Bryan Alexander “On Writing”

As my youngest son would say, in the parlance of our times, “you’re glazing Bryan Alexander again, dad.” This episode was a bit of a lovefest for edtech’s hardest working man, and I have no regrets. Bryan’s impact on the field of edtech has a long, storied history and I think we do a pretty decent job of covering some of the highlights in this chat. One of the immediately refreshing and endearing elements of Bryan is he hates talking about himself, and is constantly deflecting any praise—which I’m sure made this conversation uncomfortable for him, but sometimes he’s just got to deal with the facts!

The “On Writing” series is very much about the power of blogging to create a voice online, and Bryan’s early blog Infocult (which is still going!), is something we discussed at some length in this episode given it was very much a model for me in 2005/2006 when trying to decide what this blog was gonna be all about. I often reference D’Arcy Norman’s blogging about Drupal as a model for ultimately dedicating at least part of my voice to WordPress early on. The other part was all about an exploration of media of all kinds, and two of the biggest influences in that department were WFMU’s Beware of the Blog and Bryan’s Infocult, a deep dive into the occult, gothic online world we live in. It was immediately apparent to me this was a passion project that managed a voice that was simultaneously inviting, informative, and fun, a really powerful balance of sharing one’s passions while at the same time being open and ready for any and all discussion.

That’s actually a pretty good way to describe Bryan: a passion-driven, authentic, and open educator in a classical sense of that term; he wrestles with the forces that shape our world (online and off) no matter where it leads him intellectually. All that while at the same time being ridiculously generous. He’s kind of a big deal in my heart!