For the past two months my podcast has been enjoying a well deserved summer break! It’s been good to take a step back from the busy grind of producing the episodes. It’s work I love, but with so much else already going on this summer, it was necessary to pause. Regular listeners look out for the summer special, the first new episode since June, which is out next week!
Fortunately for me, edtech’s extraordinary (and original) godfather Jim Groom was travelling rather more than usual this month, which left the studio door open for me to sit in the host chair of his prolific “On Writing” series for not one, but two joyful conversations.
Most people struggle to set up a new podcast, but since the start of this year Jim has been rocking interviews about blogging and writing with a truly stellar line up of voices including Audrey Watters, Kine Lane, Mike Caulfield, Amy Collier, Tom Woodward, Kathleen Fitzpatrick, Adam Croom, Bryan Alexander, Chris Long, Kate Bowles, Lee Skallerup Bessette, Tim Klapdor and Martin Weller.
When it came to my very special guests, I couldn’t have picked a better line up and I was thrilled to jump into these two conversations:
Bonnie Stewart “On Writing”: Blogging, Belonging and Bowie
Ahead of August’s Blogging Community of Practice session, I interviewed Dr. Bonnie Stewart of University of Windsor, Canada, about the belonging project, “a 2024-25 open research project exploring digital and socio-material practices of belonging at the University of Highlands and Islands in Scotland.”
As a long time fan of Bonnie’s work, I was SO excited to talk about blogging for her sabbatical project, how to find your voice and inevitably we also ended up chatting about David Bowie.
Bonnie has a way of articulating things that I deeply appreciate and connect with. I always learn something new, and after our conversations anything that may have been muddled in my brain feels clear and straight forward when she explains it. I salute her grace and joy, and her fierceness.
Tune in: “On Writing” with Alan Levine on Reclaim TV
The second conversation was with Alan Levine, AKA CogDog, and it will premier this Friday, August 29th. Watch the stream over at Reclaim TV, or catch the recording later on archive.reclaim.tv or on Reclaim’s YouTube channel! Usually Jim broadcasts these live, but thanks to living in very different timezones, my guests graciously agreed to pre-record our chats for these shows.
Alan and I had awesome fun chatting across all sorts of topics, and he had prepared meticulously, sending me links and notes which provided much inspiration. Alan produces the OE Global Voices podcast, a masterclass in the richness of sharing knowledge and open practice that Alan excels at.
Both conversations were very different, but what I found common to both was that open practice matters. How we do things and how we honour and reflect the values we hold in how we communicate and connect.
There’re some fantastic guests lined up for the next few weeks and months and as Jim returns to the hosting chair, I’m excited to tune in for more blogging and open edtech goodness.