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Listen to how this audio project for the 25 Years of Ed Tech book got started with Martin, Clint, & Laura
25 Years of Ed Tech is a serialized audio version of the book 25 Years of Ed Tech, written by Martin Weller of the Open University and published by AU Press. The audio version of the book is a collaborative project with a global community of volunteers contributing their voices to narrate a chapter of the book. Bonus episodes are a series of conversations called "Between the Chapters" to chat about these topics and more!
"In this lively and approachable volume based on his popular blog series, Martin Weller demonstrates a rich history of innovation and effective implementation of ed tech across higher education. From Bulletin Board Systems to blockchain, Weller follows the trajectory of education by focusing each chapter on a technology, theory, or concept that has influenced each year since 1994. Calling for both caution and enthusiasm, Weller advocates for a critical and research-based approach to new technologies, particularly in light of disinformation, the impact of social media on politics, and data surveillance trends. A concise and necessary retrospective, this book will be valuable to educators, ed tech practitioners, and higher education administrators, as well as students."
Credits:
Text in quotes from the book website published by Athabasca University Press CC-BY-NC-ND
BG music Abstract Corporate by Gribsound released under a CC-BY license. Track was edited for time.
Artwork X-Ray Specs by @visualthinkery is licenced under CC-BY-SA.
Audio book chapters produced by Clint Lalonde.
Between the Chapters bonus podcast episodes produced by Laura Pasquini.
0:03
Between the chapters, a weekly podcast discussion focusing on a chapter of the book, 25 years of Ed Tech, written by Martin Weller. here's your host, Laura Pasquini.
0:17
Well, I bought two people on this episode to talk about, what is this thing all about? The 25 years of edtech, the audio book, I blame you, Clint. Anything,
0:30
and I blame Martin
0:34
Weller for...
0:36
Well, this idea came about, I think it's your brainchild. Clint. So how do you?
0:43
Well, it, it started actually, as Martin was kind of finishing up the book. And really, it really does go back to something like a conversation Martin and I had I, I don't know if he actually even remembers this from from a while ago. But every year Martin writes this blog post about how many books he's read any year. And I think it was a couple of years ago, the number was like over 90, and I was like, Oh, my, how do you do that? Like, I can barely get through one or two. And he said, audiobooks. And I've always kind of resisted even though I have an audio background, I've always I've never actually gone down the audiobook route. And so so a conversation with him kind of like oh, maybe I'll get this audio book thing and try and and sure enough, I loved it. And all of a sudden, like my, my book consumption just went through the roof. And so when Martin was talking about his book coming out, I thought, Oh, you know, for somebody who really loves audiobooks, it's too bad that there's not an audio book version of this. And then I thought, well, you know, what if we did something to actually crowdsource this book, and create this audio book version of Martin's book because it's released with a Creative Commons license, so creative commons license allows for sort of format shifting which is what we're doing with this this project. And then it just kind of snowballed from there I started kind of like floating the idea I first I talked to Martin about it and and, you know, he sent me as an advanced preview of the book so I could see what we were kind of getting into and I thought yeah, this would work really well. The chapters are, are, you know, fairly short and digestible and would make a really good what I thought a serialized audio book version of it. And then I started kind of asking people and it just snowballed from there. And before I knew it, I had 25 people everybody dedicated to reading a chapter and talk to the publisher at Athabaskan press and they were on board and thought it was a great idea and yeah, and then started asking people and people jumped on board really quickly.
2:45
Well it's a shame Martin you didn't up your audio skills and did the book yourself the whole book yourself, that's gonna be really soothing. Listen, I think but
2:54
this printer, I do like audible audiobooks a lot. novelists don't go to bed, I just mark has gone through a whole book that's been read by Stephen Fry, I can tell you a single thing about that book and put it online within minutes, I'm asleep. So I think me reading an audiobook version of my own book would have the same effect as soothing. At nighttime. You can get these car maps, they'll send you to sleep. And that's what we get to that.
3:19
That's what I do with podcasts. Actually, that's my best podcast listening time is right before I go to bed, and then I just sort of drift off. So I always hear the first 10 minutes of This American Life. And then after that sleep episodes about
3:33
I love that I like audiobooks as well. But still reading Martin, so I'm with you on that. And obviously podcast. So like I chimed in on this project. And I was like, Where's the banter of this. And I just wanna have a chat with people about the these chapters and they're like, Oh, I guess we could do that. So that's kind of how this was born as well is. It all started with the Google doc and Clint Lalonde, saying who wants to do something and smart, smart smells like me chime in and go, what about the back chat in the conversation?
4:04
Oh, I love that part of the project. I mean, and that was something that a Maha Bali, you know, jumped on the project right away, and was one of the first people to kind of engage with me about it. And she did a test run of the chapter that she was going to read and said, you know, the whole time I was reading this chapter, I just wanted to talk about this chapter. Right. And, and so, so the fact that you came on board and with this idea of doing between the chapters, and you know, having the conversations about the book was just brilliant, and I think is really going to add to the to the to the whole project.
4:36
Yeah, I think you've kind of really makes it come alive. Thanks. I think I've seen a lot earlier. And it's like it's the books kind of just one artifact amongst all these other things, I think and actually, it was never intended to become the definitive history kind of thing. That's very much kind of starting point. Yeah, for chapter mark. I was around and other people's like, why didn't you mention this or we could have gone down this route, you know, it's like, and so each chapter could have been very different. I think we could have sort of Could've been a different technology or could have emphasized different things. And that's, so it's really good to kind of expand what, what the book is, I think in a way and that dialogue around.
5:10
I think, from your blog posts to the book chapters to now talking about them, it's been really interesting to see the evolution of the dialogue. So it's, although it's in a print format, and now audio format, and then commentary, I hope that more people take some of what was written as a springboard for conversation, and maybe even some episodes like we're gonna get really mad I hear and people do have questions and comments and call outs that people would like, we'd love to hear what other people are thinking, or were thinking back in 1996 is I'm just early on in recording a few episodes. But it sounds like there's gonna be more talk about this talk. So I'm feeling good about this. So far.
5:51
We can be employed for life doing this, except that I'm getting money, but
5:55
now accepting sponsors, anyone listening?
5:58
Well, I love the idea, too, that this would be a springboard because, you know, I think part of the rationale, as Martin talks about in the book, and other people in our sector have talked about is just this lack of respect for history of our own, our own our own practice. And so you know, that theme kind of comes up in through some of the chapters of the book, and to be able to have it as the starting point and be able to have other people add their voices and their own perceptions and histories and understandings of the book, then start to develop this rich history that we can start drawing upon and reflecting upon and informing our decisions.
6:35
I think it's important even just today, I saw a tweet, I think Chris retweeted it about definitely color reinventing. Online Learning again, how could or are we're doing this again. There's a history, all this stuff, you know, not inventing it from scratch. So almost every day, there's a kind of relevant story, you just want to say, No, it's not kind of dismissively. Not like No, we've done this before didn't work. But I think these kind of understand what's gone before, and what you could be building on what you could be learning from just this continual idea that's always been reinvented, it's just typically during the pandemic, it just drives me mad often.
7:14
Yeah, for anyone listening recording in late October and 2020. This seems like the longest year, but I do think some of the conversations that have woven in have been Yes, reflection to the past. But also, some of the basic foundations were really developed like co creating, and talking with mark on one of the episodes, so far of Wikis really is talking about co creating and collective learning. And that's just a good principle in practice, we know and so it's not about a tool. And I really hope that folks are tuned in for both the audio book chapters, and then these bonus episodes of banter, talk and more, because we really start to unpack some of the stories of what this means in a time, a place in a geographic region, maybe it's different, because some people lived in different parts of the world. And what it meant for the kind of pioneering spirit, at least early in the book chapters is what I see is what we're kind of talking and hopeful of. We haven't gotten to the dark darker chapters yet, Martin, but I'm saving that for next year.
8:18
But that's an interesting point. That sort of shift, I think, from the optimism set, kind of more pessimistic view. And I think it's interesting to go back and look at what we, we or other people believed about edtech. And I think they kind of came out of that kind of web culture, you know, like, it was kind of very community based, and you know, and free thinking in and there was kind of a lot of optimism wrapped up in it. It's quite interesting, like, how did we end up here? And I'm sure there's the answer is capitalism, or neoliberalism, or whatever it is, but it's interesting to go back, it didn't in the end have panned out this way, you know, they'll kind of different groups available to us.
8:55
Yeah, and I don't think it's a binary thing. I think we live on a spectrum, right? So things are fluid, as well as us reading things in a chapter. What have we learned clints, from reading chapters of Martin's words?
9:11
Well, there certainly are some themes there. And I think, you know, picking up on that sort of optimism, pessimism and that scale, too, I think, you know, you know, I've been I've been doing this for a long time, as well, and, you know, was an early, you know, optimistic adopter. And, and I think, you know, on that spectrum, we have now gotten to the point where we are much more critical because we have kind of come through and we all have these, these, these wounds, and scars from, you know, the early early optimism days. So that certainly is coming through. And I think this repetition theme that, you know, we see these patterns repeated, like we saw with in 2011 2012, with MOOCs, you know, and all of a sudden online learning was a big thing again, and it was being reinvented and now this It seems very timely again, as we touched on that we're in the same cycle again. So we're seeing this, which is why I think the history of our our sector is so important to be talking about.
10:12
Yeah, the stories we tell from the past also or the stories of today. And it's it's been kind of interesting to think about that. I want to ask about like the bits and pieces in terms of the technical things we've learned maybe or are still learning about this project. My you love narrating right, like reading your book chapters out loud is your favorite thing.
10:31
Poor Clint Lalonde trying to hack together something something listenable for my chunks of just some of them just like, what who wrote this rubbish? paragraph like the 20th time? Like why did I write it like this?
10:51
Well, you never read it. They're never wrote it to be read either. Right? I mean, that is and and you have you have touched upon that, you know, that it's that it does, and you know, there but there is a different kind of style, if you are kind of thinking but you know, I don't be hard on yourself. It's been like, I love listening to all the voices that come in. And and hearing all of the, you know, the different accents and the different perspectives, even though they're reading your words, to hear the differences just adds to the diversity of the project. And I think
11:25
I'd be interested to hear other people read my chapters, and where they put emphasis and stuff, that I might get different interpretations of my own slope. And totally like that, you know, even just the way someone phrases something, or kind of pauses they put in will be interesting. I will
11:39
give credit, Clint is collecting all the chapters and doing the engineering for the book book. Between the podcast I offered to do some of that some mine will be a bit more scrappy. So I do appreciate your forthcoming this smart non reading the chapters. I think writing for a narrative audience is different. So hey, maybe your future one will not even be a book we'll just write scripted, a narrative script, fiction nonfiction somewhat based in fiction, to a place of excellent play. That's perfect, perfect. Clint, we also learned that like getting named pronunciations and quotes and things like that, like, I love that you did this great little guide. And you said, Well, this is how you give quotes. This is how you say the author's and we found out how to pronounce names. last names. Very important.
12:28
Yeah, it felt like there was it needed to have a sort of a style guide and audio style guide, especially when it was distributed. And that really kind of came together from feedback from people as we started working on it and started running into issues like how do we actually do citations and quotes? And, you know, how are we going to read this? And how do we make sure that we have all the names pronounced correctly? So yeah, so that was a challenge. But, you know, having the Google Doc there and just being able to write out a style guide on how to handle that I think worked really well. And, you know, being able to go back to Athabaskan and, you know, they provided us some things like you know, the the the the accessibility, there's a couple of illustrations in the book. And so they provided us with the written descriptions of what they use, you know, so we could have those in there to be able to describe what the images were that was really helpful to have as well. And I have to say Athabasca [Press], has been extremely supportive of this project, you know, coming out of the blue and just saying, Hey, you know, you don't know me, but I would like to turn this book that you have into an audio version of the book, and they were, you know, really supportive right off the bat.
13:40
Yeah, if you ever gonna do an audio project, you definitely want to be working with a great open publisher like them and have a bunch of education technologists hacker friends they're like, let me give you my two cents and a Google doc and let me help you out. And I am so appreciative of the community that's come together around this and what who want to not only read chapters but are willing to have a chat about them and give thoughts and tough stories about it. I think it's been so fun to do that, at least to my end and some of the episodes and all positive things and thinking big Martin when I hit the end of the book, I'll let you know when it gets dark so
14:20
so one of those films that starts at like a rom com and goes dark.
14:25
Right, right, exactly, exactly. Um, is there anything you have each learner you're taking away, I know that we're just early days and some of this maybe will, will bring us back together towards the end to have a retrospective but anything you're thinking about as we work on this now or things have come up as you've started listening to the audio engineering side of it cleanse or getting people come talk to Martin about this a bit.
14:52
When I sort of, when the book came out, I sort of started compiling different bits to go around it. So on my website, I've got things Like the Brian's, images timeline. And I think if I did one of our thinking of doing a wiki version, in the end, it was Google graduates, I think what might be interesting is like other people has 25 years, or even just for a particular year. So they might be interested to kind of when the podcasts come out to kind of bring some of that into a wiki, or through a kind of alternative versions that people could have done SEO for 2007, I would have said this or something, you know, I think that would be a kind of really interesting project to kind of have different narratives through the 25 years.
15:36
I like it yourself, Clint, what are you learning?
15:40
Well, it's no surprise that this community that we work in is very gracious and loves these kinds of projects and, you know, are willing to kind of throw themselves into to be volunteers and guinea pigs to try something new. So you know, we have, you know, probably 50 people involved in this project. And, you know, everybody is contributing their time and, and their voices. And I, one of the challenges that I thought off, you know, as I started getting people involved was, you know, these, these are Martin's words, and he's put a lot of thought into these words. So we want to make sure that we do these words, justice, but on the other hand, there is everybody else's voice that to be included, you know, and everybody does have this perspective. So I think, you know, between the chapters is going to be able to provide some space for that. And hopefully, we can build on what we're doing here to continue to have this dialogue in blog posts on Twitter, you know, we've got a hashtag as the podcast gets released. And as the audio book gets released in its serialized form, hopefully we can have this ongoing discussion for the next six to nine months about about our own history.
16:52
I think that's why when I say it's quite personal take on the 25 years, and I think it will resonate in some places with people. But I did feel kind of a bit wary about that might be the people reading chapters on certain topics who know more about them than I do. What is he talking about in this chapter. So I'm quite often very grateful for the people who've read it. And they kind of indulgence and lots of call them out and lots of things, but also, I think, for the kind of podcast gives some sort of Route out for that kind of, you know, going beyond that, I think there are a couple of chapters now that I won't say which ones. But I'm not sure about myself, you know, saying that some, some are better than others, you know, some of them like, well, people might disagree with that. So it's good to give people that room, I think,
17:40
yeah, I think I think it's very brave that you let us take on this project, Martin, so who knows what's gonna happen. But I love that this openness and willingness to share the writing and having the conversation around these pieces, I do hope that other people contribute. It's not just this audio book slash bonus podcast that we hope to dialogue, but we want to hear from other people in other ways. So whether you're gonna put out your own Back Chat podcast, or a blog post, or a commentary about one of these areas, we I don't claim any expertise in any of these. I'm just here to learn and have a conversation with folks. And I think it's, I think you're the kind of person Martin that you all sort of like that. And you really do want people to add their two cents and give perspective on it. So and so I'm excited to see what comes out of the community, as we probably will be conversing this way for a while. This is a fun pandemic project. So thank you.
18:33
I think also it's January, the community is very respectful in our slack. And so enjoy. As long as you're not coming soon, on the authoritarianism, od my voice counts, then people will disagree with you, but in a friendly way. In general, I think things are what I would have gone for this. And I think that's, you know, and often I will agree with them. So I think that sense of kind of mutual respect, I think that has come through quite a lot. In general, I can think of some people as an applied, but in general,
19:00
they're not on the podcast now. I'm just kidding.
19:06
Well, and I think we have to give a nod to just openness in general. And you know, the fact that we have an author who was really willing to look for an open publisher to make this kind of project, even possible, releasing with the Creative Commons license, you know, to be able to have the spirit of openness to allow these kinds of things to flourish, I think is is is a huge win. And a really good example for the kinds of things that open can enable, you know, to have these kinds of conversations to have these extra bits and pieces, to have to spur people to have thoughtful conversations about the history of are really kind of comes back to that openness piece so
19:51
often not just to give examples of why practice was a good thing, and this is one of those really good examples of you know, it's also Brian's images. I'll see See license and stuff, and then you've got the remix stuff. And then just allows interesting things to happen, you know that which aren't, which you don't predict as a writer, but just far, far easier. And also, things like, you know, when we're asking people to read chapters, it wasn't the case of, you've now got to go and buy the book in order to read the chapter, I can just send you the digital copy free, you know, it's like, that's, that's fine, because just, it just makes it easier as well to kind of just do stuff.
20:26
Yeah, and I will say, if other people want to have part of the conversation, I'm still recording episodes between the chapters. And if you are passionate about one, hey, you can join one or two of us or a panel. As we talk about these, please feel to reach out, we'll put some information on where you can contact us in this episode, show notes, but a welcome to the fun adventure ahead is what I say.
20:51
Bring it on. Let's do it.
20:53
revolutionize education. Come on. My five years of
20:57
edtech going to disrupt things I can tell. No,
21:01
no, no, we're not using it at Tech bingo card. Take that away. Take that back, Clint. No. And we do hope to invite other people into the fold that maybe they don't feel like they're an educational technology. They're like, Oh, I am into this thing or am doing this now. And I do hope it opens doors. So we have there is some words and things that I like to break down. In each episode. If we kind of get to alpha soup, I do say let's say what that is. let's describe what it is. For anyone who wants to tune in that's a newbie or interested in now because that's what they do is they work online, they teach online. They're learning online. So I think this is a great space to invite new people into the flock in the fold.
21:41
Absolutely.
21:43
Cool. Do you have a tagline for the book Martin? Like how you sell it? How did you sell it to? Athabaskan?
21:51
cycline. It's the tagline I'm doing now when I do talks is why a knowledge of the history of ed tech is important in the pandemic.
22:04
There you go.
22:05
I think so and then I pitch you know, so you don't get the snake oil salesman. So coming down to yourself.
22:11
That's right. Okay, that's good. Clint. Do we have a tagline for this? I don't know.
22:17
I like the intro. I was just looking through the book here in the historical amnesia of Ed Tech. I think that's, you know, that kind of sums up the rationale that kind of underlies this whole thing that we talked about before that we have a history of forgetting our own history.
22:37
Overcoming the amnesia attack. There we go. Yeah, that the
22:41
care Welcome to between the chapters and the audio book of 25 years with tech. No, I'm not kidding. I claim. It's not gonna prove it's not a vaccine to help you learn and and have fun, and that's kind of what we hope that this really gets people thinking about what we're doing, having a conversation about it. And I'm just excited to continue these chats and we hope that all the listeners out there are enjoying it and have whether it's just the audio book or you listen to the podcast, or you have some thoughts yourself, let us know. Thanks, Laura. Laura. Cheers.
23:17
You've been listening to between the chapters with your host, Laura Pasquini. For more information, or to subscribe to between the chapters and 25 years of ed tech visit 25 years dot open ed.ca