For me, part of the realization I had while working on my school’s academic technology plan was how crucial the openness was to understanding all that collaborative learning 2.0 edupunk jazz. Basically, people that work in closed systems have no understanding of any of this. They can’t — because all that stuff, from social bookmarking to twitter assumes an open system.

I’d filed that away as an anti-LMS rant — but “anti” rants are just that — they don’t motivate or inspire the general public. When I read Kelty’s Two Bits, it kind of came together for me. The foundation of all of this is sharable, hackable content. I’d always known that that was one of many things I supported, but it came to me that everything else I believed in I understood because my professional domain had been a shareable & hackable world — and until others were brought into that domain they simply couldn’t understand what the fuss was about. We were selling bread-slicers to people that had never seen bread.

Anyway — as luck would have it the OCWC advertised a position just as these thoughts were solidifying — so here I am working for the Consortium (why does that always sound so John Grisham?) and maybe this sounds marketing-esque but it’s very heartfelt — I think what we are seeing among edubloggers is a recognition if we get people bread the bread-slicer is going to make a lot more sense? At least that’s where I’ve ended up…