting with this tiny, fragile, incoherent, precious person in his huge carrier, not knowing how to do anything yet. I imagined what that version of myself would think watching me go through this process of getting Michael in the stroller, settling him in, getting him out the door.

I decided she would think, “Wow. That lady can parent a toddler so effortlessly. That’s amazing.”

And it was beautiful to have that dual perspective, to remember myself as a newbie and be able to look upon my expert self, shepherding this relatively giant creature, having him say goodbye to the doulas.

Then getting to the door and realizing I’d left my backpack in the classroom, then going back and getting it and truly heading out, then not realizing my phone had fallen out of the stroller in the parking lot until I’d walked a couple hundred feet past where it happened, then running back to find it while praying a car hadn’t run over it, then sighing with relief after finding it lying on the ground unharmed, then continuing the walk home.

These things keep us humble in the moments when we would be proud. I think it’s nice to be able to feel both at once.

And, of course, observing this moment is a nice reminder that whomever I’m looking at and thinking, “Wow, she really has it together!” is probably struggling in some way I can’t see, and that potentially any time I’m struggling, there’s somebody looking at me who thinks I’m doing a great job.

Step 1 was returning to my own site. Step 2 was returning to RSS  I think Step 3 will be returning to bookmarks.

This is basically what I’m doing on my own website. I ask myself, “How did I use the Internet in 2001?” because the Internet of 2001 is definitely the Internet for which I’m most nostalgic.

In 2001, I owned my own domain name. I blogged in a hand-coded html file. I made friends with other people through the Buffy the Vampire Slayer posting board. I made other friends through those friends visiting their blogs and commenting on their posts. We had link lists, blog rolls, fan Listings, and web rings, and that’s how we found new sites to visit. We made fan art and wrote fanfiction.

Some of this is still happening, most especially the fan works part. And some innovations have definitely made the Internet better - I switched to automated blogging software in 2002 and I haven’t regretted it once since. Other pieces inspired by other people working on the IndieWeb, I’m bringing back: my following page is basically a blog roll and I’ve started reading blogs again.

This is a beautiful piece about trees, forests, libraries, reading, writing, distance, and connection. I found it thanks to Austin Kleon. I will definitely be picking up Rebecca Solnit’s books.

Families at Play - Marked to-read on 04/15/2018.

Found via Connected Learning Alliance.

Library: An Unquiet History - Marked to-read on 04/15/18.

Kim Werker’s weekly newsletter contains gems like this. I highly recommend subscribing.

And Now We Have Everything - Marked to-read on 04/15/18.

Found via I’ll Be Right Back.

In his newsletter last week and this week, Austin Kleon has recommended several reads about walking. Given my reminder yesterday about the value of a good walk, I wanted to capture his recommendations so I can come back later. I didn’t want to have to dig through the newsletter archives, so I’m creating a list here.

• A Philosophy of Walking, Frederic Gros
• Wanderlust: A History of Walking, Rebecca Solnit
• The Wander Society, Keri Smith
• Flâneuse: Women Walk the City, Lauren Elkin
• Rebecca Solnit on a Childhood of Reading and Wandering
• "Walking While Black," Garnette Cadogan
• "Due North," Garnette Cadogan
• How to Walk, Thich Nhat Hahn
• For All My Walking, Taneda Santoka

Yesterday I posted about how I’m done posting directly to Facebook. Today, I’m announcing the same thing about Twitter. As with Facebook, I’m not disappearing entirely. Instead, I’m syndicating out to Twitter from my own website, kimberlyhirsh.com. I will be able to receive Twitter replies, likes, retweets, etc on the original post at my website. I can also send all of those things from my own site.

As for Twitter’s other functionality… I have, in the past, declared Twitter bankruptcy, unfollowing everyone and then refollowing. It’s harder than it used to be in the past, and I don’t necessarily want to lose track of anyone I’m following right now. So for the time being, I’m noticing when I do browse Twitter which accounts I am finding most valuable. Then I’m using TwitRSS.me to create RSS feeds of those accounts and subscribing to them in Feedly.

If you want to know who I’m following, I’ve got a page for that on my website.

The other key functionality that Twitter has for me is the use of hashtags to aggregate posts about conferences or on Twitter chats. For those purposes, I’m using Tweetdeck and creating a column for each relevant hashtag. My likes and retweets will be posted from my website and then syndicated back out to Twitter.

If you mention me on Twitter without replying directly to a tweet of mine, it should still ping me on my website. I’ve got a special page for Mentions. It’s not linked where anyone but me can see it without typing the URL in directly, but you can trust that I will see it.

I’m working on writing a statement of educational philosophy and yesterday I was stumped. I sat down to write and opened with “I believe…” Everything I wrote after that felt simultaneously true and hollow. My writing process, which wasn’t going great anyway, was disrupted by some family medical issues. (Everyone is fine.) I couldn’t wrap my head around what I was trying to do.

I texted two friends to complain/reach out. Each of them offered some really good ideas that I’m pocketing for later. They weren’t what I needed yesterday. What I was struggling with yesterday was the why. I knew what I believed about learning and teaching but I couldn’t figure out how to articulate why I believe those things.

I was very tired.

I emailed W. He was out of town for the day. I told him that I needed to talk my ideas through, that for whatever reason, I couldn’t get this done via freewrite (which is what I normally do). I said, “Tomorrow, let’s talk about it and then you spend some time with the baby and I’ll write.” (When do I need to call him something besides the baby? I mean, I use his name, obviously. But he’s 18 months old. The toddler doesn’t have the same ring to it.)

W. got home from his travels late at night. As he got in bed, I asked him if my plan was okay. He said, “Maybe we can talk about it when we go for a walk tomorrow.”

“Good idea,” I said.

I highly recommend finding a walking partner and talking about stuff as you walk. It’s so good. So we went for a walk this morning. W. wrote a teaching statement recently and I asked him to tell me about it. As he spoke, I realized that the piece that was missing, the why, comes from my own experiences as a learner and teacher. And that I needed to work that into my statement.

It felt blindingly obvious. I don’t know why I couldn’t make this connection without the conversation with W., but I have it now.

I won’t be posting directly to my Facebook timeline anymore. In keeping with my move to embrace the IndieWeb, any posts I make to Facebook will be syndicated there from my own website, kimberlyhirsh.com. Each Facebook post will include a link to the original post on my website. Through the magic of the IndieWeb, my original post will receive likes and comments that my friends post on the syndicated copy.

At my own website, I’m replicating most of Facebook’s features. I can post status updates, long posts, photos, and videos. I can share links. I can RSVP to Facebook events. I can create my own events and make copies of them on Facebook, and have Facebook RSVPs show up on the event post at my site. I use WordPress and I found a plugin that replicates Facebook’s On This Day feature. I can manually mark myself safe in an emergency and create a Year in Review post.

To make things super interactive, I’ve also created an old school Guestbook and a page where you can ask me anything. These two features aren’t entirely in keeping with the IndieWeb philosophy, which would have you create a post or page on your own site and then let me know about it. But as I don’t expect most of the people who want to communicate with me will be IndieWeb-ready, I’m trying to make it as easy as possible for you to get in touch with me still.

The one Facebook feature I’m not attempting to replace with my own site is Groups. My current plan is to check in each Friday to participate in my groups. That will also be when I check on my event invitations. I also can’t reply via Facebook comments directly from my site. If you want a prompt response or extended conversation, I recommend clicking through and commenting directly on my site. Otherwise, you’ll have to wait until my next Facebook log in.

None of this is way out of left field. I’ve had websites since 1996, and personally-owned websites since 2001. In many ways, I’m just going back to using the web like I did in 2002.

This is just the beginning of an idea, but as I dig deep into the IndieWeb and think about social media, Silicon Valley’s entry into education, critical technical practice, and other words that I will try to come back and find good links for later, I’m having a little brainstorm.

Information literacy curricula tend to focus, from what I’ve seen, on consuming information and evaluating the information other people produce: is this a reliable source? What’s the purpose and audience of this communication?

But as libraries transition from having consumption as their central purpose to places where creation takes centerstage and consumption primarily serves creation, we need to teach youth to think about other things. Who is going to own the content they create? Who can see it? What rights do they have as creators and artists? What benefits accrue to them from the different possible ways they might share their work? If we’re looking to create a generation that makes stuff, we need to ask them to think about the impact of the stuff they’re making as well as the amount of control they have over that impact.

Again, it’s a little brainstorm that I wanted to just jot down, but I hope to come back with more thoughts on this later.

You can’t really see it here but Tropical Diver is a gorgeous reef exhibit at the @georgiaaquarium and I kind of want to live there. Beautiful coral AND a Skeletor Moray? Sign me up!

I use this blog as my home on the web, so in addition to traditional blog posts, you’ll find here all the types of things you might find on social media. I know that can be overwhelming, so feel free to only look at long posts, short notes, shared links, photos, social media interactions, or what I’m reading/listening to/watching/playing.