OSU’s Writers Talk: Platforms that Unlock Passion

Back in March I gave a keynote presentation at THE Ohio University’s InnovateOSU conference (which I documented here) framing the various experimentations at UMW that led up to our current Domain of One’s Own project. The day before that presentation I was fortunate enough to sit down with the remarkable Jonathan Diehl, an OSU student that does his university proud. [N.B. – Jonathan doesn’t have a domain of his own I can link to so I will settle for his twitter 🙂 ] I had a compelling and wide-ranging discussion with Jonathan, and what I really loved about talking with him was the fact he had done is research quite thoroughly. He knew about and read this blog; he was familiar with EDUPUNK; he researched ds106; and, he even had a working knowledge of Domain of One’s Own. Unlike many “professionals” I have talked with over the years, John did his homework before this interview and there is no question what a huge difference that made in the tenor and depth of a conversation.

The half-hour conversation had a very specific arc that I think worked quite well. Here are the topics we covered (I think in this order):

  • how I rediscovered writing through blogging?
  • what the hell is EDUPUNK?!
  • how did EDUPUNK morph into ds106?
  • is ds106 a MOOC?;
  • what might the technical architecture of learning look like in the future?
  • what exactly is a MOOC and what might it mean for the future of higher ed?
  • and, finally, how might platforms (and communities) unlock passion?

The above topic list was created by me post-facto, so it may not be entirely accurate—consider yourself warned. Also, listening to the conversation again I was struck by how much work I have to do on clarifying my thoughts about the technical architecture of the future of learning, I found my description and examples far too broad and vague. What’s more, the ideas around the open architecture of the future of personalized learning is something I have been spending a lot of time thinking about recently. So listening to this conversation has been very useful in forcing me to clarify my thoughts in preparation for a presentation I’ll be giving May 16th at the Campus Technology Virtual Leadership Summit (moderated by none other than Gardner Campbell). My talk for the Campus Technology event is inspired by Jon Udell‘s 2007 “The Disruptive Nature of Technology” talk (as well as his IT Conversation with Rohit Khare and his 2010 Kynetx  Keynote) as a means to think about how a technical architecture for education is better driven by coherence and context rather than scale and broadcasting, but more on that shortly. In the mean time, I’d like to give another thank you to Jonathan Diehl for being an amazing interlocutor, and tolerating the fact I talk too damn much!

OSU Writers Talk

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4 Responses to OSU’s Writers Talk: Platforms that Unlock Passion

  1. scottlo says:

    This is an awesome interview. Jonathan did an awesome job in setting up and letting you tell your story. I noticed a bit of editing done remove naughty words like pissed off and pain in the ass. Wish they would have put in a sound effect for this.

    I wasn’t too worried about vagueness related to technical architecture. I don’t know what any of that stuff means or how it works anyway.

    It wouldn’t hurt to tighten up the diction a bit, though.

    • Reverend says:

      Scottlo,

      I agree, the specifics around that architecture need some tight, consistent diction, and I think that is what I need to work on. I did a better job in the Architecture of Open post, and I need to return to that and make a case with some solid, easy to grasp examples. Jon Udell is the king of that, and I need to learn the ways of the force 🙂

  2. Best thing I’ve listened to for a long while.
    Just lovely. Any diction looseness passed me by, as I lapped up the vision.

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