Let me explore each of those a bit more.

In connecting with others, I drew (and continue to do so) upon my experiences from age 13, when I served as a special interest group (SIG) operator (OP) for debate forums in early electronic Bulletin Board Services (BBSs). Although I am more shy and reserved in person, online I find that I am able to connect with others without fear or concern. I suspect it’s because as a writer, using my words to express myself and what I’m thinking give me confidence. I’m quite content to craft a world with words, my own reality that insulates me from the loneliness others feel, who may find themselves looking for validation from another person.

I read once that people often create a simulacrum in their heads of other people. We interact with OUR conception, our understanding, our version of that person, rather than the reality of who a person is. That’s why we’re so quick to jump to negative opinions, to think the worst of others. It is our creation that has misbehaved, that has injured us. 

On Mastodon, I’ve already blocked a few people given their reactions. One person wrote me, picking what I thought was a pointless argument with something I’d taken a few minutes to express via my smartphone. When I suggested that if “You don’t like it, you can always mute or block me, that’s ok” I was hearkening to the rules of Mastodon…you need not suffer a moment longer than you need to. The person took offense at my flippant tone. As I started to get berated for what I admit was a little flippant post, I realized that I didn’t need to deal with it. I blocked the account. I haven’t missed that communication since, but it did highlight the importance of muting/blocking.

From that point, I went on to block entire domains and came up with a list. That would be the low point of my experience on Mastodon. The next level up was probably my interaction with a FOSS advocate, who couldn’t understand why I was sharing Google, Microsoft resources. Why wasn’t I fighting the good fight, like he was, to share the Gospel of Free, Open Source Software (FOSS)?

Having met other FOSS fanatics in the past, I had little patience with him. I ended up giving him an ultimatum…stop prosyletizing, or I’ll be forced to mute you. I’m not ignorant of FOSS, use FOSS tools, and advocate for their use. But there are many in K-16 education that don’t have the freedom to choose FOSS over whatever draconian surveillance system (e.g. MS Teams) has been foisted upon them. Instead, they want to know how to do their work. So, that’s what I write about…life under the boot. Haha, that’s funny. Over the course of that conversation, we reached an impasse. He knew I was going to keep sharing imperialist Google posts relevant to educators. I don’t know if he stopped following me or muted me. And, I didn’t care. The choice was his.

But those two experiences are few and far between. The majority of Mastodon experiences has been positive, filled with good humor and enthusiastic connections.

One of the best things, something I hadn’t quite realized when on Twitter, is that you associate with people at a totally different level on Mastodon. Consider that most people are:

• High Level Professionals, probably Ph.Ds or Ed.Ds.
• University Academics, ditto on the advanced degrees
• Information Technology Professionals
• Retired Educators or international school educators, including administrators

Being an edutainer isn’t bad or evil. But it did feel like Twitter had gotten overrun with them. There were less “regular” people, although as you might imagine from my bulleted list above, they aren’t that “regular.” I have truly enjoyed being in an advertisement free zone, but even more, enjoying the shared musings of incredibly smart people.

Now, one thing I did quite purposefully was to create two separate Mastodon accounts. My education focused one, Mastodon.Education, has a following list (people I follow) that is composed of people who work in K-16/PostDoc education circles. That following list is as “pure” or specific to educators as I can make it. By focusing my following list on educators, that changes the quality of the content I read on Mastodon.Education.

My non-education account (Zirk.us) is the account that I use to track everything else. If I want to post about politics, atheism vs religion, abortion, trans/LGBTQ+ rights, then that’s where I do it. 

If it’s controversial, it goes on Zirk. If it’s focused on K-16 education topic, including research, it goes on Mastodon.Education. So far, the distinction, the separation is working for me.

When I joined Mastodon, one of the things I wanted to accomplish was to bring educators together. I had hoped the non-profit I’m associated with would have started an instance to facilitate the process. I was disappointed at first, but over time, I’ve seen it as a good thing…it gives me more freedom to act without organizational affiliation and I don’t have to worry about privacy issues for members of such an org-sponsored instance (not that there is any assurance of privacy on the Internet, much less Mastodon instances).

To better serve as a bridge, and drawing on my own experiences, I took a few actions within hours of arriving on Mastodon:

• Appropriated the #edutooter hashtag which was suggested early on by Niche Wood
• Added Mastodon info to my Twitter account
• Created the Join EduTooters Google Form and CSV file to allow people to connect with each other. They simply save the CSV file from Google Sheets, and then import that into the Following List, giving them an instant group of 500+ educators to learn from.
• Created the @edutooters@a.gup.pe group, which has grown to 913 members with almost 5K posts. Absent group moderation, I decided to switch to @edutooter@chirp.social.  This gave better control. The latter group only has about 154 members and 353 posts…so off to a late start. I’ve been working hard to encourage people to move from gup.pe to chirp.social group, but it’s a hard sell now.
• Cleaned out my Mastodon.education instance following list, only choosing to follow educators. This gives me an “education focused” timeline.
• Coached several content curators who actively share content to include hashtags/groups like #education #edtech #edutooter @edutooter@chirp.social @edutooters@a.gup.pe in every post, including using the Scheduler for Mastodon.

Enjoying Conversations

Finding and reading information that’s relevant to my work and my interests – learning, eLearning, leadership, Higher Education, Lego, vinyl record collecting, etc – was easy with Twitter and LinkedIn. 

My own reduced activity and follower list, along with similar behaviour from those in my network means there’s less and less being shared, and I might not even see it when it is as I’m often not on the platform to see it.

I can definitely agree with the perception that there is less and less being shared. But that’s because big content curators haven’t moved over into Mastodon or are still learning how to share in impactful ways. I definitely encourage them to adopt my suggestions to connect better with educators. For now, I’ll continue to do my best to build bridges that connect others.

One way I’m doing that is facilitating a workshop at TCEA’s 2023 State Convention and Exposition in Austin, Texas. You can find my session, Ride the Mastodon: Join a Growing, Exciting, Digital Learning Space.