FWIW I met Dave Lane a tech guru from New Zealand who is ready to release soon an "easy" guide for installing Mastodon instances.

He said he has done a handful already https://twitter.com/lightweight/status/858686621104865280

@cogdog I'm trying to decide whether to launch my own or whether to stay with mastodon.social

@Downes @cogdog I would love your thoughts. I have read some stuff about image caching issues that could cause legal trouble but I think a federated network for Mastadon is perfect for higher ed.

Local server control, privacy through data empowerment, disciplines still federating together across campus

I encourage use of Twitter with students but never require it. I have no right telling you to relinquish data to a third party.

@cogdog @Downes I also want to play with micro.blog and am wondering if that is the rss-feedable, totally curateable, integrated class space chat streamable, I would like a trip on that rocket ship.
@jgmac1106 @cogdog I've signed up to the micro.blog list but haven't seen it in operation yet.