I made the point that edupunk is a sort of metaphor, and like all metaphors we only map certain parts across to the new domain - in this case I thought it was the DIY, have-a-go approach of punk, and some of the anarchic nature of it. What we wouldn't want to map across was the slightly Stalinist approach that came with punk where people were either punk or not, and anything that was not was decreed rubbish.

And this made me think about some of the angst people have had about the term - it's seen as an either/or. Are you an edupunk or not? As I stated a while ago, I don't think I am, too much of what I do is just mundane or corporate or conservative in approach. But it struck me that it's not about being an edupunk, but rather preserving some area of what you do where you can do edupunk kinda stuff - or eduWomble, or research, or play, or social networking, whatever you want to call it. Just as Google has Google Time when employees can experiment with stuff, so universities and educators need to have edupunk time - a period when you can explore stuff away from the mass of concerns that arise whenever you try and do anything with education: learning objectives, accessibility, workloads, technical expertise, cost implications, etc. All of these are important, but sometimes you need room to explore in an area that is free from having to meet a wide range of criteria at the outset.

So new management proposal - 10% edupunk time for all. Any takers?

It’s no secret that I think Blackboard and WebCT are a scam. They charge excessive rates for a second rate, clunky product, and Blackboard is trying to patent and corner the market (all around bad for education). At any rate I think most of what Blackboard offers can be done for free, in a more user friendly way. For my purposes a blog covers almost everything I need (consider me to be edupunk). I do however realize that there are some feature others want that are not as easy with a blog (online grades, test quizzes, etc.). Some faculty are simply looking for a more robust Course Management Platform. Enter Nfomedia.

A group of tech-savvy professors are claiming punk music as inspiration for their approach to teaching. They call their approach Edupunk.

Sorry Jim, I’m not going to be joining you. Despite the fact that I’ve set out my stall saying that the edublogosphere is (in some ways) changing for the worse, an ‘Edupunk’ movement is not the answer. Why?

1. It’s a group, not a network - i.e. 1.0 not 2.0 (OK, so I know you reject labels…)
2. It harks back to a time when either I wasn’t born or was very, very young. I have no meaningful connection with the metaphor you’re trying to use.
3. It makes any members of the movement sound vaguely violent.
4. It seems to have the assumption behind it that we (either individually or collectively) have the answers, when actually we’re learners like everyone else.
5. Most Web 2.0 apps are free, and I’m at liberty to pick and choose them at will and use them how I want.

I’m all for being counter-cultural, anti-capitalist and bold towards authority, but I don’t think the right essence has been captured with ‘Edupunk’. Sorry.

A group of tech-savvy professors are claiming punk music as inspiration for their approach to teaching. They call their approach Edupunk.

Punk rock was a rebellion against the clean, predictable sound of popular music and it also encouraged a do-it-yourself attitude. Edupunk seems to be a reaction against the rise of course-managements systems, which offer cookie-cutter tools that can make every course Web site look the same.

Jim Groom, an instructional-technology specialist and adjunct professor at the University of Mary Washington, coined the term, and this week on his blog he declared himself a poster boy for the movement. He says he is worried that Blackboard’s latest release, which attempts to incorporate the latest social-networking tools, will end up presenting a watered-down version of what pioneers of Web 2.0 technologies have done in their experiments.

Anyway, I scanned through the instructions and guidelines, and then entered a couple of paragraphs of definition, saved, and then went back in and added a citation and some comments. Then, revisiting the article to add something else less than five minutes later, the message to the right had been posted. I must admit to a fairly intense flashback to early days when I had a genuine fear of breaking the rules. I felt I’d been caught, — by the principal.

However, isn’t this the Wikipedia at its best. Isn’t it the basis of many educators’ resistance to The Free Encyclopedia, that anyone can post anything they like? I thought, “Here’s a great example of the power of a social information source, not that it is unvetted, but that it is incredibly vetted — continually vetted.”

Within the little educational technology corner of the interweb where I hang out, this has to be the fastest spreading meme/idea I have yet seen. I think that, like the mycelium of a fungus, edupunk has been growing below the surface of the conversation for a while. The conditions have recently become right for it to become visible.

I’m not sure what to make of edupunk. It might be the meme of the week. It might be a cultural movement within the edtech community. It might be a manifestation of our collective mid-life crisis (a lot of us seem to be in the neighbourhood of 40). It might be, and I suspect it is, a combination of all these things. I’m not sure all my thoughts about edupunk have been completely exorcised from my mind, but it is 2 a.m. and sleep beckons. I’m sure I will have more to say when my neurons have had the chance to rest.

Is it just me or does the idea of an EDUPUNK strike you as being part of a caste system? I don’t like the caste systems where you are defined by your social culture, economic class, or political affiliations. It reminds me of high schools where clicks ruled. Clicks suck especially when you are on the outside. How many of you never got to sit at the cool table at lunch? I remember the PUNKS in high school and they are not fond memories so counting myself as one now does not make sense to me.

Edupunk is an ideology referring to educators and education strategies with a do it yourself (DIY) spirit. Most instructional uses of blogs, wikis, various mashups, and podcasting among many other uses of emerging technologies might be described as DIY education or Edupunk. The term was first used on May 25, 2008 by Jim Groom in his blog, ^[1] and covered less than a week later in the Chronicle of Higher Education^[2].

Examples of Edupunk are Legos, Edusim, chalk, Hypercard, Moodle, use of the Bliki (blog and wiki mashups), students' art work on the outside wall of the classroom, and students teaching their teachers how to use technology.

Edupunk is also a rejection of efforts by government and corporate interests in using emerging technologies to exercise control over education, its processes, and its stakeholders, somewhat similar to punk ideologies. There is also an element of resistance to large and influential education businesses like Blackboard cooping emerging, collaborative, DIY technologies and techniques and repackaging them as their own product.

If there’s anything that I want to be against, it’s the “two-point-oh” tacked on to anything to denote that we have created a new, shiny, happier version of something - a next step in its evolution. Edupunk, as I see it, isn’t about extending what has come before but rejecting it. We reject shrink-wrapped, profit motive driven, corporate branded education. We especially reject Blackboard, apparently.

But seriously … if edupunk is against all those things, then what is it for? I know some people will cringe at my attempt to define or list edupunk values. I’m cringing even as I type this. Definitions and lists might not be very edupunk of me, but if you disagree, I won’t take it personally.

OK - my edupunk values list/credo:

• We claim ownership of our words, our ideas, our learning, our teaching, our education. Jim says “Corporations are selling us back our ideas, innovations, and visions
  for an exorbitant price. I want them all back, and I want them now!”
• We claim the right to share these freely so that others can benefit without limits based on ability to pay. Creative Commons licensing is a means to enable this.
• We claim control of our culture. We claim the right to borrow, reference, allude to, mix and mash up the creative works that exist for the purpose of teaching and learning. We do this not to prevent artists and creators from earning a living but as a rejection of corporate control/hegemony of our culture.
• We believe that education is a gift, not a commodity. Education should never be commoditized, shrink-wrapped, marketed and sold. Education is a sacred obligation to our children and it would be indecent to contextualize that in economic terms. Again, this does not negate the fact that people need to earn a living. We just don’t want education being viewed as something that generates a profit.
• It’s about the learning, not about the technology. OK, that one is a negation, but it needed to be included. Technology can provide certain opportunities for learning, but learning can take place in junkyard just as easily as on the internet.
• We all contribute equally. There are no ‘A’-list edupunks or awards for best blog for educators. Any attempt to raise one of us above others will result in a pelting with rotten tomotoes.

Parallel to a comment of my own, Jim Groom writes, “Technology may provide new ways of delivering and accessing … information, and mark the basis of many a medium, but the idea of a community and its culture is what makes any technology meaningful and relevant.” This summary provides a kernel for recognizing the engagement, collaboration, and experience that web 2.0 technologies purport to provide are only (?) metaphors for the learning/teaching in which many of us are already engaged. Getting one’s hands dirty in the performance of literal, actual, meaningful work can be the scaffold for community, collaboration, and engagement that technology can potentially help facilitate. It is this very interface of ‘high touch’ engagement with students in experiential learning and the ‘high tech’ of collaborative technologies that has been challenging my thinking about technology lately - how to be sure that effective tech supports rather than replaces the meaning of experience.

The concept of Edupunk has totally caught wind, spreading through the blogosphere like wildfire. This post summarizes several recent posts and offers something like a definition (I would like to think that true edupunks deride definitions as tools of oppression used by defenders of order and conformity): "edupunk is student-centered, resourceful, teacher- or community-created rather than corporate-sourced, and underwritten by a progressive political stance.

So we’re nine days on in the era of Edupunk, and it appears things are perhaps calming down, but not before some rather intense discussions, conversations and kicking over some garbage cans. Let’s see there’s Jim’s original post, the comments, the definition, the critique, the defense, the “narcissism”, the Wikipedia article, the other article (and the comments), and finally the end. There have been lots of arguments about what Edupunk is, whether it’s even worth talking about, along with all of the other non-productive hand-wringing and smack-downs. In less than a fortnight we’ve gone from a made up word, to a term, to an ideology (puhleeze).

Hey, we kind of know what “Edu” is all about. Everybody is doing their best to make a difference, trying out things, making mistakes. You know learning. “Punk” is about anger. Sometimes misplaced. Often completely irrational. There were some very ugly people associated with punk in its early days. They were angry. Angry at authority. It wasn’t productive. They would eat their own. They would self-destruct. Think the guy in the foil hat is “punk”? Seriously?

I have to re-blog Brad Efford’s comment here (I fully acknowledge I am a huge fan of Brad’s, he epitomizes the grit, quirky humor, and intelligence of UMW’s finest, and having him in this conversation is both fun and important–he has much to add as you’ll see below). His comment crystallizes, yet again, so many things that I find attractive about the idea of EDUPUNK for, as Brad himself notes, “the overt & purposeful manipulation of all these different consumer electronics just to make a quick, joyous noise track!” Wow, first the British Invasion and now EDUNOISE —I know I am pushing it, but fuck it, I am having fun!