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Testimonials:
Generations from now, they won't call it the Internet anymore. They'll just say, "I logged on to the Jim Groom this morning.
-Joe McMahon
Everything Jim Groom touches is gold. He's like King Midas, but with the Internet.
-Serena Epstein
My understanding is that an essential requirement of the internet is to do whatever Jim Groom asks of you while you're online.
-James D. Calder
@jimgroom is the Billy Martin of edtech.
-Luke Waltzer
My 3yr old son is VERY intrigued by @jimgroom's avatar. "Is he a superhero?" "Well, yes, son, to many he is."
-Clint Lalonde
Jim Groom is a fiery man.
-Antonella Dalla Torre
“Reverend” Jim “The Bava” Groom, alias “Snake Pliskin” is a charlatan and a fraud, a self-confessed “used car salesman” clawing his way into the glamour of the education technology keynote circuit via the efforts of his oppressed minions at the University of Mary Washington’s DTLT and beyond. The monster behind educational time-sink ds106 and still recovering from his bid for hipster stardom with “Edupunk”, Jim spends his days using his dwindling credibility to sell cheap webhosting to gullible undergraduates and getting banned from YouTube for gross piracy.
I am Jim Groom
Find out more about me here.
Recent comments
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Recent Posts
- Conference, Camera, ILTA!
- You’re definitely Dr Detroit …
- The Reclaim Student Showcase Returns for 2026
- Domain of One’s Own Version 2
- Heigh Ho, Heigh Ho, It’s Off to ILTA’s EdTech 26 We Go
- Atari 2600 Game Cartridge Display Stand
- Building a Blog You Can Walk Into
- Deferred Maintenance: Upgrading Mastodon and PeerTube
- Fulci the Psychic
- Let the Golden Age Begin
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Contributors
some favorites
- Alan Levine
- Andy Rush
- Audrey Watters
- bava.social
- Bonnie Stewart
- Brian Lamb
- Bryan Alexander
- Chris Lott
- Clint LaLonde
- Cole Camplese
- Darcy Norman
- David Kernohan
- David Wiley
- Gardner Campbell
- GNA Garcia
- Grant Potter
- Jeffrey Keefer
- Jon Beasley-Murray
- Jon Udell
- Kate Bowles
- Kin Lane
- Laura Blankenship
- Leslie Madsen-Brooks
- Lisa M Lane
- Martha Burtis
- Martin Hawksey
- Martin Weller
- Mike Caulfield
- Mikhail Gershovich
- Mountebank
- Paul Bond
- Scott Leslie
- Serena Epstein
- Shannon Hauser
- Stephen Downes
- The OLDaily
- Tim Owens
- Tom Woodward
- Tony Hirst
Category Archives: Family Pictures Podcast
Weapons Reloaded
The Family Pictures Podcast can’t stop, won’t stop. At this point we’re well over 50 episodes, and lord knows the bava has some blogging to do to catch-up. After our unique awards ceremony, MBS and I decided to re-do one … Continue reading
2025 Family Pictures Podcasts Awards
About a month ago now Michael Branson Smith (MBS) and I did a special episode of the Family Pictures Podcast in order to look back on all the films we had discussed up and until that point (there were 48). … Continue reading
Shane Is Fight Club in Reverse
One of the things that emerged in our discussion of Shane (1953) in episode 44 of the Family Pictures Podcast is just how explicitly the film is rooted in real labor history, specifically the Johnson County War of the late … Continue reading
Thresholds of Violence in The Searchers (1956)
After re-watching The Searchers (1956) for episode 43 of the Family Pictures Podcast, I was struck by the way director John Ford constantly uses thresholds or portals to visualize the moral structure of the film. It isn’t so much about … Continue reading
The Zenith of the Western, the Rise of Sci-Fi, and Perhaps a Return
I’m trying to catch up on some of my thoughts that I’ve been circling as a result of recent episodes of the Family Pictures Podcast, which continues to be an absolute blast. We’ve started to dig into Westerns with our … Continue reading
The New Land vs Empire Strikes Back
For this week’s Family Pictures Podcast, MBS and I discussed the 1972 masterpiece The New Land, a film adapted from a novel chronicling a Swedish family’s emigration to Minnesota in the 19th century. I had never heard of the film … Continue reading
Family Pictures Podcast at Reclaim Open
As part of Reclaim Hosting’s blogathon during day 1 of Reclaim Open Michael Branson Smith (MBS) and I presented about the “Joy of Podcasting” live on ds106radio. The audio below includes our half-hour discussion around how and why we started … Continue reading
The Joy of Podcasting
My last post was supposed to detail the “Hot Summer 70s Family Horror” series MBS and I are doing right now for the Family Pictures Podcast, but it turned into a love letter to that podcast. We’re gonna record episode … Continue reading
Hot Summer 70s Family Horror
On a recent trip back to New York I had the good fortune of meeting up with the better half of the Family Pictures Podcast and doing two episodes of our gobsmackingly amazing film podcast in person. What’s cool about … Continue reading
Family Pictures Podcast: Pauline at the Beach (1983)
For episode 20 — we’re obviously committed at this point, so subscribe already! — we take a long stroll through the shifting sands of Èric Rohmer’s Pauline at the Beach, a breezy yet piercingly sharp entry in his “Comedies and … Continue reading