by James Willis
SXSWedu, one of the premiere educational technology conferences, will be held in a few weeks (March 9 - 12). With a very full schedule, we are happy to see several prominent panel discussions on open badges.
Thursday, February 19, 2015
Wednesday, February 18, 2015
OERu, Open Education, and Digital Badges
by James Willis
Open Educational Resources (OERu) is a network of schools dedicated to the goals of educating anyone with internet access and a desire to learn. Bringing together institutions from around the world, OERu offers free educational opportunities and low-cost assessments for potential academic credit. A recent news release by the Open University promotes Badged Open Courses.
Open Educational Resources (OERu) is a network of schools dedicated to the goals of educating anyone with internet access and a desire to learn. Bringing together institutions from around the world, OERu offers free educational opportunities and low-cost assessments for potential academic credit. A recent news release by the Open University promotes Badged Open Courses.
Thursday, February 12, 2015
New Collaboration with Badge List
by James Willis and Daniel Hickey
In our continuing efforts to help facilitate open digital badges in higher education, we are looking forward to expanding our set of collaborators to include Badge List. We met with Benjamin Roome, one of the co-founders, to establish how we might coordinate our efforts. Our initial goal is working towards an API to integrate with the learning management system, Canvas, in time for courses this summer
In our continuing efforts to help facilitate open digital badges in higher education, we are looking forward to expanding our set of collaborators to include Badge List. We met with Benjamin Roome, one of the co-founders, to establish how we might coordinate our efforts. Our initial goal is working towards an API to integrate with the learning management system, Canvas, in time for courses this summer
Tuesday, January 20, 2015
The OBHE Project is Seeking Collaborators
By Daniel Hickey
I am on my way to the Summit for Online Leadership and Strategy in San Antonio. This event is hosted by UPCEA (University Professional and Continuing Education Association) and the American Council on Education. Lawrence Ragan is chairing a panel discussion on open digital badges. Mike Palmquist from Colorado State and Jason Fish from Purdue are on the panel and that should be a big draw as they are doing really interesting stuff.
I was happy to be invited because I think that the Summit will be a good place to find potential collaborators for the new Open Badges in Higher Education project. As I elaborate below, my team is funded for two years to support people who are getting innovative badge systems operational in higher education. We can offer quite a bit in terms of getting systems up and running, and documenting progress and projects in our open case library.
I am on my way to the Summit for Online Leadership and Strategy in San Antonio. This event is hosted by UPCEA (University Professional and Continuing Education Association) and the American Council on Education. Lawrence Ragan is chairing a panel discussion on open digital badges. Mike Palmquist from Colorado State and Jason Fish from Purdue are on the panel and that should be a big draw as they are doing really interesting stuff.
I was happy to be invited because I think that the Summit will be a good place to find potential collaborators for the new Open Badges in Higher Education project. As I elaborate below, my team is funded for two years to support people who are getting innovative badge systems operational in higher education. We can offer quite a bit in terms of getting systems up and running, and documenting progress and projects in our open case library.
Sunday, December 21, 2014
Introducing Participatory Professional Development
by Rebecca Itow
cross-posted at rebeccaitow.com. Join the conversation here.
This post introduces a new model of professional development that leverages teachers' existing experiences, understandings, and beliefs about knowledge and learning to help them adapt and integrate new practices into their courses. This is the first in a series of posts outlining Participatory Professional Development.
cross-posted at rebeccaitow.com. Join the conversation here.
This post introduces a new model of professional development that leverages teachers' existing experiences, understandings, and beliefs about knowledge and learning to help them adapt and integrate new practices into their courses. This is the first in a series of posts outlining Participatory Professional Development.
Tuesday, November 25, 2014
Call for Papers and Demonstrations: Open Badges in Education at LAK15
by James Willis and Dan Hickey
Along with Jelena Jovanovic (University of Belgrade, Serbia) and Steven Lonn (University of Michigan), we are organizing the 2nd International Workshop on Open Badges in Education (OBIE 2015) in conjunction with the 5th annual International Learning Analytics and Knowledge Conference (LAK15) in Poughkeepsie, New York (March 16-20, 2015). The call for papers and demonstrations is now open. **Update: Deadline extended to Friday, January 23, 2015**
Wednesday, November 19, 2014
The First Instance of Issuing Open Badges in Open edX
By James Willis and Dan Hickey
We are happy to announce that our collaboration to build the first instance of open digital badges in Open edX is a success. This week the group presented the first digital badges in Lorena Barba's MOOC at the Open edX conference in Cambridge, Massachusetts. This collaboration features the hard work of Lorena Barba and her team, IBL Studios, Achievery, and the CRLT at Indiana University.
We are happy to announce that our collaboration to build the first instance of open digital badges in Open edX is a success. This week the group presented the first digital badges in Lorena Barba's MOOC at the Open edX conference in Cambridge, Massachusetts. This collaboration features the hard work of Lorena Barba and her team, IBL Studios, Achievery, and the CRLT at Indiana University.
Labels:
Achievery,
Badges,
GitHub,
IBL Studios,
Lorena Barba,
MOOC,
Open edX
Monday, November 10, 2014
New Digitial Badges Report from the Alliance for Excellent Education
By Gina Howard and James Willis
We are excited to share our recent recognition on the first page of the new Alliance for Excellent Education report, Digital Badge Systems: The Promise and Potential by Kamila Thigpen. The Alliance for Excellent Education is a national organization that focuses on ensuring all students have an equal opportunity at graduating from high school and having the necessary preparation to succeed in college, work, and citizenship. Based out of Washington, DC, the organization focuses on developing and implementing federal and national policies that, “support effective high school reform and increased student achievement and attainment.”
We are excited to share our recent recognition on the first page of the new Alliance for Excellent Education report, Digital Badge Systems: The Promise and Potential by Kamila Thigpen. The Alliance for Excellent Education is a national organization that focuses on ensuring all students have an equal opportunity at graduating from high school and having the necessary preparation to succeed in college, work, and citizenship. Based out of Washington, DC, the organization focuses on developing and implementing federal and national policies that, “support effective high school reform and increased student achievement and attainment.”
Monday, November 3, 2014
The "Design Knowledge Evaporation Problem" and the Design of Complex Digital Badge Systems
By Dan Hickey
I am crunching out the final report of the Open Badges Design Principles Document Program and it pushed me to dig more deeply into the research on "knowledge evaporation" in the design of complex software architectures. It makes me wonder if current efforts to build badges into the larger, more complex learning management systems are about to run into the wall that complex software systems always run into.
I am crunching out the final report of the Open Badges Design Principles Document Program and it pushed me to dig more deeply into the research on "knowledge evaporation" in the design of complex software architectures. It makes me wonder if current efforts to build badges into the larger, more complex learning management systems are about to run into the wall that complex software systems always run into.
Monday, October 27, 2014
Fostering a Self-Sustaining Professional Learning Community in Online Professional Development
by Rebecca C. Itow
Since 2011, I have been studying
ways to help teachers adopt and adapt new practices that value learners’
experience and expertise as they explore new concepts. Often, this necessitates
that teachers find ways to reconcile their experience and existing beliefs
about knowledge & learning with the underlying assumptions of the new
practices so that they can be worked into curricular designs. In Spring 2013,
an opportunity arose to redesign the English Language Arts (ELA) courses of a
university-run online high school. While the high school was ranked
the #2 online high school in the United States, they wanted to update their
pedagogy both to attend to the push to foster connected learning in participatory
spaces and address accreditors’ concerns about their use of a correspondence
model. Dan Hickey suggested I take on this task, enabling me to aid the school
in redesigning their courses and to realize the potential of the research I had
been doing for the last two years.
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