Jason Ohler

1952 - 2022

Jason Ohler Ph.D.: teacher, author, speaker, digital citizen, husband, grandfather
December 21, 1952-March 29, 2022

Jason Ohler died peacefully, with his wife Terri by his side, on March 29, 2022, in Prescott Valley, Arizona. He was 69.

Jason grew up at 472 Oakwood Avenue, East Aurora, NY, with his late parents, Richard and Susan Ohler and brothers, Mike and Rick. Gregarious and fun-loving, he was a popular guy from his earliest days, even more so when he joined classmates Jamie Gregory and Mike Buccieri in the rock and roll group the Nefarious Prodigies, which played at many teen dances. He was chosen by his classmates to be a speaker at the first-ever commencement at the "new" East Aurora High School building in 1971.

Dr. Ohler earned a B.A. from the University of Toronto, where an influential faculty member was media psychology pioneer Marshall McLuhan. After graduation, he went far west, taking a position as the director of a community school in Carcross, Yukon Territories. In 1979 he wended his way down the Chilkoot Pass to Skagway, Alaska, then south to Juneau, Alaska, where he would spend the next 40 years. In Juneau he found a home. After a few years there, he, along with his friends Clay Good and Claire Fordyce; and Brett Dillingham purchased a four-plex on 7th Street with a stunning view of the Gastineau Channel. They called it Budzo Manor, a name that still stands.

While working as an electrician after arriving in Juneau, he studied for a master's degree in computer science at the University of Alaska Southeast, joining the faculty along the way and becoming, very shortly, chairman of the Department of Educational Technology with an office that looked at the Mendenhall Glacier. In 1990, he earned one of the first-ever Ph.D.s in Distance Education from Simon Fraser University in British Columbia. His dissertation dealt with the anthropology of online communities and predicted the rise of social media communities like Facebook even as his faculty advisors scoffed at the notion.

At UAS, Dr. Ohler was a respected teacher whose reach went well beyond the campus. He established himself as an international authority on distance education, educational technology, digital storytelling, digital citizenship and digital literacy.

Dr. Ohler was a sought-after, entertaining speaker with engagements in Europe, China, Russia, Greenland, New Zealand, Australia and across North and South America. He regularly led workshops that helped teachers integrate technology and digital storytelling into their classrooms.

He published seven books, among them Four Big Ideas for the Future (2016), Digital Storytelling in the Classroom (2013), Digital Community, Digital Citizen (2010) and the novel Borderline Beautiful. He wrote countless magazine and academic journal articles, published a blog and a newsletter and composed several pieces of symphonic and popular music.

In semi-retirement he was professor emeritus at the University of Alaska Southeast and professor of media psychology at Fielding Graduate University in Santa Barbara, California.

Dr. Ohler met the love of his life, the former Terri Kozy Stringer, while giving a keynote address at a conference in Ireland in 2003. They married in 2004 and Mrs. Ohler became not only his soulmate, but his indispensable partner as well, organizing his engagements and travel and helping him get the most out of life. He was a lucky man. Eventually, they split time between their homes in Juneau and Prescott Valley.

In 2013, Dr. Ohler developed idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis. In 2015, he received two lungs in a transplant operation that gave him and Mrs. Ohler several years of unexpected togetherness. When Dr. Ohler's health declined in recent years, she took on his care with the efficiency and compassion of a skilled professional and the love of a devoted spouse.

Not trusting something as critical as a eulogy to amateurs, Dr. Ohler wrote his own. In it, he makes this statement: "Questions are the gift. Answers are at best temporary
and beg to become questions once again. The moment you think you have found the answer, you can become lost within a closed system of myopia and self-righteousness. Don't fall for it." As he prepared for death, he made sure his website, jasonohlerideas.com, would live on as a showcase for the ideas that were important to him. That said, he will also be remembered by young and old as the teller of particularly corny jokes.

Dr. Ohler is survived by his wife, Terri; stepchildren Bethany (Dominic Palecki) Stringer, Torrey (Jess) Stringer, Micah (Jessi) Stringer, Amanda (Dan Corson-Knowles) Underwood-Knowles; grandchildren Eaben, Shea, Deklan, Sullivan, Hazel, Blue, Robert, Jordan, Elijah and Layla; brothers Rick (Kateri Ewing), Michael (Megan); nephews Brinton and Gabe; nieces Mariah and Addie; Budzo Manor brothers Clay Good (Claire), Brett Dillingham, Mark Whitman (Trish) and John Fehringer (Helga Marin Bergsteinsdottir); 13 cousins, innumerable Ohler family relatives and friends across the globe.

Services will be held in Juneau (insert date and place here) and in New London, New Hampshire in July.