Kevin Hodgson’s recent post noting how ephemeral our digital tracings are has inspired me to think more about legacy. This weighs heavily on my mind as I look at our farm and how it has no takers when we die, no protectors who value our choices to make a little patch of ground less damaged.
In our digital world our choices are under a similar, slow ‘dripdripdrip’ assault as the storage and tools we relied upon ‘die’ and take their proprietary toll on us. Why can’t we just have a way to save our data like the Eloi did? Talking rings.
No sense being nostalgic about something we’ve never had. Yet…I am still concerned that we have been so cavalier about archiving. Should it be a duty? Easy done with simple tools like Hackpad and Storify. Wait. They are as defunct as Etruscan. I still think there is a duty to archive, a gift of remembrance.
I did just that. Here is a link to a webarchive file (warc) for a recent bout of sharing online. The embed below captures most of the relevant files from the five folk who contributed their own process posts. (I know I am leaving folk out, folk on the margins and thus just as important as peripheral vision is to focus. Sorries to the nth for that.)
What Else: Implicity Adjacent
Five folk fancy free. A series of process posts inspired via Twitter.
The files actually stand alone and offline. They can be downloaded and viewed with the WebRecorder Player. It ain’t no set of talking rings, but it does go a long way to heartfully honor a duty to archive. If we don’t do this together, who will. Think of it as a way for our communities to reinforce and amplify themselves much like local newspapers continue to be the institution of record and our only local history.
I am considering helping my students adopt this ethic in our classroom communities. In our modern LMS’s like Blackboard, we have totally abandoned our duty to archive student experience. Maybe we can start by giving remembrance there and then ripple out like the spin of a talking ring.
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It’s so hard to know what to save.
It’s so hard to know where to save it.
I think that if you can teach your students how to approach this task, this will be a real gift to them.
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Yes, we need personal filters for deciding what to save. For one, anytime we convene to work together intentionally we might be obliged to save the results. For another, when the words bubble up in our brains,” I would really miss this.”
If I can raise awareness on this issue I will be happy.
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I think the https://clmooc.com/ was/is a great archive for the work this community does. Efforts should be made to make sure all of its pages are on the Internet Archive, and that new sections are added to capture work that continues to emerge under various hashtags such as #MoDigiWri
At the same time, finding a way to archive some of the sites that branch off the main site, such as the G+ community, the Storify archives, JogtheWeb, and others is equally important.
I think Karen Fasimpaur is the main worker maintaining the web site, but I don’t know. What I do know is it’s a lot of work, and relying on one person, makes the whole thing very fragile, in terms of longevity. Students in different schools could be recruited to help her with that work, along with volunteers from different backgrounds.
I’ve been archiving links to blogs, including cMoocs, for many years and started aggregating many on Inoreader, thanks to Terry’s suggestions. I then point to them from my web site on this page. http://www.tutormentorexchange.net/definition-of-issues/246-blog-list
Thus, I feel this is a shared responsibility, as well as a personal one for those who go a few steps (or many) beyond what others do.
PS: Terry I share your frustration about no one caring about what happens to the farm. Neither of my kids is interested in the work I’ve been doing and I’ve not found any university to bring it in as an archive, and a research resource. I’ve put links to much of my stuff on the Internet Archive since you pointed it out to me. But unless someone is looking for it, or actively sharing it, it will be lost in the caverns of that archive.
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Sorry, I missed this comment in my moderation pile. Your PS made me think much more empathetically about your situation. We really are in the same boat sailing toward that thing that looks like an edge. Again, my biggest blind spot is not recognizing the Venn diagram that is overlapping me all the time. I just needed to look a little closer with your help.
I tried to record the G+ CLMOOC site the other day and I could only go back to 2017! I did not go to the Wayback Machine, too depressing. Or maybe we just need a little Old Testament perspective:
Vanity[b] of vanities, says the Preacher,
vanity of vanities! All is vanity.
3 What does man gain by all the toil
at which he toils under the sun?
4 A generation goes, and a generation comes,
but the earth remains forever.
5 The sun rises, and the sun goes down,
and hastens[c] to the place where it rises.
6 The wind blows to the south
and goes around to the north;
around and around goes the wind,
and on its circuits the wind returns.
7 All streams run to the sea,
but the sea is not full;
to the place where the streams flow,
there they flow again.
8 All things are full of weariness;
a man cannot utter it;
the eye is not satisfied with seeing,
nor the ear filled with hearing.
9 What has been is what will be,
and what has been done is what will be done,
and there is nothing new under the sun.
10 Is there a thing of which it is said,
“See, this is new”?
It has been already
in the ages before us.
11 There is no remembrance of former things,[d]
nor will there be any remembrance
of later things[e] yet to be
among those who come after.
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I some times allow myself to think of my tiny speck of sand on the timeline of Earth before my arrival and following my departure.
In those times I ask “why sacrifice so much to try to create a better world” when my contributions are so insignificant in light of time before, and time after. I’m not someone who will be remembered as BC/AD or BPC/APC or in the “Attila the Hun” type of notoriety.
So why not just indulge? Think only of self and worldly pleasures? Should have lived life this way since my teens. Too late to un-do the life that has been lived.
I don’t have a good answer other than to say, maybe this was my destiny and what I was meant to do.
It means something to me, and I know it has meant something to many other people.