I feel like it would be an interesting learning tool cuz I learn a ton on here and it gets me writing without anyone having to hold a gun to my head. I mean like even essay-length or at least essay-worthy treatments of things I respond to in longer-form, and even for the shorter-form stuff
A key issue would be accounts. It would be a pain to have an account for every class. If it’s one instance with many communities, it might discourage people from participating if everyone in the school can see what you do. Tools like Piazza make it easier to deal with these issues, and they have a lot of other tools specific to courses.
If it’s a general instance for the entire school, then an instance run by students and unaffiliated with the school would be best. Otherwise students wouldn’t feel comfortable using it. I help with the community for my university (UBC) And there’s a lot of content that wouldn’t exist if it was an official thing (reporting issues with professors, asking for help with academic/mental health/relationships, sharing news critical of the school, etc.)
I really do want more academics on the fediverse, but “Lemmy for school” doesn’t feel that useful
Ya I forgot about its all anonymous. I don’t see how that wouldn’t free up everyone to participate without worrying about being tied to anything necessarily. At the very least, using for an after-school homework tool might work
It’s still a nice idea, we briefly talked about starting our own instance for [email protected] (run the same way as the subreddit)
I do think universities should run their own fediverse instances. Mastodon is an obvious one and I’m pretty sure my school is still trying to figure out how to move forward after the twitter nonsense. An events platform would be another good step
How dialectical does Mastodon come across? How deep can discussions get in terms of nesting/indentation?