Impacting Teacher Leanring through PPD and TPCK

by Rebecca C. Itow

On Friday, I gave a talk on this paper at the SITE conference in Las Vegas on the relationship between Participatory Professional Development and Technological Pedagogical Content Knowledge (TPCK). Generally, I asserted that all of these innovations in technology are changing the ways learners interact with information, learning environments, their teachers, and each other. They are more connected – to everything – which means that we need to reenvision our understandings of what learning environments look like, how to design for them, and what counts as “engagement” and “learning” within them. However, this also means that we need to reenvision what professional development looks like and the ways in which it presents new information to teachers so that they can learn how to design for and teach  in these new environments. 

Read more here.
  

A Few Recent Badges Publications

by James Willis 

It's wonderful to see open digital badges research expanding rapidly. We have a brief list (with links) of recent papers that might be of interest to those studying badges. This is one effort our new project, Open Badges in Higher Education.

Open Badges at SXSWedu

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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**

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.

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.”