I was lucky enough to get in on a Badges lecture and workshop happening at the Australian National University (ANU) 20-21st March 2014. Here is what we covered, sprinkled with some of my own thoughts.
Day 1 – Badges Lecture – By Joyce Seitzinger
Joyce gave a great introduction about personal learning networks, and the importance of informal learning within those networks. Joyce engaged the class with a quick activity to map out individual use of online tools that can facilitate this process. This was all mapped to a matrix of degree of use (visitor to resident), and the purpose (personal to institutional). Here is mine as example. This exercise demonstrated how much I use the internet for one, but more importantly how much I learn informally, and how this shapes who I am, and the kind of leaner I have become.
We soon moved on to pathways of learning, and a desire to move towards a model that was less prescriptive. Allowing the learner to construct their own path and how badges may be key to drawing these diverse learnings together. Using examples of some insulated systems such as Duolingo and Code Academy as badge issuers, this shows how open badges could pull this all together. However, these example systems offered badges and recognition that was not transferable.
Towards the end of the lecture we got to badges, what they are, what they mean, how they can be used, and a discussion on trust economies. Joyce did drop that Mozilla are working on a app store concept for badges, something like their beginner badge earning offerings. I’m quite eager to see where this might lead. Since one of the flaws of that systems was identifying what options to earn badges were available, which in turn made getting started with your back just that little bit harder. It also has the potential to improve the MOOC space, just the about a catalog of courses across different systems gets me excited.
Day 2 – Workshop – By Joyce Seitzinger and Inger Mewburn
This was an opportunity to roll up are sleeves and start thinking about the design process for a badge. The attendees were split into three groups to think about how they might design a badge related to research skills. For this we worked through the digital me badge development guide. In all three cases is was hard to develop one badge in isolation without considering the eco-system. For example our Research Ninja badge end up being awarded after the learner had earned a number of other smaller badges that mapped to smaller tasks.
We also discussed a number of other projects, initiatives and examples, including:
- Insignia project
- Cred.ly
- Purdue University’s use of badges
- Cities of Learning – A US learning initiative using badges, which has arisen as a result of the success of the Summer of Learning
- Mozilla Badge Kit
It will be interesting to see what ANU do with this insignia project. The student me is jumping for joy at the potential for having informal learning recognized. However I have become very jaded having working the the Higher Education sector. I am aware that what I see now and the potential is not likely to the the tools I may well receive. If you are interested make sure you keep posted on the project here - Insignia project.
