I've been hovering on the periphery of this discussion as I tend to do. 

Thank you Peter, for laying out for us your knowledge of badges and their current use in education. Enjoying your blog as well - http://criticaltechnology.blogspot.ca/  

The mozilla badges are a bit cumbersome for wide adoption. Something along the lines of the recent linkedin peer endorsements might be a more  practical way forward.   Endorsing someone is easy, and as long as the system is not abused, helpful. 

 Badges, certificates and medals are fine in moderation.  If they are helpful in your situation - great.  A little validation can do wonders  --> https://www.youtube.com/watch?gl=CA&v=Cbk980jV7Ao

Bron Stukey's  project referencing the Hero's Journey got me thinking.  I recall Joseph Campbell  speaking somewhere about how we should endeavor to stand in our own truth and not justify ourselves or seek approval. Ironically I didn't find this particular quote on google - think it was in the Bill Moyers interview.  I did find some other seniments of his and overall, they didn't give the impression of him being a badge kinda guy. 

“If you can see your path laid out in front of you step by step, you know it’s not your path. Your own path you make with every step you take. That’s why it’s your path.” 

"No one in the world was ever you before, with your particular gifts and abilities and possibilities. It’s a shame to waste those by doing what someone else has done."

“Is the system going to flatten you out and deny you your humanity, or are you going to be able to make use of the system to the attainment of human purposes?”

Once again thank you for the opportunity to take a look at this idea more closely. 

http://www.youtube.com/user/ulrikerenate#g/c/EAACD259739F61FC

I've been checking out his work - inspired me to do some writing yesterday----------

We create culture - Facebook collects it

Facebook's social context ads collect data on our likes and scans our content for  keywords.  This information is used to generate the ads on the right hand side of  the facebook page.   Google has been showing us context sensitive ads for many years now.

The difference in Facebook  is, that your context sensitive ads are being shown to  your network  with the intention of generating activity within your social group.  Along with the ad,  are the names of  your friends who have clicked the like button or generated some sort of social action, demonstrating an engagement with the item being promoted.  The Facebook equivalent of word of mouth advertising.

Social Networks are more valuable when there is activity along the nodes. Activity indicates emotional resonance, you have been moved  to take some action.  It is like participating in a conversation.  If you are not activley engaged you will listen quietly,  when something resonates with you, you will interject with a comment or ask a question.

Knowing what is able to trigger activity  in a social network is valuable.

A friend connection indicates you have a relationship.  The nature of that relationship can be determined by the information you have provided.   The  people in your network may be colleages, school chums or family. The aggregate of  what you and your friends value along with all the other information you have shared paints a picture of your shared culture.

What facebook is collecting is our values.   What do we value enough to like, follow a link, post on a wall or mention in our status messages.   The information can be used to track the changes in our cultural value systems.  As our culture changes so does our behavior.  According to  Peter Kruse, a German professor and psychologist, there is a time  lag  between  our culture as expressed by our values and our behavior.  So if my friends and I impulsively agree that an iced mocha looks yummy.  We are likely to follow up with a purchase someday.

We know that social networks can have powerful effect.   Valdis Krebs' case studies explore the role of our social networks in influencing  smoking cessation, obesity and divorce.    He has shown that Social Network Analysis  can  uncloak  the connections in the 911 terrorist plot and analyze the relationship dynamics of large companies.

We create culture.    Facebook collects it.

Imagine what we could do with it.

video doesn't embed in moodle - here's the link


http://www.youtube.com/user/ulrikerenate#p/u/11/L4PUqTpB-I0


Partial notes from the video:

The most interesting part of reducing complexity is culture.  It is not the individual brain but it is already the sum of the individual brains.   When I`m looking at the individual brain.  I`m talking more or less abot the limbic system...

All these values ... are in the value system of the limbic system.  This is absolutely  unconscious more or less and gives me the ability to decide without rational analysis.  I am in a very complex situation,  I am doing something and I`m doing this on the basis of all the intuitive knowledge of my own life...

The cultural value system is stabilizing the decision making process, not of one person but of groups of persons.  This is what the culture is all about.  Culture has the task to stabilizing people enough to  be able to interact, to be able to cooperate...

There are these underlying streams of value systems that are fare more stable.  So when I'm ready to measure the changing value system in the culture.  I'm two or three years ahead of behavior.  If you can get access to this data you can reduce complexity in the sense of anticipation not just the moment you are looking at...

Measuring the dynamics of the value system of groups.  Culture is nothing more than a word for this.  So when we are sharing value systems - we are sharing the culture.

We are able to understand each other.

Welcome to week 3 of the Using Social Media in Education session presented by SCoPE and BC Campus.

For those of you who were busy with the holiday festivities in the US, here is a summary of the highlights from last week.

Last Week

• Jason Toal's elluminate session was a hit! Nicely facilitated by Paul Stacey. Sylvia Currie provided the recording of Jason 's Ellumitate Session and a link to his interesting Tags, Tagging, and Tagclouds wiki.
  
• Facillitators Tia Carr Williams and Ian Macleod have stirred up some serious conversations in the discussion threads. If you have a moment, it is worthwhile to review these popular threads from last week.
  

• Sandy Hirtz presented the group with an opportunity to participate in the Collaborative Book Project - and provided an online information session on Thursday. If you have a contribution, especially on the subject of social media, contact Sandy, she can give you more information on how to participate.
  

This Week

This week our discussions will focus on implementation and innovation when using social media in education. A live elluminate session with Brian Lamb will take place on Thursday.

Week 3 Theme: Implementation & Innovation
(Starting Monday Nov 26 - Wrapup Sunday Dec 2)

• issues around use of social media in formal education
• Privacy, ethics, administration
• Patriot Act US hosting concerns
• Innovations that resolve the above issues
• Emerging trends and the future

Featuring a live presentation with Brian Lamb

Brian Lamb | Exploration, Implementation, and Innovation

• Thurs November 29 10:00 AM Vancouver time (see world clock)
  Join Brian Lamb, Manager, Emerging Technologies and Digital Content with the Office of Learning Technology at University of British Columbia for this live session to SEE what the possibilities for using social media in education.
  

This session forms part of the 3-week Social Media in Education seminar organized in collaboration with BCcampus Online Communities.

• Access the Elluminate session directly

----------------

• Our Wikispace for the conference is here http://social-media-in-education.wikispaces.com/
• Tag your links with "scope668" and view the group's tags here :http://del.icio.us/tag/scope668

As we wind down the whirlwind these past few weeks have been.

Let take some time to reflect on and share the new insights we have gained by participating in this discussion.

I have many.. I will share a few of them now.

 First of all I really appreciate the insight offered by teachers and parents on their real world experiences.  And also the presentation by Dr. Samia Khan which gave voice to these concerns.

Secondy, being a geek, I changed my definition of a serious game to include a physical game and a game that transverses the boundary between the virtual and the physical.  Conversational games, playground games and virtual science labs get me thinking about how we can better ground the lessons learned.

I am posting the first draft of the PDF summary for this session.  I still have some work to do however I wanted to post it early as we wind down the discussions.   The PDF summary has a space for reflections on what we learned during our time here.

What did you learn this month.

It is a video that describes the experience of second life vis someone’s online identity or persona. Creating such a rich virtual persona is new for human beings. Yes, we have created online personas with profiles and blogs for years. But a virtual world can really hit that ball out of the park. I wonder how many second lifers and people who spend time online can relate to his story - I certainly can. What is also interesting is that this fellow is actually creating the movie using  second life. He will be continuing his video diary in the months to come in fact boing boing reports that it will be a made for tv series. Hmmm - He’s certainly found some value in second life Machinima documentary. Filmmaker, television producer, and multimedia artist Douglas Gayeton shot and produced this made-for-TV series online within Second Life: <object width="425" height="350"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/wa7u0a9pUSs"></param><param name="wmode" value="transparent"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/wa7u0a9pUSs" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" wmode="transparent" width="425" height="350"></embed></object> It could happen to anyone

Tuesday, April 10, 2007 - 1st episode of ‘My Second Life’ online! ‘My Second Life’was shot entirely in the popular online world Second Life. On one of his visits in SL, Filmmaker Douglas Gayeton came across a series of seven video dispatches by a character named Molotov Alva. It appears that a man by the same name mysteriously disappeared from his real world California home in January 2007. Will he find the answers he’s looking for?