Aaron Fowles sent along this video from Fox 5 News in Memphis, Tennessee that highlights the MidSouth Technology Conference, which is an edtech event for K-12 teachers (warning–first 30 seconds of video is an obnoxious Xmas ad). And while I was watching the video for the EDUPUNk reference at 1:11 (it’s actually a fleeting image from Aaron’s presentation) I was struck by the message that Fox took from the conference in it’s two minute report: school’s are engaging free web-based technologies for quick and easy innovation. Say what? Fox News 5 nails it?! Jesus, they are starting to look pretty good compared to The Chronicle and the like. I was ready for the fear and loathing, but it never came, and from what I can see of the conference, it looks like we really are starting to see the wider trend of free, web-based tools take hold as an alternative philosophy to expensive and proprietary systems.

What’s more, is that Aaron was presenting on creating your own Whiteboard using a Wii remote—-something I know Grant Potter and Patrick Murray-John have also been experimenting with—which is pretty crazy when you think about it.  You take a $2,000-$4,000 (note: changed pricing by a decimal point thanks to that jackass Tom Woodward) piece of equipment that schools are buying up to suggest they are using edtech, and you reproduce it with less than $100 worth of equipment that’s is highly portable. Now that’s impressive, and whether or not Whiteboards are the best use of instructional technology resources becomes that far less an issue because they’re cheap, you can hack them to do what you want, and you’re freeing up funds to invest in people to imagine what they can do rather than investing in soon to-be-outdated proprietary machines. Edufabricators

A couple of weeks ago I was part of a round table discussion about EDUPUNK along with David Hall, Brian Frank and Matthew Hoy, and adeptly moderated by Steve Howard. The discussion was part of a bigger project by Jim Saunders, Nicole Veerman, and Kevin Young (let me know who I am forgetting) all of whom are part of the Online Reporting Class at Ryerson University in Toronto, Ontario and the Online Journalism Class at the University of Western Ontario (check out the course/project blog here). I have to hand it to the students and professors for what from the-outside-looking-in seems like a pretty amazing collaboration between and amongst students and universities. The course was designed to have the classes choose an overarching theme of relevance that has some contemporary currency, and they decided upon Maker Culture. And within this broader theme the students broke up into smaller groups and chose specific topics like Fabricators (which are fascinating to me), Food, Politics, Hackers, etc. When finished, and the links to the final articles by each of the groups are here, what you have is a fascinating look into 11 different aspects of Maker Culture. In depth reports, interviews, and video-taped discussions with people in all of these areas, framed and produced by the students. The class itself is an example of Maker Culture, and I really love the conception and design of this model for journalism courses.

The group researching maker culture in education discovered EDUPUNK, and got interested in the idea, and given I ‘ve had some history with that term they called me up for an interview (which I already posted here). They also invited me to join a Round Table Discussion on EDUPUNK, which was professionally filmed and broadcasted live over the internets. I joined remotely through Skype, but that didn’t prevent me from talking way too much. As usual, I’m in over my head with concepts I only half understand, but at the same time it was a fun discussion, and testament to the fact that I use the words logic, space, and re-imagine way too much—I have to work on this. But regardless, I was pretty happy that EDUPUNK was the subject of a course project like this for emerging journalists, and in Jim, Nicole, and Kevin’s final article they recognize both the potential and limitations of the term, and in many ways place it correctly within the context of a moment. What thrills me most though is that EDUPUNK hasn’t really become the fodder for some cash generating jingle for an LMS commercial or the latest entrepreneurial/marketing buzzword (though the f@stcompany article threatened that in my mind), these Canadian graduate students brought it into an important focus for me, and helped it maintain some street cred by keeping it real and on the ground.

Truth be told, the more EDUPUNK becomes irrelevant or reviled, the more I like it. But at the end of the day it is just a term, and the term can only mean as much as we make of it. EDUPUNK serves as a jumping off point that may (and probably should, or even has already) outlive its importance, and while it has brought me no fame or fortune—it has given me free reign to shoot my mouth off, which is in its own right invaluable But more importantly, it gave this group of journalists an interesting way to frame and interrogate the state of education in our moment, and the fact that anyone is still interested in education is not only amazing to me, but a sign of hope. And maybe that’s why EDUPUNK hit a nerve, because it wasn’t just another dessicated and lifeless term like Digital Natives, Digital Literacies, or PLEs, it contained within it the possibility of something both cultural and personal which immediately brings us beyond the usual bland and denatured educational vocabulary that is both inanely descriptive and depressingly prescriptive—perhaps there’s a lesson in that. We need more poets and metaphors, the space is ripe for imagining with a new language and visual frame that builds on both the tradition we have inherited and the popular culture we inhabit. What we need is more folks like Gardner Campbell and Tom Woodward, both of whom I depended upon heavily throughout this discussion—the way these two use language, humor and visual art to frame their ideas is an important model for me, and one I need to work harder and harder on developing. But until then, I’ll keep re-imagining the logic of space in higher ed

Click to v

Some time this month I was interviewed by Jim Saunders, Steve Howard, and Nicole Veerman about EDUPUNK.  The were interested in the idea, and they are doing a series of interviews as a part of their graduate journalism class at the University of Western Ontario. Their blog tracks the progress of a 10-part feature series (stories, podcasts and video) about the MakerCulture movement in North America. They were  a lot of fun to talk to, and as usual I was rambling, impossible to shut up, and rather ineloquent, though I do think I do the best job yet in putting EDUPUNK as a term (versus a social movement well beyond the term)  in the clearest context, at least for me, thus far. I also set the record straight that Brian Lamb indeed started EDUPUNK. After listening to the interview, it helped me think about my upcoming socialist presentation on EDUCHUDS (look for the description towards the bottom of the page) at Wordcamp NYC which I’m sure the Libertarian Open Source entrepreneurs are looking forward to

Anyway, if you have the inclination give it a listen, it’s about 22 minutes long, and if you are interested in joining James, Steve and Nicole in a panel discussion about MakerCulture, EDUPUNK, or some other element of education on MONDAY NOVEMBER 16 2009 (after 6 p.m.) at the University of Western Ontario journalism department in London, Ontario, be sure to get in touch with them.  You can find their information in this post from which I am stealing all their work.

Download Interview with Jim Saunders, Steve Howard, and Nicole Veerman about EDUPUNK

SXSW Zombie/Edupunk Interview #2 from Tom Woodward on Vimeo.

I’m thrilled to see the great Tom Woodward is uploading the interviews he did with random folks at SXSW about EDUPUNK and zombies. They’re a blast, and it’s awesome to finally see them. It’s also refreshing to see that no one at the EDUPUNK SXSW panel actually knew anything about EDUPUNK, despite how “viral” it seemed to have become. Just goes to show how small our little corner of the internet truly is. Anyway, I’m excited to watch these short clips, many of which will be for the first time. I think we will ultimately try to make something out of all the footage collected, but until then check out the clips as they come in with the RSS feed, and be sure to find out more about quantum physics zombies here.

To quote boingboing:

Horacio Potel, an Argentine philosophy professor at Universidad Nacional de Lanús,, faces criminal charges — and possible jail time — for posting unofficial translations of seminal Jacques Derrida texts to his site where his students could see them. Most of these texts were out of print, or had never been translated. Now a publisher is bringing a few of these books into Argentina, and they’re trying to get this prof imprisoned for supporting Derrida while he was unavailable.

El turno de los profesores, prisión por subir obras protegidas a Internet (Thanks, Carolina!)

Now tell me there ain’t a war going on.

EDUPUNk Battle Royale, Part 5

Even if you’re weary, I highly recommend sticking around for the first minute or so. And just remember that when you comment on the bava, we attentively listen—you do have a voice here. Gerry Bayne rules!

EDUPUNK Battle Royale, Part 4

EDUPUNK Battle Royale, Part 3

The third installation of this video takes us deeper into the questions surrounding leadership. This is an issue that hits close to home for both Gardner and I, and it may seem to move away from the logic of EDUPUNK for some—but in many ways it’s one of the issues that’s at the heart of it. It’s also an idea I struggle with regularly from within an institution, especially when I see how destructive bad leadership can be for so many folks trying to creatively imagine the historical moment we are living through for education. Revolution is already happening (we didn’t need EDUPUNK for that), but more times than not, leadership is just an obstacle in the way. Why do we need it? I once proposed at a DTLT meeting a couple of years ago that our group do away with the idea of a director, and share the responsibilities and recognize the fact that we are more akin to a group that is self-motivated and anti-hierarchical. And while the idea is somewhat radical, I still believe it has value and that we need to re-conceptualize ourselves not as workers or underlings, but as creative collaborators working towards a common goal for a larger community. The other I want to stress is that EDUPUNK was meant to be fun, but it also needs to be “red in tooth and claw” against a tired diplomacy that is making the issues that surround us academic. They aren’t, they are deeply personal and emotionally charged—like anything of value is—and we have to be brave enough to go there.

I just wanted to applaud Tony Hirst and Joss Winn for the amazing work they are doing with Write to Reply. These two British cats did nothing short of re-imagine the possibilities for an open, accessible discourse around documents that are made available for public review. What they have effectively done is create a site for re-publishing these public documents—which at the moment are Digital Britain’s Interim Report and the recently released Open Source, Open Standards and Re–Use: Government Action Plan (which Ars technica just reported on today)—that allows a line-by-line commentary by anyone who has something to say about the direction of these initiatives.

They also have a twitter account, a blog, Wiki, etc. It’s a remarkable example using free and (mostly) open tools like WordPress Multi-User, MediaWiki, and the like to quickly implement a space whereby people can publicly discuss, debate, and become informed about the ideas and decisions the British government is framing about their shared future. This is a model for fast, cheap, and loosely-joined civic engagement, and it wasn’t done by committee or through the organizations and leaders that be. It was done by a couple of British edtech edupunks who just wanna rock out! So, what have you done lately, honcho?

EDUPUNK Battle Royale, Part 2

Thanks to Gerry Bayne for turning this around so quick —I think the next three videos will be coming out sooner than later. I just saw this for the first time minutes ago, and I have to say that this is where Gardner and I really start to dig deep into questions that we have been talking about for years, namely the idea of leadership in institutions.