Digital Badges - Dec 1-15, 2012

Hello:

Christine (Chris) Horgan

I grasp and like the concept but I'm very fuzzy on the practicalities of designing & setting up and using

Interested in digital badges in my joint role of curriculum co-ordinator and instructional designer and personally as I have a bright, but reluctant, learner in my family who is going to have to walk a very different path to build her credentials.

Calgary, Alberta, Canada

Looking forward to moving my SCoPE status from Experienced Lurker to participant.

Chris

Hello everyone,

My name is Leva Lee. Digital badges is new to me. Interested in finding out how they might motivate and acknowledge informal learning (self-directed and peer). I am based in Vancouver Canada. 

Hi everyone,

Colin Madland from TRU. My intro to badges happened at the OpenEd conference last month and I'm interested in how to issue them to our faculty as portable evidence of involvement in pro-d activities (courses, workshops, projects, etc).

Currently living and working in Kamloops, BC and studying (MEd) at Athabasca.

Colin

hi Peter, hi everybody

Well, like the forum stamp says, my name is Gina Bennett. I live in Cranbrook BC, (Canada) where I work for College of the Rockies, a small & rural community college. I do know a little about digital badges: I have spent some time cruising the Mozilla Open Badges site & I even earned 2 little badges! (links below). I created an Open Badge Backpack but unfortunately haven't been able to figure out how to display my badges openly anywhere :(

My main interest in badges is in how they might be used as a new form of educational currency. I'm fascinated by the fact that educational institutions have had a centuries-long monopoly on the combination of knowledge production & dissemination + teaching + accreditation. Now these three things are becoming unbundled & I see badges as one way of opening up the accreditation piece. 

Here's what my badges look like:

http://beta.openbadges.org/_badges/0394791120ac74ebf9811ee6438e7dce.png

http://beta.openbadges.org/_badges/1a3d43a137245438b2ecf0ac9aebf5b7.png

Looking forward!

Gina

Hi,

I am Pat Tymchatyn and I live and work in Saskatoon, SK, Canada as a Facilitator at SIAST.  I am not a gamer so my initiation to the idea of badges came in the past two weeks through the forum.  I think badges are a nifty idea and I am thrilled to have the opportunity to learn, what they are how people are useing them and how to create my own if I so wish.

Let the learning continue . . .

Pat

Hi all.

I'm David Porter.

Saw a wonderful presentation on badge concepts presented to higher education types as the "alternative transcript."  Left many in the audience speechless.  So, thought I should dig down into that conversation and am delighted that Peter will guide our discussions.

I live in the Lower Mainland and work in Vancouver at BCcampus.

Really looking forward to learning more and in better understanding how a badging infrastructure could support self-directed learning processes in ways that both encourage and validate learning.

d

Hi--I work as a learning designer at Athabasca University. I live in Athabasca, Alberta. I earned some badges from Codeacademy this year. They are both fun and motivating, which are elements that I would like to increase in the courses I work on (undergraduate, online, self-paced). I'm thinking specifically that badges could be used to encourage students to complete learning activities--there is a tendency to do only what they need to complete assignments for credit. Badges might also encourage social learning--I'm thinking about how that might work. Maybe I'll get some ideas here.

Mary Pringle

Verena Roberts

Badges are a form of certification which gives credibility to a competency, skill, activity, project or experience. (In my opinion)

I am using badges within TheOC@ADLC (The Open Classroom at ADLC) We are offering a open projects that need some kind of "accountability" piece in k12.

Calgary, Canada

I am in the midst of figuring out how to ceate and "market" a badge program with my work, so any learning will be greatly appreciated.

David "encouraged" me to take this course and Colin forgot to mention that there was a course...so I "know" these two characters.

Apparenlty we need to connect Christine- would be nice to find like minded souls in a f2f setting :)

Verena :)

Hiya, I've Stephen Downes, I work at NRC and I live in new Brunswick, Canada. I blog at http://www.downes.ca and http://halfanhou.blogspot.com and I confess there is still a lot I don't yet get about badges (and I need to learn because I'd like to use them in my next MOOC).

Hello Everyone!

My name is Patric Lougheed and I have an information addiction! It has been 5 minutes since my last tweet!

I do think it is important to differentiate between the (roll your own) use of badges and the open badges project. The main benefit/difference, to me, is the portability and legitimacy of the open badges project. There is meta-data associated with the badge and link back to the "issuer" which gives weight in situations where the evaluation of the badges (credentials) requires officiating. This opens up all kinds of possibilities for skills and competencies and even credentials when involved in MOOCS or other events not officially recognized, yet. So, to me, badges is a way to display ones abilities/interests/values in a concise way that can also encourage engagement and participation.

I have my fingers in a few pies and they all can use badges to arrive at different objectives. None of these currently have anything to do with my day job as a instructional technologist in higher education as it does seem not recognize the value of this mechanism. I created/run a Mahara driven website called folioz.ca that is working to promote the use of ePortfolios which by their nature are used to display skills, experience, interests and competencies but in a very traditional way that may not convey succinctly the whole of an individual’s personal/professional persona, something that badges can do easy if integrated into the site. This site is open to anyone signing up and creating their own online portfolio so please do not hesitate. I am also the developer for a website just starting called blendedgaming.com that is a research project for exploring the wider effects of gamification on motivation, family relationships and education. It eventually will become a community of gamers/non-gamers that will also discuss all aspects of gamification including the importance of trophies/badges. We hope to deploy badges/trophies for participation on the site that can be displayed in other sites/social media.

I currently live/work in Victoria but have taught in Nelson/Castlegar and lived in Montreal, Vancouver, Glasgow but originally from Calgary. 

1. John dumbrille
2. I have a conceptual understanding of open badges based on conversations and some reading
3. Conceptual and professional interest - we want to make them for courses we offer to clients. These are not typical academic courses
4. Vancouver
5. Because

Hi there - Patricia Fahrni from MOSAIC in Vancouver. I've heard a bit about digital badges used in K12 learning, but am curious about thier use with adult learners. I figure adults participate if the online learning is relevant and useful. Other motivators? Do digital badges fulfil some human yearning ?

Bye for now,
Patricia 

Hi all,

Wayne Mackintosh from the OER Foundation and COL Chair in OER at Otago Polytechnic.

Digital badges show promise for certifying learning in informal, non-formal and formal education contexts. I look forward to exploring alternatives for implementation of digital badges in OER Foundation activities as we provide free learning oppotunities for both informal and formal certification (OERu).

Since June 2007 the WIkiEducator community have adopted a comunity-based badging system which has provide popular among + one third of participants aquiring wiki skills from the Learning4Content initiative (which has provided free learning to +5000 educators worldwide). It's an opt-in model - -but without the sophistication of recent developments.

Looking forward to this SCOPE seminar.   

I've been looking forward to this - thanks for facilitating Peter. I was in Bowen Island at a workshop on the weekend - what a beautiful place it is.

My name is Sylvia Riessner

My knowledge of digital badges is sporadic and therefore thin. I became aware of them through Mozilla and then they started popping up everywhere (kind of like when I bought a Toyota I started to see Toyotas everywhere?). I've been following open learning and informal learning for a long time and acknowledgement of accomplishment has always been a big thing. Nowadays I'm interested in learning more about how badges can be used as a motivator and as an option to accreditation to a formal (and expensive) education system. Oh yeah, my primary interest is badges for higher education.

I live in Whitehorse, Yukon

I'm looking forward to these discussions as I personally never thought I would find badges very motivating but just completed a Google Power Search MOOC this fall and got my first Google badge - I was surprised at the initial delight when I got the badge. Thought I was an intrinsically motivated learner.

Joyce McKnight.  I believe that digital badges are primarily a way of accounting for self-directed learning primarily online and will be most useful as part of e-portfolios.  They will be useful to document continuing education for established professionals and for documenting self-directed learning for prior learning assessment used for degrees and other formal learning.  I would like to learn more about the mechanics of them.  I have several goals here...to figure out how they might be useful for my students at Empire State College of the State University of New York where we do many prior learning assessment activities, as a possible tool for the OER-u initiative (Hi Wayne!) and because I would selfishly like a way to let people know what I do in my "spare time".   

I live in a cottage in the Adirondack mountains in the State of New York in the eastern United States and I really love these seminars...although I wish I could figure out how to get the page to center itself so I don't have to double space everything.  :-(

(Edited by Hilda Anggraeni - original submission Friday, 30 November 2012, 07:30 PM just removing the double space :) )

Hello- My name is Ken Udas.  I think that I have a reasonable conceptual understanding of badges, but not so much about implementation. I am interested  in the topic generally, but specifically I have some notions and interest in how badges might be integrated into traditional credit-based programming. For example, how might badges be used to capture aspects of overall curricular or program intent rather than subject specific competencies measured in specific courses (in which credits are offered).

I am currently living in Evanston, Illinois (US) - just north of Chicago.

Hello everyone.

1. My name is Iain Robertson and I work out of Georgian College in Barrie Ontario.
2. I have a basic understanding of badges and am keen to learn more.
3. My interest in  badges relates to my role as an interprofessional lead in the School of Health and Wellness. There is an increasing demand to incorporate interprofessional competencies (e.g. role clarification, shared leadership) into both education and workplace settings. I have been working on connecting learning design with the allocation of badges and am currently part of the Passport beta at Purdue (http://www.itap.purdue.edu/studio/passport/)

I look forward to learning from and with all of you.

Iain

I'm glad to be here. I have been following the sessions since the first day, but only started responding today. I guess I didn't feel the need to introduce myself until now.

I have come across digital badges in a Joomla website I managed a few years ago and on Wikieducator. 

1. Janet Salmons
2. I've had a couple of experiences with badges, and have heard conference presentations about them-- otherwise, minimal.
3. I have a couple of interests: 1) Within higher ed, graduate ed, for distinguising work in discussions. 2) In more informal peer exchange, in my work with educators/grad students, for building connections with and among my network of interested folks.
4. Home: Boulder, CO. Home page: http://www.vision2lead.com 
5. At last year's TCC conference (see http://tcchawaii.org/call-for-proposals-2013/), Learning TImes set up a badge system. See: http://www.learningtimes.com/what-we-do/badges/. I thought it was very cool. At online conferences (or learning events like this) you are always competing with participants' everyday life + work. Badges gave an incentive to participate. They also distinguished between, and incentivized types of participation. 

Hey, Peter, thanks for facilitating this discussion for these two weeks. I have been reading along with all the posts yesterday and this week and was planning to just quietly read along, learning on my own by reading all the great ideas and sharing that is happening here (with a number of people I have read and spoken to over the years) but some of these topics have me yelling out to the computer, and as that doesn't reap any interaction or benefits of any kind, I decided to join in a bit in a way that may move the discussion along, or rather at least the one that has been heretofore in my mind.

First off, I am not a fan of external lists of credentials or badges or any of this sort, and decided to share this with the group here for the sake of transperency. I am also saying this as I am trying to be open to seeing some benefits to this, though I have not found motivation when considering these in the past, so decided to try to see their value in another way, namely discussion with such an interesting group of people  here (I love the people that SCoPE attracts).

I feel these sort of things (online badges) breed competition (something problematic at times when regarding learning), a focus on them for their own purposes (let me do x,y,z and only x,y,z, to get a badge in a similar way to doing only what is required to "meet" a learning objective for its own sake), and a sign of social inequality (I have more than you do, ergo I am better than you are / Why should I pay attention to you, you are only a xxx level /  etc.). That I work in healthcare that lives and breathes by levels of initials after one's name, often related to certification, continuing education units, and salary differentials, is all very related to this.

Of course, these are my experiences and I am sharing them here partly as a way of demonstrating that not everybody is on the badge bandwaggon. However, as I am indeed putting myself out there, I want to be clear that this is where I am now, and does not at all mean I will not move forward or into a new direction after 2 weeks or so.

Almost forgot, my name is Jeffrey Keefer, I live and work in New York City, study at Lancaster University in the UK, get paid to manage education projects in healthcare, teach at New York University and Pace University, and I Tweet a bit from time to time. 

Ahh, with that and with giving myself enough rope to hang myself, let me crawl back into my Sunday shell (i.e. begin writing my thesis discussion chapter).

Carol Yeager, associated with SUNY, Empire State College

I am interested in digital badges that reflect process learning and application rather than content memorization in a series of learning environments.  I think of them as akin to the Learning Contract concept rather than a graded evaluation.

Badges have potential for self assessment and sequential learning development, especially in the digital, online learning venues

I reside in upstate New York, US

Digital badges might be thought of as a button link, opening both assessment of learning concepts and reflective evaluation of integration and implementation of specific learning across the educational spheres. IMHO

I am looking forward to learning fro others and building on those elements in my own learning journey with SCORE.

Cheers!

Hi all:

I'm an independent learning solutions producer, working in pre-employment and workplace training. I'm based in Winnipeg. (Quick shout out to the folks I already know and look forward to getting to know others).

I produce a community-based adult-focused employability eportfolio solution called Career Portfolio Manitoba, inspired partly by other regional initiatives such as eFolio Minnesota and Careers Wales Online (which has a new name that I can't remember). Career Portfolio Manitoba runs on Mahara, an open source eportfolio platform out of NZ.

I have an overall grasp of Badges, but haven't done much hands on yet. I  have been in contact with the Mozilla folks; with Serge Ravet, I invited them to the ePIC 2012 conference in London last July.

Interesting to note that Mark Surman, CEO of Mozilla Foundation, was my community cable producer in Toronto 20 years ago, when I was working with Maclean-Hunter to produce community content. He's just doing the same thing in a different way...

There is a Macarthur Foundation project underway to bring badges to Mahara and Moodle, which is very interesting to me.

My interest is employability, workplace performance management and career development. The idea of a workplace skills passport is something that I'm interested in pursuing, and there's been some work done with workplace skills passports by one of my funders, WPLAR in Manitoba. I understand that David Wiley may be doing something like this with the Manufacturing Institute in another Macarthur-funded project.

I'm also interested in badges as an enabler of PLAR/RPL, for better access to education.

I think Mozilla has been surprised by the take-up and is scrambling to make their model more sophisticated to handle expectations like skills hierarchies and aggregation.

I'd like to do something meaningful with badges over the coming year and hope to get some inspiration here....

My name is Scott Perian.  I'm a software developer and I've been working in the educational technology space for the last 15 years.  I think I understand some of the technical details behind the ideas of digital badges but am interested in learning  more about how they are used in practice.  I currently live in Boulder, CO, USA.  I've been quite interested in Mozilla's Open Badges project since i first read about it a while back, and looking forward to learning more about badges in general in the next two weeks.

Hi

I'm Juanita Foster-Jones, a Teaching Fellow in the Department of Information Studies at Aberyswyth University in Wales (http://www.aber.ac.uk/en/dis/).

My understanding of digital badges is limited. I've been aware of some discussions in this area, haven't had chance to investigate deeply. I'm more familiar with digital badges in the forms of achievements for Gaming (I play World of Warcraft) and recently in Huddersfield they have implemented achievements with use of library http://libwebrarian.wordpress.com/tag/university-of-huddersfield/

So my interest is in how they can motivate learners, to what extent they can get non-users participating in libraries, badges for CPD and also portability - how do you keep all your badges together and will they be meaeningful beyond the event in which they were created?

Looking forward to following the discussion - likely to be more of a lurker than contributor.

Juanita

Hello Everyone:

 My name is Wally Alvaranza. I’ve read enough about badges to wake interest in perhaps using them in my professional practice. My interest in badges stems from my role as an instructional designer in higher education. I’m interested in exploring the incorporation  of badges in our trainning efforts. I work in San Juan, Puerto Rico at Universidad del Sagrado Corazón.

Wally

I am a mature student in the MEd program at Athabasca.  I am interested in how HE may use badges and want to learn more about them.

Barbie Bruce, Valemount BC

Hi! I'm Leah, and am familiar with the theory and concept of digital badges. I'm hoping this discussion will fill in the technical and practical side of my knowledge.

I am a librarian at a SUNY school in upstate New York (Hi, Empire Staters!), and am interested in how digital badges can provide feedback and motivation to students within the library. I'm jumping in a bit late, but I'm excited to be here for this discussion!

Hi Everyone, sneaking in a bit late here but excited about this seminar!

I'm Mary Burgess and I work at BCcampus. I'm interested in the use of digital badges as an alternative to traditional credentialing systems, particularly as a way to acknowledge work done in open spaces. 

I live and work in Victoria, B.C., Canada.

A bit late in posting but I've been lurking. Hello from Toronto. I'm Robin Yap. Nice to read familiar names in this session (shoutout to Jeffrey Keefer, Nancy White, Nellie Deutsch). Badging is currently being discussed at one of my client sites and decision-makers there are either gaga about it and others think it's a fad. I need to immerse myself more to understand what's the benefit for corporate learners and social networks of practice. Demos from Badgeville and Successfactors also got me thinking of implication for our multi-generational workforce who has varying degrees of affinity to badges in general. Thus, my intention to participate in this session.  

Hello!

I'm Judy Southwell. The discussions last week gave me a bit of an understanding of digital badges. The resource from Educause 7: Things You Should Know About Badges provided a useful overview 
http://www.educause.edu/library/resources/7-things-you-should-know-about-badges

The Educause document suggests that badges "herald a fundamental change in the way society recognizes learning and achievement".  I'm curious to learn more about what this 'fundamental change' might be, and how I might use these tokens of accomplishment in formal and informal settings, both locally and internationally.

I live in Nanaimo, Canada and am enjoying reading the many posts. 

Hi Peter and everyone! My name is Carlos Ortiz. I'm a teacher at University of Ibagué in Tolima Colombia South América.

I'm very glad to be here and have great expectations about learning new things.

Badges in distance learning are completely new for me, but I think it´s a great idea to motivate students.

I've left my lurker postion to jum into this discussion. Thanks for your help.

Carlos 

Please introduce yourself by providing;

1. your name, Jenny Mackness
2. your self assessed understanding of digital badges A means of 'assessing' and/or providing informal (informal at the moment, but possibly more formal in the future) credit for open learning, such that the badges can contribute to a portfolio which would support an application for employment
3. your interest in digital badges (within HE, within peer learning, self directed or other) I am interested in how 'open' learning, which could be unpredicatable and emergent, can be assessed
4. The city and country where you currently live Cumbria/UK
5. other thoughts you feel important I'm only just catching up with the forums (fora? :-)) but my initial response to badges is to be a bit sceptical. I wish they were called something else. Badges really does remind me of 'Brownies', Girl Guides and Scouts - and I'm not sure that the association is helpful.

Your introduction plus a couple of discussion thread contributions will earn you a Learner badge for this seminar series. We have a couple of other badges that can be earned, please read the related discussion thread in this forum. To be honest - I am not really interested in earning a badge - I am just interested in the learning.

Hi I am Jo Freitag from Victoria Australia
I discovered digital badges during the Global Education Conference 2012 and can see interesting possibilities for giving accreditation in many learning situations and would like to learn about them 

Hi I am Jo Freitag from Victoria Australia
I discovered digital badges during the Global Education Conference 2012 and can see interesting possibilities for giving accreditation in many learning situations and would like to learn about them 

1. your name,-  Kathleen Zarubin

2. your self assessed understanding of digital badges

“A means of 'assessing' and/or providing informal (informal at the moment, but possibly more formal in the future) credit for open learning, such that the badges can contribute to a portfolio which would support an application for employment” Directly quoted from Jenny Mackness as she said it so well :)

Also may promote learning experiences – as in if I see a colleague has a XYZ Badge I may wonder what was involved, look it up and do it myself

‘Validate’ (not quite the right word but …) time I spend on ‘stuff’ like this.  Joyce
McKnight- (whose ‘net footprints’ I often follow with admiration)  -  said a similar thing “I like to learn "for the sake of learning" (me too) but am often motivated by guilt or a sense of accountability...with badges I can show others that I have not just been "wasting my time." (hit the ‘like’ button)

By Carlos Ortiz
“I think it's great motivation getting a badget, it reassures you and it
encourages you to move ahead. It's a great idea to use it with students in your
online courses. I agree.

And my final comment is from a FB convo on this topic -

Penny Bentley Are you keen on developing badges for your organisation Kathleen?

My response 
- More like ... understanding what they might mean - so if when(?)
presented as part of a person's 'evidence' for recognition I already have a
handle on them ... AND just another example of the way I get captured by new
shiny things LOL - do not neccessarly DO anything with them .. just always like
to know 'what is next thing out there' LOL ...

3. your interest in digital badges (within HE, within peer learning, self directed or other)

I am a passionate supporter of ‘Recognition’ – ie taking all forms of learning and experience and helping them be translated in ‘recognised accredited qualifications. I own an Assessment Only RTO (Registered ‘Training’ Organisation – yes an oxymoron as I do not deliver training)  – in Australia

4. The city and country where you currently live Brisbane
Australia  

5. other thoughts you feel important I have been watching all the discussion with much interest  -

a place to store could also be any type of landing page / epeort / website / wikki –(eg http://about.me/kathleenz) mine is bad and needs updating

Using QR codes somehow to direct people to more information on what the badge means – could be useful ??

I
like the term ‘Badge’ and think it reflects many things .. even ‘badge of
honour’ lol – wear them proudly

1. your name,-  Kathleen Zarubin

2. your self assessed understanding of digital badges

“A means of 'assessing' and/or providing informal (informal at the moment, but possibly more formal in the future) credit for open learning, such that the badges can contribute to a portfolio which would support an application for employment” Directly quoted from Jenny Mackness as she said it so well :)

Also may promote learning experiences – as in if I see a colleague has a XYZ Badge I may wonder what was involved, look it up and do it myself

‘Validate’ (not quite the right word but …) time I spend on ‘stuff’ like this.  Joyce
McKnight- (whose ‘net footprints’ I often follow with admiration)  -  said a similar thing “I like to learn "for the sake of learning" (me too) but am often motivated by guilt or a sense of accountability...with badges I can show others that I have not just been "wasting my time." (hit the ‘like’ button)

By Carlos Ortiz
“I think it's great motivation getting a badget, it reassures you and it
encourages you to move ahead. It's a great idea to use it with students in your
online courses. I agree.

And my final comment is from a FB convo on this topic -

Penny Bentley Are you keen on developing badges for your organisation Kathleen?

My response 
- More like ... understanding what they might mean - so if when(?)
presented as part of a person's 'evidence' for recognition I already have a
handle on them ... AND just another example of the way I get captured by new
shiny things LOL - do not neccessarly DO anything with them .. just always like
to know 'what is next thing out there' LOL ...

3. your interest in digital badges (within HE, within peer learning, self directed or other)

I am a passionate supporter of ‘Recognition’ – ie taking all forms of learning and experience and helping them be translated in ‘recognised accredited qualifications. I own an Assessment Only RTO (Registered ‘Training’ Organisation – yes an oxymoron as I do not deliver training)  – in Australia

4. The city and country where you currently live Brisbane
Australia  

5. other thoughts you feel important I have been watching all the discussion with much interest  -

a place to store could also be any type of landing page / epeort / website / wikki –(eg http://about.me/kathleenz) mine is bad and needs updating

Using QR codes somehow to direct people to more information on what the badge means – could be useful ??

I
like the term ‘Badge’ and think it reflects many things .. even ‘badge of
honour’ lol – wear them proudly

Hi all -  I really know very little about badges, except for Brownies and Guides, but want to know more. I can see a potential use in my online classes (Higher Ed).

I live in New Westmisnter BC.

Norah

1. your name, Bev Ferrell EdD
2. your self assessed understanding of digital badges- limited
3. your interest in digital badges (within HE, within peer learning, self directed or other) --learning at this time
4. The city and country where you currently live private- USA
5. other thoughts you feel important Criteria ----badges for this seminar should be able to be earned by everyone
6. more detailed background in image/qr

This is an experiment. It worked for me on my tablet if I centered the code portion in the reader.

Bev

Hi everyone - apologies for catching up on events and discussions here...

I did post a bit of an intro in the earlier lead up discussion about a major project to gamify teacher professional learning in a community of practice here in Australia. This project has been a coming together of my two big learning passions - games and CoPs. I have to say I am having a blast thinking through all the issues it raises.

http://scope.bccampus.ca/mod/forum/discuss.php?d=16750&parent=68764

Bron