Hey All!

I've been a longtime Doceri user and its lack of support (since January 2023) has finally bit me. It's time once again to find new software (and possibly hardware) to become a digital whiteboard.

Here's my current setup:

• Classroom Desktop Windows PC connected to a projector running Doceri and PowerPoint
• Apple iPad running Doceri
• Unused Apple TV connected to projector via another input

Here's my preferred requirements:

• Ability to annotate presentation docs / pdfs
• One time cost (in the hundreds are fine) preferred, but a low yearly/monthly cost (in the $50 range or less) is also acceptable
• The ability to walk around wirelessly
• The ability to record 20 - 60 minute videos (preferrably able to upload to YouTube)
• I would love to transition to an Android tablet with a stylus

Anyone have any suggestions that they've tried? I understand that I could screen record / screen share for the iPad, but I'm also looking for a new whiteboard app.

There a link also but I didn't dare click on it. I can share it if anyone wants to. Just ask.

Stop Trying to Make Social Networks Succeed by Ploum on 2023-07-06

Lot is happening in the social network landscape with the demises of Twitter and Reddit, the apparition of Bluesky and Threads, the growing popularity of Mastodon. Many pundits are trying to guess which one will be successful and trying to explain why others will fail. Which completely misses the point.

Particular social networks will never "succeed". Nobody even agree on the definition of "success".

The problem is that we all see our little bubble and generalise what we observe as universal. We have a hard time understanding Mastodon ? Mastodon will never succeed, it will be for a niche. A few of our favourite web stars goes to Bluesky ? Bluesky is the future, everybody will be there.

That’s not how it works. That’s not how it ever worked.

Like every human endeavour, every social network is there for a limited duration and will be useful to a limited niche of people. That niche may grow to the point of being huge, like Facebook and WhatsApp. But, to this day, there are more people in the world without an account on Facebook than people with one. Every single social network is only representative of a minority. And the opposite would be terrifying when you think about it (which is exactly what Meta is trying to build).

Social networks are fluid. They come, they go. For commercial social networks, the success is defined by: "do they earn enough money to make investors happy ?" There’s no metric of success for non-commercial ones. They simply exist as long as at least two users are using them to communicate. Which is why criticisms like "Mastodon could never raise enough money" or "the Fediverse will never succeed" totally miss the point.

If you live in the same occidental bubble as me, you might have never heard of WeChat, QQ or VK. Those are immensely popular social networks. In China and Russia. WeChat alone is more or less the size of Instagram in terms of active users. The war in Ukraine also demonstrated that the most popular social network in that part of the world is Telegram. Which is twice as big as Twitter but, for whatever reason, is barely mentioned in my own circles. The lesson here is simple: you are living in a small niche. We all do. Your experience is not representative of anything but your own. And it’s fine.

There will never be one social network to rule them all. There should never be one social network to rule them all. In fact, tech-savvy people should fight to ensure that no social network ever "succeed".

Human lives in communities. We join them, we sometimes leave them. Social networks should only be an underlying infrastructure to support our communities. Social networks are not our communities. Social network dies. Communities migrate and flock to different destinations. Nothing ever replaced Google+, which was really popular in my own tech circle. Nothing will replace Twitter or Reddit. Some communities will find a new home on Mastodon or on Lemmy. Some will go elsewhere. That’s not a problem as long as you can have multiple accounts in different places. Something I’m sure you do. Communities can be split. Communities can be merged. People can be part of several communities and several platforms.

Silicon Valley venture capitalists are trying to convince us that, one day, a social network will succeed, will become universal. That it should grow. That social networks are our communities. That your community should grow to succeed.

This is a lie, a delusion. Our communities are worth a lot more than the underlying tool used at some point in time. By accepting the confusion, we are destroying our communities. We are selling them, we are transforming them into a simple commercial asset for the makers of the tool we are using, the tool which exploits us.

Stop trying to make social networks succeed, stop dreaming of a universal network. Instead, invest in your own communities. Help them make long-term, custom and sustainable solutions. Try to achieve small and local successes instead of pursuing an imaginary universal one. It will make you happier.

It will make all of us happier.

There a link also but I didn't dare click on it. I can share it if anyone wants to. Just ask.

Stop Trying to Make Social Networks Succeed by Ploum on 2023-07-06

Lot is happening in the social network landscape with the demises of Twitter and Reddit, the apparition of Bluesky and Threads, the growing popularity of Mastodon. Many pundits are trying to guess which one will be successful and trying to explain why others will fail. Which completely misses the point.

Particular social networks will never "succeed". Nobody even agree on the definition of "success".

The problem is that we all see our little bubble and generalise what we observe as universal. We have a hard time understanding Mastodon ? Mastodon will never succeed, it will be for a niche. A few of our favourite web stars goes to Bluesky ? Bluesky is the future, everybody will be there.

That’s not how it works. That’s not how it ever worked.

Like every human endeavour, every social network is there for a limited duration and will be useful to a limited niche of people. That niche may grow to the point of being huge, like Facebook and WhatsApp. But, to this day, there are more people in the world without an account on Facebook than people with one. Every single social network is only representative of a minority. And the opposite would be terrifying when you think about it (which is exactly what Meta is trying to build).

Social networks are fluid. They come, they go. For commercial social networks, the success is defined by: "do they earn enough money to make investors happy ?" There’s no metric of success for non-commercial ones. They simply exist as long as at least two users are using them to communicate. Which is why criticisms like "Mastodon could never raise enough money" or "the Fediverse will never succeed" totally miss the point.

If you live in the same occidental bubble as me, you might have never heard of WeChat, QQ or VK. Those are immensely popular social networks. In China and Russia. WeChat alone is more or less the size of Instagram in terms of active users. The war in Ukraine also demonstrated that the most popular social network in that part of the world is Telegram. Which is twice as big as Twitter but, for whatever reason, is barely mentioned in my own circles. The lesson here is simple: you are living in a small niche. We all do. Your experience is not representative of anything but your own. And it’s fine.

There will never be one social network to rule them all. There should never be one social network to rule them all. In fact, tech-savvy people should fight to ensure that no social network ever "succeed".

Human lives in communities. We join them, we sometimes leave them. Social networks should only be an underlying infrastructure to support our communities. Social networks are not our communities. Social network dies. Communities migrate and flock to different destinations. Nothing ever replaced Google+, which was really popular in my own tech circle. Nothing will replace Twitter or Reddit. Some communities will find a new home on Mastodon or on Lemmy. Some will go elsewhere. That’s not a problem as long as you can have multiple accounts in different places. Something I’m sure you do. Communities can be split. Communities can be merged. People can be part of several communities and several platforms.

Silicon Valley venture capitalists are trying to convince us that, one day, a social network will succeed, will become universal. That it should grow. That social networks are our communities. That your community should grow to succeed.

This is a lie, a delusion. Our communities are worth a lot more than the underlying tool used at some point in time. By accepting the confusion, we are destroying our communities. We are selling them, we are transforming them into a simple commercial asset for the makers of the tool we are using, the tool which exploits us.

Stop trying to make social networks succeed, stop dreaming of a universal network. Instead, invest in your own communities. Help them make long-term, custom and sustainable solutions. Try to achieve small and local successes instead of pursuing an imaginary universal one. It will make you happier.

It will make all of us happier.

#Lemmy and kbin are #reddit alternatives with different communities similar to subreddits. If you already have a #mastodon or similar #fediverse account, you don't have to necessarily register for a new lemmy/kbin account to participate. Search for a lemmy community you want to follow: https://lemmy.ml/communities/listing_type/All/page/1 Go to the community, then copy and paste the URL into your mastodon/fediverse search to follow it locally. Mention the community in a post to submit to it, like: @edtech #EdTech

The libraries have closed and locked students out of access to physical books as a measure to mitigate coronavirus. A large portion of books available electronically are kept in the walled-garden of CloudFlare. This means Tor users and students who ethically oppose CloudFlare are being denied access to educational resources needed for research.

Students of RUC (a public school) are essentially forced to patronize Microsoft and support surveillance capitalism as a consequence. Students have always been forced to use MS email services through Outlook, and there has been peer pressure on students to use MS Office products for collaboration which could be fought and avoided. But now students are being excluded from lectures -- the most essential component of education -- if they do not execute non-free Microsoft software on their own computers.

Updates about Coronavirus are being sent to students using Facebook.

This letter was sent to RUC students:

All of the information below can also be found on https://intra.ruc.dk/nc/en/students/student-hub/ and https://ruc.dk/en/corona-virus-covid19

Dear students, Roskilde University has decided to carry out (almost) all teaching activities as distance learning. In this email, you can read about why we have chosen the distance learning solution, how the practical aspects of getting access to it works, and where you can get support. Why distance learning? Distance learning has been assessed as being the best alternative to face-to-face teaching, which will not be possible during the shutdown. Distance learning is an emergency solution, which we are only using due to the very extraordinary situation we find ourselves in. We have assessed that distance learning is a better alternative than cancellation - even if it is not an optimal solution. The other universities have come to the same conclusion. When does distance learning start? The distance learning will start on Monday 16 March and will continue until campus is no longer shut down. All teaching will be carried out as online teaching (though with a few exceptions - see below). The teaching is classified as standard teaching. In other words, the distance learning will take place within the same time slots scheduled for the regular teaching activities. Live distance learning will generally be in the same time slots as the originally scheduled classes, etc., as we realise that you and your lecturers have organised your schedules based on the original time slots. The technical setup: Teams Roskilde University has chosen to use Teams as the platform for distance learning. Unfortunately, other platforms are not supported, but they can be used if your lecturers can manage the platform in question themselves and provide support to those of you who might have issues getting access, etc. In order to use Teams, you must have the following:

• A PC / MAC
• If relevant, a headset with a microphone
• An internet connection
• Microsoft Teams installed If you do not already have Microsoft Teams installed on your computer, you can download it here.https://products.office.com/da-dk/microsoft-teams/download-app

Your teaching activities: Link to Teams You will be invited via a link in Moodle. Each new teaching activity will have its own link. It is important that you check Moodle daily for updates. Before the first distance learning activity, we will give you a thorough introduction to the technical aspects. Guides and support At intra.ruc.dk/fjernundervisninghttps://intra.ruc.dk/fjernundervisning (remember to log in) you can find:

•      Guidelines for distance learning in Teams - for both lecturers and students
  

•      Introduction
  

•      If you are having audio, video, or other technical problems, you must first look for a solution on serviceportal.ruc.dk<https://serviceportal.ruc.dk/> before contacting servicedesk@ruc.dk<mailto:servicedesk@ruc.dk> or calling 4674 3600.
  

Project supervision Project supervision interactions have been arranged between your supervisor and your group and can be via Skype, Teams meetings that you set up yourselves, Messenger, Face Time, Zoom or whatever you think best.

Exceptions: Teaching activities unsuited for distance learning Some teaching activities are not suited for distance learning due to the need to be physically present - for example, lab work, certain workshops, workshop courses, etc. Impacted students will be notified directly by Education & Students if such types of teaching activities need to be postponed.

Showing up and actively participating in the teaching

Showing up for educational activities, etc. is a requirement for being permitted to take the subsequent exam for several courses. However, the rector has decided that as of today's date such requirements will be suspended - initially, between now and 29 March 2020. This means that if you fail to participate in classes, etc. during this period you will not be excluded from taking the exam.

A number of courses at Roskilde University have the active, satisfactory and/or regular participation evaluation types. For such courses, Roskilde University's shutdown may mean that you will not have the opportunity to pass the course. The University will try to accommodate those of you who are impacted by this to the greatest extent possible. That is why the rector has also decided that if you are in this situation, you will not lose an examination attempt. If the course offers re-examination, you will instead be given direct access to the re-examination. If the course does not offer re-examination, the cancelled activities will be arranged once the University is open to physical visits. Based on this, we expect that you will still be able to complete the course in question in the current semester. If the shutdown continues further into the semester, we will be looking at what this means for both the teaching activities and examinations, and we will keep you updated. Scheduled examinations Even though only a relatively small number of examinations are impacted, Roskilde University has considered how these can be arranged or, if relevant, cancelled/rescheduled.

· Written take-home examinations (for example, 48-hour deadline exams) will be carried out as planned.

· Oral examinations: cancelled and rescheduled

· Examinations taken at the University: cancelled and rescheduled

· Thesis examinations with oral assessment - here you can either:

o - defend your thesis via Skype

o - cancel/reschedule the assessment for later in the semester

o - if relevant, receive a written assessment. If the study regulation does not include the possibility of solely written assessment, the rector will grant a dispensation from that part of the study regulation.

Those of you who are impacted by the above must contact Education & Students - see https://intra.ruc.dk/nc/en/students/student-hub/ Student cases that are to be settled by the study boards Cases involving dispensation, credit transfers, complaints, etc. will be processed as normal. An unfamiliar situation This is an unfamiliar situation for all of us, and therefore we expect that challenges will appear, we will, however, try to handle them in the best possible way.

Best regards, Maria Volf Lindhardt Deputy Director, Education & Students