Leva,
Thank-you for the gracious introduction. And yes, I live on Bowen Island, BC with my wife, three kids (ages 17, 7, 6) and cat. I was born and raised on the west coast of Canada, and have enjoyed much of my life in the splendor of BC.
I have many years teaching in the institutional environment (BCIT, Capilano College and Memorial University in NL) and have also developed many courses and small programs and have taught many years online. My projects within the learning and technology realm have included; early times in OER development with WikiEducator and the Commonwealth of Learning, and more recently working with the Mozilla Foundation on thier Open Badges project. I am very committed to digital badges for many reasons and am also involved in developing the School of Open Badges at the P2Pu.
My career has also been spent in information technology and software development. I am currently working as a Solution Architect for a large insurance corporation where I am designing an enterprise solution for multi-channel customer communications (ie, email, mobile, sms, social media, etc.)
My favorite projects are where I can bring together my education (M.Ed IT) and work experience in education with my ongoing commitment to information technology and software development. Needless to say, digital badges spans both education and technology very well. If you want a greater look into my credentials feel free to view my LinkedIn profile; http://www.linkedin.com/in/prawsthorne
I hope this two week seminar series combined with the two lunch-and-learns will provide a comprehensive look at digital badges. Starting with what is a badge and working our way through to how to implemement a digital badge in one of the emerging software systems built to issue digital badges. Please do not hesitate to ask any question. I feel I am well prepared to answer questions from a pedagogical and technical perspective regarding digital badges.
I am very excited to have been asked to facilitate this two week series.
Be well... Peter