Watch the bava blog trailer!
about
is an ongoing conversation about media of all kinds ...
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
- Reverend on Punk’s Not Dead
- Reverend on Punk’s Not Dead
- Martin Weller on Punk’s Not Dead
- Maren Deepwell on Punk’s Not Dead
- Jim Groom on Punk’s Not Dead
- Jim Groom on Punk’s Not Dead
- Scott Leslie on Punk’s Not Dead
- Alan Levine on Punk’s Not Dead
- Jim Groom on You’re definitely Dr Detroit …
- Jim Groom on Atari 2600 Game Cartridge Display Stand
- Jim Groom on Conference, Camera, ILTA!
- Jim Groom on Conference, Camera, ILTA!
- Tom on Conference, Camera, ILTA!
- Zach Davis on Atari 2600 Game Cartridge Display Stand
- GNA Garcia on You’re definitely Dr Detroit …
-
Recent Posts
- Punk’s Not Dead
- Unscripted Futures
- 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
browse the bavarchive
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
Tag Archives: movies
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
Invasion of the Mind Snatchers
I was originally going to call this post “Invasion of the Content Snatchers,” but what’s happening in this process is more than simply “stealing content” (if we can even call it that), but a shift in how we might potentially … 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
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
Pedator: Badlands
Once you start making dioramas about films you start seeing them everywhere. Case in point, I went to the AMC multiplex The Grove in LA and what do I see as soon as I enter the lobby? A diorama to … 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
Family Pictures Podcast: Taken (2008)
For episode 19 we went full throttle into Taken (2008), a hyper-efficient father-daughter revenge fantasy that launched Liam Neeson into late-career action-hero orbit.* You know the line. You probably heard it quoted before, or even quoted it yourself after watching … Continue reading
Family Pictures Podcast: Not Without My Orientalist Captivity Narrative (1991)
N.B: Ongoing experiments with AI-enhanced posts for my Family Pictures Podcast summaries. I think this will be one of the last. Although I do really get a kick out of how ChatGPT understands how I write, and what it fashions … Continue reading
Family Pictures Podcast: “TV Made Me Do It” – The Positively True Adventures of the Alleged Texas Cheerleader-Murdering Mom (1993)
N.B.: Another cyborg post: half-bava, half-ChatGPT, and all right! I am now officially using ChatGPT to push out these Family Pictures Podcast posts, sue me! Which part is bava, which ChatGPT? Can you guess? Are you even reading, my big, … Continue reading