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want, and you’re freeing up funds to invest in people to imagine what they can do rather than investing in soon to-be-outdated proprietary machines.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

If there will be a new way, it won’t depend on the next business model or unique profit-driven approachs to e-learning or textbooks, it will ultimately depend on people finally re-imagining their relationship to status, money and power. Therein lies the future, and it need remain predominantly idealistic rather than purely economic and market driven. EDUPUNK is a state of mind, it’s an attitude, and it’s a belief that the system in its current incarnation does more harm than good, and so much of the damage is born of the increasingly business logic of higher ed. And maybe EDUPUNK has to die to be born again in some more radical fashion that resists the all-encompassing logic of captial that refuses to rest until every alternative is subsumed into a potential market for commodification. bavatuesdays is EDUPUNK, and it’s back on that map ready to rumble in the edtech jungle. Bring it on!

While talking with my neighbor Kent Ippolito a few weeks ago, the conversation somehow found its way to a fascinating fact I had never heard before, namely that Wal-Mart has for decades had a policy that allows RVers of all types to stay in their parking lot for free. And while the policy is contingent on the particular locality and city ordinances, on the whole Wal-Mart’s parking lots around the nation provide a clean, well-lighted place to spend the night. While I tripped on this idea (and I still am), Kent threw in the idea that it made total sense, “It’s the Company Store model, give your customers a free place to live and lock them in to getting everything they need from you.” And while the Trucking system model is a bit different as played out in the 18th and 19th centuries with the rise of industrialization, it’s funny how that same model can be imagined on top of our current box store/super center logic which becomes devastating in some fundamental ways to the health of our economy, small businesses, and any trace of variety and/or quality. It’s all the same: a clean, well-lighted place.

I love the whole image, I keep on thinking about a Road Warrior-inspired film adaption that has the surviving, post-apocalyptic depression-era population living in and around Wal-Mart parking lots around the country, circling and threatening the occupants of the store to give them the goods (preferably via bull horn with a crazy Jason hockey mask on). It would be the most-intelligent re-make of the Road Warrior ever, and the Mel Gibson character could find some way to get all the groceries out safely—a triumph for American ingenuity and capital. You know you love it!

So, after all this imagining I finally sat down to see what I could find out about this widespread phenomenon, and surprisingly there is some stuff out there, but not much. The gems I did find were, predictably, from YouTube.

“This is Nowhere” is a two minute video that frames the nowhere horror of retired people camping at Wally World. Highly recommended at a manageable two minutes.

“Wal-Mart RV camping Site” features a father filming his son goofing on the idea that they’re pretending to be rednecks by RVing in a Wal-Mart parking lot. This is a nice view of the landscape and this strange sense of the fascination with the idea–which I deeply share.

“Brianna” is a 24 year-old homeless woman who is living in her motorhome in a Wal-Mart parking lot. She’s smart, articulate, and down on her luck, moreoever she frames her predicament and the reality of living at Wal-Mart quite smartly.

“Overnight Wal-Mart, Deming, New Mexico” is a fascinating video that documents a Wal-Mart parking lot early in the morning. The videographer notes that he was assisted by security at this Wal-Mart when pulling in the previous night, and I must admit it’s fun to listen to him talk to about the various RVs—he’s even named his own “Oliver”—suggesting there’s a rich subculture there I am just scratching the surface on here.

This Less Pain Forever video is a serendipitous bonus. This two-man band travels around the US and Canada in a black motorhome performing in any and all Wal-Mart parking lots they can.

And yet another musical nugget, Chris Cagle’s country song “Wal-Mart Parking Lot” , which is not exactly about RVing in a Wal-Mart parking lot, but rather growing up in a Wal-Mart parking lot which is possibly scarier. Video link. (No embeddable video since it is disabled by EMI cause they suck!)

And the final video is worth it for the goofiest, most out-dated commercial introduction I’ve seen in a long time done by a guy who calls himself “Coolaphonic Dude”. The video is from RV bloggers who are honeymooning on the road around the US and Canada, and discuss the phenomenon of Wal-Mart camping.

So, after all that I finally want to come to my point, which is a reply to the pale pragmatism and flat sensibility that fuels articles like Mike Notess’s piece in eLearn Magazine’s opinions section titled “Not Dead Yet: Why the Institutional LMS is Worth Saving”. What we have there is basically a capitulation of possibly the single most important development of the last 500 years for teaching and learning (i.e., the internet) fatalistically re-framed and simplified by the unavoidably practical benefits of the LMS. In other words, the fact that universities have become hooked on LMSs, the same way the US got hooked on Wal-Mart, is nothing less than catastrophic when we think about how woefully behind K-12 and higher education institutions are when it comes to integrating the internet into the art of teaching. Institutional LMSs engender policies of pragmatism and efficiency, and people at institutions arguing erroneously for the for the “LMS path of least resistance” are doing far more harm than good to the culture of education right now, and the idea of pitting “EDUPUNKs” against the pseudo-corporate logic of double-talk that notes I’m not against innovation, I just want to help the LMS get better for its remaining few years seems misdirected. What? How is that at all useful? What are universities hospice for LMSs now? They’re either dying or dead already, jump off that burning ship now!

We have simply invented the means of their relevance through a continued insistence on alienating what we do in the classroom from what is happening a mouse click away. To truly bring educational institutions to the next stage of distributed and networked learning (which is the future!), we have to start by killing LMSs and investing that money and more into people how can work with faculty, staff, and students to re-imagine the art of teaching, learning, and sharing in relationship to that little thing most LMSs seem to disregard all together: the internet! We have been learning in the clean, well-lighted space of Wal-Mart’s parking lots for far too long, let’s go to a camp site, if not the wilderness, and rough it for a bit so that we can actually enjoy the very reason why we started on this trip in the first place, the democratic vistas of possibility!

We don’t invest in companies to transform higher Ed, for that we need to invest in people. And a pragmatic attachment to the LMS will only further the predominance and consolidation of forcing people into corporate monoliths like Google—a reality which does scare me as much as it fascinates me—but most certainly makes me value the possibilities educational institutions have for re-imagining that future of education—one they may not have for that much longer if they continue to divorce their work from the source of that transformation.

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.

I love this project’s focus upon web-based multimedia, a reality that most of today’s textbook publishers have shunned. And on the rare occasions these publishers do go online, they spend all their time and money on locking stuff down rather than designing resources that are useful. Who needs ArtStor when we have Flickr? And this is where this site excels, not only is it a series of amazing resources that are linked through third-party sites like Flickr, Vimeo, and YouTube, but it has also spent a lot of time and energy designing a very elegant site—I guess as any good Art History site must. And in recognition of this fact they have been nominated for a People’s Webbie Award, so if you’re into that kinda thing you can go and throw them a vote by April, 30th here. Congratulations on raising the profile of educational sites that don’t suck (both aesthetically and monetarily)!

I have to say that it’s a crime that the audio of Bruce Sterling’s rant at this year’s SXSW Interactive hasn’t been posted online yet. it was one of the few highlights to an otherwise lackluster conference. SXSW was one of the most anti-intellectual conferences I have ever been to—any mentions of theory, or big scary words like “postmodernism,” were immediately scorned upon or shot down. Heather Gold’s moderation of the “Everything I Needed to Know about the Web I Learned from Feminism” was an excellent example of pitching to the least common denominator while shamelessly promoting herself. God forbid she let danah boyd say a big word!

And I have to say it was absurd how everyone and their mother was fawning over Twitter as if it came out yesterday (it’s almost three years old and preparing to join the Google family already, people). Seemed to me like people were walking around mindlessly celebrating a rather uninspired landscape of technology and thought at the conference more generally (and the EDUPUNK panel I was part of must certainly be included in this characterization of uninspired). I’d heard a lot of good things about this conference, but I guess I missed the boat on this one cause this year’s event was more of the same bullshit online branding and marketing speak–just a bit more impressively masked as either mindless tech market Utopianism or self-help 2.0.

Yet, to be fair it wasn’t all bad, there was at least one highlight for me. Bruce Sterling’s rant was right on. I was hoping to listen to it again before I talked about it in more detail. In fact, I’ll have to do that cause I can only recall bits and pieces, but there was a point in his stream of thought that really impressed me (well, besides his discussion of the future of publishing as epitomized by survivalist bookstores like Brave New Books—which I loved). He went off about how much we had miscalculated the digital divide theories of the 90s that were to define the digital world of haves and have-nots by whether they were or weren’t connected. It seemed logical to assume that the impoverished would not be connected, whereas the rich would be decadently consuming all the bandwidth.

Well, as he pointed out, it didn’t quite work out that way, connectivity became cheap with cellphones, and he comically noted that “poor folk love their cellphones!” What’s happening is that this increased dependence upon connectivity, rather than being some kind of indicator of privilege, is actually a sign of our increased impoverishment. The fact is that the wealthy are those who can afford not to be connected, not to be pimping their “online brand” so shamelessly, not twittering their asses off at all hours of the day for a quick networking fix. The impoverishment of networks through connectivity!—it was such a radical re-thinking of this idea of connectivity as the new “social capital” (when did Pierre Bourdieu enter the Web 2.0 vocabulary?–do these dickheads know a ‘postmodern’ social theorist infused that term with its contemporary meaning?). Connectivity as poverty, trippy, that might throw a wrench into the Connectivism theory though It kinda makes sense to my poor ass cause that’s how I’m living—and this is all just a cheap thrill to avoid thinking about the inevitable.

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!