25 Years of Ed Tech

25 Years of Ed Tech puts an audiobook and its companion discussion series in the same feed. The audiobook is Martin Weller's history of educational technology, published by Athabasca University Press. Its chapters are read not by one professional narrator but by volunteers from the global ed tech and open education community. The project was crowdsourced: 25 chapters, 25 different voices, and, according to the organizers, a waiting list of people who still wanted a turn. The companion series, Between the Chapters, is hosted by Laura Pasquini. Its episodes pair a chapter with one or two guests and talk it through. Weller's chapters are tied to years, and the numbered conversations follow them. Chapter 23 is 2016 and the return of artificial intelligence, Chapter 24 is 2017 and blockchain, and Chapter 25 is 2018 and ed tech's dystopian turn. Pasquini says openly that some of the book's choices surprised her, admitting she never expected blockchain, or the AI chapter, to appear in it. The talk is friendly, and it wanders. The blockchain conversation moves from the technology to the politics beneath it, and to how social media bubbles flatten nuance. In the AI episode, Chris Gilliard describes reporting on a student risk-scoring system that used race as a factor and that the professors and administrators using it did not understand. The dystopian-turn episode, with two guests, becomes practical. It weighs what students can do: organize on campus, press faculty unions, build solidarity, and still admit how little anyone knows about pushing back. Weller reads the concluding chapter, 'Conclusions: Reclaiming Ed Tech', himself. He argues that claims of an unchanged, century-old education system are mistaken, pointing to MOOCs, Web 2.0, PLEs and connectivism as real periods of innovation. He also presents higher education's caution as partly a strength, since universities predate Google. Some episodes are about the project itself. One, titled 'Thank you @OpenEdGlobal for the #OEAward2021 for the @YearsEd Project!', thanks the readers, the listeners and Anne-Marie Scott, who nominated the project. In 'Between the Chapters: Retrospective - THE END!', Pasquini and producer Clint Lalonde look back on the project and what they learned, including a wish for funding to make transcripts and improve accessibility. In a closing note, Weller calls the collection a kind of oral history of those years, full of people thinking hard about what comes next. The conversations also ask for audio responses, corrections included. To hear Weller's overall case in his own voice, start with the concluding chapter. For debate and anecdote, pick any numbered Between the Chapters episode on a technology you already have opinions about.