I’ve been seeing a bit of talk around about EduPunk, and I’m always loath to jump onto the latest meme[1], but I think this time, the name is actually what’s been missing from what I (and Luke) have been doing with the Wiki course.  I’m not completely sure about the name, it resonates with some people, but l feel hesitant at taking that particular label.

Part of what I wanted to achieve using the wiki when I got the GEL Fellowship was to get away from the coprotisation[2] of education.  I’d only been using BlackPlank[3] for two years, but it really got me that its design was not really user centred.  Nothing I wanted to do could be done.  There are still things that I want from an LMS that aren’t there, particularly given that I had just come from an institution that had an in-house designed LMS that did do what I thought was great for communicating with students.  And it was so simple I called it a minimalist design in my PhD.  But BlackPlank seems to be maximalist — it wants to be everything to everyone.

I will admit to squeeing over the demonstration of BlackPlank 8 the other day — the gradebook finally looks usable from my perspective and it doesn’t change much from the student’s perspective[4].  But before this turns into a rant against the established LMS in our institution, I’ll get it back to a rant against the establishment in general.

EduPunk.  Whatever the label may be, that’s what I am.  I can’t be otherwise while using a wiki and getting students to create their text book for a course.  I’m wondering if I should include the theme of EduPunk somewhere in the paper that Luke and I are (re)writing, given that it’s already been rejected from one journal for not being ’scientific’ enough.  Part of me wants to say ‘to heck with the established journal publication route’ but that won’t give me tenure[5].

Why do we talk so much about student empowerment, student engagement, student centred learning only to be enmeshed in a standardised system with monolithic be-everything-to-everyone-tools?  I get the feeling that the term EduPunk is a response to that dichotomy and an attempt to bring coherence back to our lived experiences as learners and teachers, because that’s what we do!

Just like the sun, peeking out from behind the Opera House, EduPunk seems to lighten things in a tantalising way — not quite fully shining on the establishment, but hinting at possibilities.

1. That’s what LiveJournal is for [↩]
2. I really must stop mispelling that word [↩]
3. Maybe I should say Blackboard, but board … plank … there’s an analogy in there somewhere [↩]
4. I don’t actually remember asking to see what students see, I was so excited seeing something that was usable  particularly for my large classes of 300+ [↩]
5. I must remember to make or find a list of open journals — and publish only there from here on it — to heck with the established route [↩]