Reclaim and the Translation of EdTech

Jim Groom on Reclaim and the translation of edtech from UCalgary Taylor Institute on Vimeo.

D’Arcy Norman posted this one video that parts of a larger documentary project he started while at UMW for the Reclaim Your Domain Hackathon. I don’t get to see D’Arcy nearly enough, and unfortunately I was running around like the proverbial chicken all weekend trying to organize the hackathon which meant any focused time together was limited. I consider D’Arcy one of my oldest and dearest “edtech” friends, and sitting down with him for 15 minutes allowed me to try and articulate what’s important about the Reclaim movement for me.

This is my fourth Reclaim Your Domain event, the others being the MIT Hackathon March 2013, Atlanta Domain Incubator April 2014, and LA Reclaim Hackathon July 2014. These events have been by far the best professional development I’ve had over the last two years, and much of that is owed to the vision Audrey Watters and Kin Lane turned me onto near on two years ago. I’ve effectively been spending my copious spare time trying to wrap my head around things like Amazon Web Services, GitHub, and APIs. And as I suggest in the video, these are the platforms and technologies I’ve trying to understand so I can translate how they reflect some of the more seismic shifts in how the web works over the last few years. Kin and Audrey are a brilliant one-two punch in this regard, framing the technical, social, political, economic and more. Add to all this the IndieWeb movement, and Reclaim really feels vibrant and full of possibility. So, I want to thank D’Arcy, Andy Rush, David Kernohan, and Grant Potter for taking the time last weekend to try and capture some of it. Big Fan!