May 30, 2008
Frustrated With Corporate Course-Management Systems, Some Professors Go 'Edupunk'
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.
It appears that Mr. Groom and others are still working out exactly what Edupunk means (Stephen Downes gives a good overview of the buzz on his blog). Leslie Madsen Brooks, of the BlogHer blog, says the term captures the “scrappy, DIY spirit in some sectors of educational technology.”
Dave Warlick, who runs a technology consulting firm called The Landmark Project, riffed on that thought by adding: “I do not have any real objection to corporate embrace of these tools. We’re all trying to make a living. What worries me, though, is school officials hearing the buzz, and thinking that they can buy their way into the crowd, rather than learning their way in.”—Jeffrey R. Young
Posted on Friday May 30, 2008 | Permalink |Comments
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what?
Is that Drew Carey?
— Jilli May 30, 04:39 PM #
Hey, I am all for rebellion against Blackboard and its ilk, not because it’s not quite Web 2.0 (web 1.2, maybe?) but because these course management packages are user-unfriendly kludgeware that are more trouble than they are worth. Besides, I’ve never had a chance to be a punk—this comes at just the right time.
— Tom down south May 30, 04:40 PM #
Where are his razor nails and implanted eye shades?
— George May 30, 05:04 PM #
math and chemistry profs—ALEKS is not a corprate tool…book agnostic. It just helps you be you better while rigorously enforcing pre-requisites before teaching students things they aren’t ready to learn yet.
Can you do that? Really? With 300 students?
http://www.aleks.com
— Eric Gates May 30, 05:24 PM #
Well, by this definition I proudly proclaim myself an edu punk.
I think what we’re really talking about here is Open Source philosophies – of thought, technology and content – versus top down, proprietary models.
Additionally, all of these proprietary tools are entirely divorced from the ideas, culture and figures who inspired their very existence and proprietary models will only further alienate users from the most profound uses of technology.
Some educators know the difference between corporate tech and citizen tech. We want to make sure our students are also aware of those differences and give them some CHOICE in the environments and tools we’re using in the classroom.
http://melaniemcbride.net
— Melanie May 30, 05:27 PM #
I couldn’t agree more with The Reverend Groom. I’m going to have my students this Summer do a collaborative project using Drupal because BlackBoard is too closed and they can’t take ownership of the site they’ll create. When I asked the EduBUNK people at my campus for an install, they were like ‘We don’t know that is, therefore you don’t need it. How about a Listserv?’
So I’ll be creating the site and hosting it myself, and the students will take over by the end to make it representative of their research. Universities need to start providing fully capable (i.e. with MySQL, PHP, and whatever else) and BLANK webspace for faculty to do what they want in.
A one-size-fits-all approach with BlackBoard and its ilk is like forcing No Child Left Behind in higher education. Take no account of individual learning styles and creativity, teach only to whatever parameters are handed down, and you got yourself a bunch of passive, lame ducks. Just the kind of citizens we want in this age of abundant technological media.
— Jeff Drouin May 30, 06:01 PM #
The Rev! Good to see him here, though it may be better if his efforts were still under the radar… The Bliki lives!
— Jeff McNeill May 30, 06:10 PM #
Once something is accepted by the mainstream and becomes profitable, academia shuns it.
edupunk could become web3.0 and that will get popular and shunned as well.
“Undermine their pompous authority, reject their moral standards, make anarchy and disorder your trademarks. Cause as much chaos and disruption as possible but don’t let them take you ALIVE.” ~Sid
— Peter Naegele May 30, 07:10 PM #
Wow, did this hit a nerve! I had to use Bb to create a program and could never get over how poorly designed it was….
I would like to see some concrete examples of what Edupunk is proposing. Does it offer elegant solutions for putting courses online…or is it only for the technically savvy ?
— Marjorie May 30, 07:14 PM #
Don’t stick a candle in turd and call it a cupcake.
— Shala May 31, 01:21 AM #
wtf?
— 35 Cent May 31, 01:24 AM #
I am all for pioneers, rebels, and explorers. Higher ed needs edupunk. I’m not sure why the emphasis here on Blackboard resistance – a review of the links above show the initial edupunk label to be applied both more broadly and deeply than this article lets on.
Would punk rockers “worry about” the latest American Idol winners? The reason that there can be an “edupunk” movement is that it’s not mainstream. Please, be comfortable with that, be out there, and recognize that the mainstream is not going to be there with you. Blackboard is for some faculty as far as they’ll ever go … I’m grateful it’s moving closer to the learning potential of web 2.0. For many other faculty, Bb is a starting point, and they will figure out its limitations, and then the good work of edupunk will have shown them an alternative. But edupunk also seems to be about alternatives to many other aspects of mainstream education.
— Jim May 31, 01:35 AM #
YAAY! I am also going to smash all my corporate-made computers and hand-build my own. It’s NOT about the vehicle – it’s how you use it…
— Lee May 31, 02:34 AM #
@ Lee #13 – If you’re serious about that, check out luddite.com.
Be sure to watch the interview with Dr. Buckman. He hits the edupunk nail on the corporate coffin.
— Jeff Drouin May 31, 01:14 PM #
Gabba gabba hey!!
— MK Gold May 31, 02:46 PM #
Tip for BB hatas: Let your local IT drones load your online sections into BB, so you don’t get in trouble with the Computer Nazis. Then link from BB into whatever you want to use. What’re they gonna do — say you can’t have external links? Da playa hatas…
— fred May 31, 04:39 PM #
Something we’ve developed at the Center for History and New Media is ScholarPress, a hub for developing educational Wordpress plugins. Hundreds of ‘edupunks’ are using their WP blogs and our courseware plugin to run course blogs including assignments and scheduling.
Also — we have a plugin to embed your blog into Facebook. Check it out, http://scholarpress.net
— Dave Lester May 31, 07:22 PM #
This sounds like a good initiative for the high flying tech-savvy few, but this isn’t the way most faculty want to go. The cookie cutter approach provided by Blackboard is exactly what the majority of faculty want. There is something to be said in terms of usability when courses have a similar framework and layout. When people start speaking of open source and hosting their own sites, they need to realize that they are the vast minority of faculty. Most do not have the skills or the inclination to go this route. I agree that institutions should support the innovators and early adopters out there, but for the majority a standard CMS like Blackboard is just fine.
— Kevin Schoepp Jun 1, 02:01 AM #
now this is Edupunk – http://edusim3d.com
— Iggy Pop Jun 1, 12:00 PM #
Sounds like some group that missed the Online Learning revolution a decade ago and wants to recreate it. I have been teaching online 11 years and started when there were no CMS. Just some space on a server at the school and your imagination. My first course was cobbled together with html, no coding software, write it yourself, and IRC and a ListServ. I spent more time teaching the students how to navigate the class then teaching the subject, which was Principles of eCommerce. Although there is much that could be improved with Blacboard and WebCT, it at least allows the instructor to focus on their subject matter, not the delivery technology.
These newbies need to understand your average online student is a working adult, 30-50 years old, not a IM savy kid. They are online not because its cool, but because it’s the only option that have to get an education without quitting their job. Many are single Mothers who are not able to afford baby sitters as well as day care and have no other option for going to school. Others are military personal on active duty at firebases in Iraq and Afghanistan whose Internet capabilities are limited due to the combat conditions they are working under.
Online to most online learners is not about Web 2.0 or playing with the latest tech toy. Its about learning the course’s subject matter so they are able to get a better job or a promotion and make more money to support their family. This movement may be ok for the high school crowd and others with who love technology. And fun for them. But it will undermine the reputation for quality instruction that online programs have spent years earning. And undermine the efforts of their university serving the groups in their community that benefit most from online learning.
— Tom from Houston Jun 1, 06:11 PM #
I’m with Tom from Houston. Most online instructors and students are looking for tools that make their lives easier so they can teach and learn. We’ve been integrating Web 2.0 tools into our online and blended courses for several years. We use these tools where appropriate like the use of wikis for small group projects. We don’t add new tools because they are new. I hope this edupunk movement is about more than just being different.
We like the addition of the Facebook plug-in for Blackboard because it allows students to check for new course content in a place where they already go when online. Students have the choice of installing the Sync application. Once installed they have to choose to click the Sync icon when in Facebook to find out if there is new content. Course content isn’t pushed onto students so it isn’t mixed with updates from their friends. Sync lets students quickly see if they should go to Blackboard and interact.
Blackboard lost its way for a few years when it focused on innovation in other areas besides teaching and learning. They seem to be finding their way back with tools like Sync and SafeAssign. We appreciate that they are including these enhancements in the enterprise version without additional cost.
— David from Seattle Jun 1, 06:50 PM #
I’m all for a little revolution. The bottom line (to use a corporate metaphor) is that Blackboard and other virtual learning environments have two purposes: to allow teachers with little technical knowledge to more easily organize and present online courses, and to ensure that universities get paid (by keeping non-paying members of the public out). Is this as much of a losing proposition as trying to sell CDs in a world of MP3s and file sharing?
— Bob Jun 2, 05:50 AM #
Ah, yes, it’s the old “if the majority of people are using it (listening to it, reading it, etc), it must be crap” syndrome. Let the techies who enjoy manipulating the bits and bytes do that, but don’t put down the majority of folks who are more interested in their own disciplines than in technology.
Bb, WebCT, Angel, D2L, (etc.) are cookie cutter in the same sense that classrooms are cookie cutter, but you never hear anyone say, “Hey! I need a classroom that I can paint any color I want or my students won’t learn anything!”
It’s what happens in the classrooms that makes a difference in learning, just like it’s the way you use a discussion board, chat interface, online quiz function, content presentation tool, wiki, or any number of features found in Bb, WebCT, Angel, D2L and (dare I say) the very tools I suspect the edupunks are using/building, as well.
Yes, please do explore new tools and functions; we all can benefit from this. Just don’t kid yourself that this makes you superior to the folks who’d rather spend their time in other ways.
— Susan Jun 2, 10:04 AM #
I like the idea behind EduPunk, but then again I also like the idea behind Moodle, Sakai, and a half dozen other open source efforts to build Learning Management Systems (LMS).
Okay, the good reverend doesn’t know, or mention to the reporter, these other efforts, but was a Google search that hard for the reporter?
— John Laudun Jun 2, 10:08 AM #
hey… remember when we used to have to actually ‘look’ for the materials from the library and get them ourselves? remember when mommy finally kicked us out of the house at 34 while we were working on our 3rd degree? remember when i beat billy up in the 3rd grade?
why are we trying to put everything on a single silver spoon for these kids? how bout WORKING for an actual grade and the re-emergence of scholarship instead of remediation?
— cardcatalog Jun 2, 10:11 AM #
Tom: Thanks for your sensitivity to the students we’re trying to serve. I’m all for innovation, but make sure the nontraditional students can actually use the new technology easily. Otherwise, you’ve just added more difficulty to their already over-full lives…
— Katherine Jun 2, 10:23 AM #
At our college, Blackboard is a practical tool for delivering course content. For the few who want to experiment in other venues, e.g. building their own sites, using blogs, wikis, Second Life, links through BB or other methods meet their needs. As Tom mentioned, our largest student population is nontraditional students. They don’t have the time or energy to learn the nuances of individual websites. They just want to get to information on their assignments so they can complete them.
Finally, have you seen some of the websites developed out there by well intentioned faculty. Most do not use good graphic user interface techniques, blast the information delivered with advertisements where they get paid for click throughs and wonder why students don’t want to view the material they’ve worked so hard to deliver!
— Sue Schmidt Jun 2, 10:24 AM #
Blackboard is a great tool for teaching and learning—a bit on the expensive side, but an effective tool nonetheless. While labeling these folks as “edupunk” and calling it a movement makes for a good story, it is still just a blip on the higher ed radar. They’re not doing anything that many of us weren’t doing on our own 14 years ago. In fact most all of the LMS’s currently available not only work well, but are accessible to many faculty who are, indeed, too busy with their own field of study to become fixated on doing everything manually. Furthermore, I do think that is Drew Carey. Seriously.
— C. Bartowsky Jun 2, 10:48 AM #
Instructional technologists and professors like Jim Groom, who cut their teeth teaching tons of courses as graduate students at the City University of New York, certainly know how teaching and learning gets done. They are using newer open source Web 2.0 tools precisely because they’re more effective for teaching and learning in particular classes. Such tools can be more effective than BB at helping students learn the material and think less about the technology.
Also, these types of tools are not necessarily being used for online courses, but as online components of courses that meet in classrooms.
The instructional technology endeavors of folks like Jim have primarily to do with better teaching and learning and less to do with being cool or running ahead of the crowd. The advantage is not in conveying information but in designing activities in which students learn through authoring material in a space devoted to the course. Unfortunately, the reporter did not bother to delineate this in the article, focusing instead on what was sensational.
From an institutional and learning point of view, I think universities would be far better served in the long run by employing bands of innovative instructional technology specialists who can help less tech-savvy faculty design and implement tailor-made (and easy to use) tools for their courses, rather than sinking money into expensive tools like BlackBoard. That way, you’d get a continually evolving and capable group that is (1) pushing the limits of teaching and learning through both emerging and well-established technologies, (2) collaborating with other faculty to implement effective activities in their courses, and (3) contributing to the institutional conversation on what constitutes knowledge and learning. Better to invest in the human capital first, and then in the technology.
— Jeff Drouin Jun 2, 10:57 AM #
There are always splinter groups that are so “into” something that they just have to create their own version. That’s fine, but that has no relevance to most online teaching and learning. Most faculty members are just starting to explore online teaching, and they really need the structure and consistency of Blackboard or WebCT. The tools available could be more intuitive, but they work OK and will improve over time.
— Al Jun 2, 12:08 PM #
Most people do not really want freedom, because freedom involves responsibility, and most people are frightened of responsibility.
— Sigmund Freud Jun 2, 01:06 PM #
My campus just upgraded to ANGEL 7.2…and now the communication piece really sucks. Takes much longer to load. Has screwed up my signature and no one can tell me why. So what are the leading alternatives to commercial CMS/LMS?
— John Thompson Jun 2, 01:08 PM #
I’m completely dumbfounded by the number of posts here that say, essentially, “Blackboard and WebCT have their problems, but they work OK.” When I hear that I can only think of Mr. Hand’s great line in Fast Times at Ridgemont High, “Are you people on drugs?”
Seriously; WebCT (now Blackboard Vista) is not getting any better. Like many of you I’ve been teaching online for a decade and have won statewide awards for my online classes, but have finally had it with the corporate LMS systems.
For the last several years I’ve been the online faculty coordinator for my college, so I’ve had lots of contact with non-technical faculty. Blackboard Vista is NOT what they need.
— Stephen Dean Gilbert Jun 2, 01:18 PM #
Jim looks NOTHING like Drew Carey. But what happened to your hair, Jimmy? Anyway, are you, like, famous now?
—An old CUNY friend & fellow UCLA alum
— K.S. Jun 2, 01:56 PM #
Punk was originally more of a return to a purer form of music with improvisation, spoken word, etc. and was not just about “doing it yourself.” Please don’t oversimplify the movement just to have a new “bite.” We music educators thank you.
— Yolanda Williams Jun 2, 03:45 PM #
To carry the music metaphor one step further (maybe too far), while punk (and other disruptive musical movements) gained a broad audience (and ultimately changed the way many of us perceive what “real music” is), there was still Andy Williams, Mitch Miller, and Old Blue Eyes being listened to by a lot of people.
So it will be in education. New, different, innovative ways will be engaged by those who have the desire and motivation to open their minds to change. At the same time, there will be those who say “What a bunch of crap!”, like my dad did, and they will do things in a more, shall we say, traditional way.
The challenge of those of us in the biz is the balancing act, because let’s face it – in the large institutions at least you have to sell the Montovani right next to the Black Flag.
I don’t see how we’ll get away from that. So maybe at least one other question is how to co-exist?
— JRB@MSU Jun 2, 05:18 PM #
Re post #23: Well, actually, I don’t necessarily want to be able to paint the walls different colors, but I do want to be able to move the chairs around, put things up on the walls, give the students room to reconfigure the room, and so forth, all of which are made very difficult in many teaching spaces.
Likewise, the most satisfying way I’ve ever used Blackboard was to give all the students ‘Teacher’ status and let them develop the course content.
The administrative/economic need to control information in the classroom so that schools can stay in business are often at odds with the liberating purposes of teaching.
— Bob Jun 3, 03:07 AM #
This conversation is really about preserving academic freedom in whichever classroom environment we teach.
We need to be careful to preserve the right to take risks and be different…not to become too homogeneous.
There seems to be a paint by numbers sort of way of designing online courses that constrains creativity at some institutions. Much like the cruise ship ad where everyone marches in lock-step. I understand the need for some control but as #37 states, control efforts must be weighed carefully against “the liberating purposes of teaching.” That’s my two cents.
— Deb Jun 3, 09:50 AM #
In followup to my first comment (#6), today I was directed to the right person at my school and will be eagerly given all the Web 2.0 I need. Edupunk lives in small corners sometimes!
— Jeff Drouin Jun 3, 02:52 PM #
@#39 How could edupunk be anywhere other than in small corners? “Department of Edupunk” would be oxymoronic.
— Jim Jun 3, 06:36 PM #
There’s a reason Blackboard is so despised. It makes nothing easy. Experience matters. That’s why so many people are trying to build alternatives.
Here’s one I’m working on: one that brings the powerful collaborative tools of the internet to everyone in education, with No-geek-necessary installation, whether or not your IT department thinks you should.
The Social Media Classroom
— Brian Christiansen Jun 3, 10:02 PM #
cardcatalog @ #25 obviously hasn’t taken any quality online courses. Online courses are about working (mostly) alone for your scholarship.
The most difficult courses I took in ug and grad schools were the online courses. They were also the ones where I learned the most.
— darrell in dallas Jun 5, 09:41 AM #
There’s also a punk rock HR movement, too.
http://punkrockHR.com
— laurie ruettimann Jun 18, 08:44 PM #
Okay – had to blog on this one – as an ex-old school punk rock fan: http://www.edugeekjournal.com/blog.php?id=170
— Matt Jun 19, 11:18 AM #
My colleague Erika Harris coined another term based on this one. Edupunk’d. Like, you go to an elearning class, but really they fooled you and it was just a power point slide, and they capture your reaction. Or, you go to what you think will be a good class or presentation, but it’s not: “Man, I got edupunk’d by that session….”
— Matt Jun 19, 01:13 PM #
A bit of edu-punk-debunking happening here – http://www.edupunk.com.au
— alexanderhayes Jun 20, 06:33 AM #
In a new JOLT article, Gary Brown and I look at Learning environments (real and digital) and the role that custodians have in sanitizing the spaces. There is another sanitizer — the assessment demands of the education beast, see Trent Batson on the ePortfolio Hijacked
In the Center for Teaching Learning and Technology at WSU, we have been exploring learning is happening inside and outside the university. This has resulted in some thinking about how transforming the grade book could be transformative to the university. The “second variation” on the idea in that article is student DIY learning.
— Nils Peterson Jun 23, 07:41 PM #