What now

post_title='What now?'
layout="post"
published=false
id=18562
link="https://djon.es/blog/2023/08/18/what-now/"
category="colophon"
img_base_url="https://djplaner.github.io/memex/share/blog/"

2024 passed without a post added to this blog. For lots of reasons, but largely because I moved on from higher education. Suddenly digital education - the main focus of this blog - wasn't a big part of my thinking. Raising the question, what now?

A question for this blog. For the nature and approach to my online presence and engagement. A question for how I pass my time.

This post is also a warning to anyone still keeping an eye on this blog from a higher education perspective of looming change. If you're still around, you may wish to move on. If so, so long and thanks for the fish. This post s also a method for me to develop and make explicit my thinking on the next steps...whether I do anything about it...come back in 6/12 months time.

If you're still around at the end, all suggestions welcome.

TLDR

Moving forward, my focus will be on the sustainable restoration of the native forests. On our home block and in our broader local environment. While superficially very different to "digital education", I see it as very similar at an abstract level.

Technically, I'm not convinced that Wordpress is the blogging tool I'll continue with. Can I blog meaningfully? Is Wordpress really the software I want to use?

I do intend to maintain the content and domain name. If only to prevent questionable actors from taking over the expired domain. As has happened with a couple of the higher education technology blogs/sites (e.g. Mark's) I used to follow.

I have some early thoughts on how I'll leverage online/digital tools to support this new focus.

I will keep and expand use of "my Memex" for knowledge management.
Will likely move my Mastodon account away from the Indieweb server to a better match.
WIll be exploring integration with other tools and services (e.g. eBird and iNaturalist).

More detail follows.

Shifting focus - sustainable restoration as bricolage/assemblage#

Since my last blog post a bit has changed. I "lost" a parent. Ended my ~30 year career in tertiary education. Reached a joint decision with any prospective employers that full-time employment was not the direction for me. This and other events encouraged some reflection on what brings me joy.

A lot of people who have looked at my work in higher education probably (e.g. my wife) will assume playing with digital technology was what brought me joy. I've always been labelled as the "technology guy". Sure there was a lot of playing with digital technologies and I enjoyed much of it but technologies were just the tools for building contextually-appropriate scaffolding assemblages (CASA). Tools for engaging in bricolage with available services and technologies to gather, weave, and augment the current environment and what was possible with learning and teaching.

Throughout my work in higher education the focus understanding the local environment and out how to sustainably make real improvements to it. A big part of what's changed for me is the local environment. No longer will it be learning and teaching in higher education. It's been replaced with living within Postmans Ridge and surrounds. In particular, our 10 acre home block. How do I gather and weave in order to augument this new local environment?

The need is obvious. Since colonisation at least 40% of Australia's forests have been cleared. Since 2001, losses in South-East Queensland include: 7,384 hectares of remnant vegetation, 54,983 hectares of woody vegetation, and 1,220 hectares of natural wetlands. Our block has evidence of brigalow scrub and other ecosystems but falls within an area that is classified as "non-remnant". i.e. it has been heavily thinned, has significant disturbed vegetation, or cleared. Which in our case includes some significant infestation by nasty weeds. For example, the climbing asparagus fern in the following image (in the left photo, not the right) which shows off some of my early work.

Early clearing. Two images of the same location. The earlier "how it started" image shows significiant asparagus fern overgrowing numerous trees, including a Bunya Pine. The latter "How it's going" shows the same trees with the asparagus fern removed.

There are a lot of people and groups (e.g. this local group I've joined) doing this work. Not surprisingly the purpose, approach and terminology used by these groups varies significantly. As novices our purpose and approach will evolve, but the term "sustainable restoration" resonates currently. It's a term attributed to John Lahey describing "restoration efforts where human input is minimal". Which speaks to me of bricolage. Sustainable restoration is not a widely used/known term meaning there isn't multiple meanings (often with associated "thought camps") as with other terms. That said related terms and movements like restoration, rewilding, and permaculture are of interest. Especially if rewilding is seeking to restore ecosystems so they can look after themselves (Macgilchrist, 2021). But even that sentiment has some difference to ponder.

Limitations of my current digital practices#

The digital practices I use in everyday life and to maintain my online presence suffer from a number of limitations. Aside from the more common limitations (e.g. a over-reliance on passively scrolling through information feeds managed by commercial interests) these include:

Aging infrastructure.

Much of the infrastructure is so 00s. Showing my Web 2.0 roots (and age). Based on shared hosting server rather than containers. Still using a bloated blog software (Wordpress) rather than something small (e.g small web and smolweb). Relying on "free" technology (Github) where I'm not the customer so I'm probably the product.

Another example is that Wordpress xmlrpc (how I used to publish blog posts) is now deprecated.
Misdirected audience/purpose.

e.g. as mentioned above, being based on a Indieweb focused Mastodon server doesn't match the new focus. Most of my content being on a blog. Which is perhaps good for sharing writing but maybe not the best fit for other tasks (e.g. plant identification, tracking restoration impacts etc).
Somewhat disconnected

e.g my memex site isn't hosted in the same place as this blog, relies on a different toolset, and isn't part of the same domain.

Some steps moving forward#

Replace Wordpress or not?
Use Foam/mkdocs for everything?
Bring all under a single domain?
What other task focused applications are there and how can they all fit?
Move Mastodon servers?

e.g. Which should I use - [ ] What other takes are there on online practices and presence?

e.g. The social web, Indieweb vis Indie Web, The slow web, The small web is beautiful, About smolweb, and the many other perspectives from the Diagram website.

References#

Macgilchrist, F. (2021). Rewilding Technology. On Education. Journal for Research and Debate, 4(12). https://doi.org/10.17899/on_ed.2021.12.2