Webibliography:
Certifying skills and knowledge: Four scenarios on the future of credentials
Verne
Wortman
Liberty
University
WEBIBLIOGRAPGIES
VERNE WORTMAN
LIBERTY UNIVERSITY
Certifying
skills and knowledge: Four scenarios on the future of credentials
Summary
This author, (Swanson 2015)
is an Emerging Fellow with the Association of Professional Futurists. He writes
this report with the purpose of showing the confluence of skills and knowledge
that be brought together among several scenarios. One of the tools he mentions
greatly is the area of credentials of learning experiences, micro credentials
and embedded badging. He approaches the K-12 sector as using transcripts of
graduates’ records showing tracking of skills of cognitive abilities, social
skills, and emotional skills using technologies such as LRS systems, badges,
and micro-credentials. He does not replace the high school diploma but makes
these skills apart of its portfolio. He documents “extra mile” students and
gives meaning to extra-curricular activities and volunteering. He sees
augmentation of credentials as being vital in the future of elementary and
secondary education. Certificates, badges, and micro-credentials are seen by
the author as very useful to students to stand out in the pack when it comes to
employment and acceptance to further learning institutions. He assumes that all
persons in the future will have this sort of credential along with degrees.
Competency education is shown to be on the up rise although there still is a
hesitancy for some employers to embrace micro-credentials. Skill tracking is an
outcome that is vital to this program.
Looking into the future
this author sees a do-it-yourself diploma reflecting a mixture and confluence
of academic and career preparations with increased use of competency assessments,
career ready credentials, and stacked scaffolded records with career connectors
meeting the needs of future job employers and future academic concentrations.
Words such as nanodegrees and ecosystems will become commonplace. He sees the
employment sector helping schools to map competencies for career paths and to
create their own forms of micro-credentials. Individual educational goals would
now be more important with strong input from the employment sector. Thus, we
see he adheres to increasing learning centered and less educator centered
learning. Reputation becomes more important as does personal branding and
social media savvy. The skills gaps of students going to college could be
narrowed. Awarding credit verses seat time could be a policy.
The next area
investigated is one of “ Every
Experience a Credential” . Record learning stores such as LRS systems now are
becoming more important as replacements for grades and diplomas. Nano or short
degrees could become very common to show competencies. We should be able to
track anyone, anytime anywhere. Post-secondary schools now become certifiers of
experience. Data keeping, storing, and embedding now becomes important both for
the student and the institution and employer. Open source learning is important
as it is used and credentialed by badges and micro-storage.
Mind-mapping could be
another growth from use of badges and new tracking use. Brain functions create
new credentials to students’ cognitive abilities, social skills, and emotions.
Strengths and weakness can be uncovered and help k-12 students to approach
their best personalized and preferred learning format. Educators using badging
systems would be able to track and monitor students cognitive, social, and
emotional skills and be able to use these “neuro-finger prints” as real helps
for real issues and as a credential. Mind scouts become identification tools
for teachers to help align students’ goals and interests. Neuro fitness
programs could be developed both in secondary and higher education.
These scenarios all speak to the possible ways
of accepting new forms of tracking and use by students, educators, and
employers.
Critique
All these ideas of this
author are futuristic but many are being developed and talked about today. The
author says very little about digital badging but does allude to its use at
various points. Credentials and their use and assimilations into the present
education world seem to be approached very well taking into account K-12, post-
secondary, and employer development and use. Many possibilities are shown that
need to be researched and strategized. Some of them are:
1.
Linkage of education with employers
2.
Employers hiring practices linked to
relevant credentials other than those now accepted
3.
Assessment changes to insure meaning and
value including use of badges
4.
How do credentials effect changes in
employment needs?
5.
How don educators track informal
learning?
6.
What new forms of technology help to
create these new forms of credentials?
7.
What about alternative forms of credentials,
certificates, micro-credentials, and badges?
8.
How do schools develop these ideas to
practically incorporate them into present systems?
Reference
Verne
Wortman
Liberty
University
Open badges: Novel means to
motivate, scaffold and recognize learning
Summary
These authors
(Jovaovic, & Devezie, 2014), wrote this article to summarize Open Badges relationship
with concepts and challenges in recognition of learning in multiple and diverse
environments, diverse kinds of skills and knowledge, with alternate forms of
assessment, and with need to transport easily verifiable digital credentials.
They give a definition to the term open badges as a further increase in the use
of digital badges which are indicators of accomplishments, skills, competency,
quality and interest in different types of learning environments. Digital
badging is also a new technology that records achievements and tracks the
learners’ interaction with the community, the badge issuer, and the work done
to accomplish the badge.
Open Badges goes
further in that it allows the learners to identify their skills, interests, and
achievements through verifiable organizations and official people. The badge
organizations’ information, criteria to fulfill the requirements, the date of
badge issue, the date of data release, the evidence of accomplishment,
completion of certain tasks, and fulfillment of goals are all imbedded on the
web program. These might also include social networks, existing networks,
employers, and higher education sources to which the badges can be shared. They
can be gathered and kept in one space source from several places. With standard
compliant formats they can be transferred across digital boundaries and
institutions. The article displays different systems that are available and
free such as Badge Kit and Backpack by Mozilla Corporation, BadgeOS by Wordpress, and Passport from Purdue University. Other
available platforms are given for issuing open badges.
The authors divide the
main uses for open badges in an educational program into five areas. These
areas are the motivated mechanisms of rewards for achievement, the means to
support alternate forms of assessment, the means of recognizing and
credentialing learning, and the means of charting learning routes, scaffolding,
exploration, curriculum, signposts, and guidance while leaving room for the
freedom of choice. The last one of these areas is that of supporting
self-direction and planning and is directly connected to the freedom of choice
as to what is learned, self-direction, planning of activities, self-regulation
of skills, and life –long learning.
Makewaves,
GRASS, MOUSE Squad, and Pathways for Lifelong Learning are
listed as emerging technology in practice.
Critique
Some of the challenges
to open badging expressed in this article are:
1.
The system is still unknown to many
teachers and educators.
2.
Many questions are still unanswered
about design and deployment.
3.
The traditional course structure will
not contain because of traditional grading.
4.
Alignment of the programs’ learning
objectives and requirements has not been done.
5.
Alternate grading and certification has
not been developed.
6.
Low income and social status students
might not be served well.
7.
Real world value has not been assigned.
8.
Focus on accumulation rather than
learning could be a problem.
9.
Motivation displacement could be a
problem.
10.
No standard platforms are available only
hosted ones.
11.
Some systems can be abrasive with
friction.
12.
No plug and play systems have been
developed for universal usage.
13.
The deployment is not easy.
14.
Conceptualization is a problem. Who,
What Why, When and How?
15.
Legal issues are springing up.
All
these negatives need to be researched more to find answers. Many answers are
available, many are only in a limited way. Our research should be to find more
valid answer to these questions. The author does a good job in pointing out
these weaknesses but does not have valid answers for many. In a positive way
the article does point out initiatives in the following areas:
6. Purdue
University’s passport
7. Mozilla’s Badgekit and GritHub
8. Mozilla’s OB Discovery
9. The
Badge Alliance
Areal need is shown for
a less formal, novel, and more flexible evaluation and credentialing system.
Badging may be it. We must initiate more research. This article only begins the
process and does not leave us with clear answers which must be researched.
Reference
Jovanovic, J. & Devedzic, V. (2014). Open
badges: Novel means to motivate, scaffold and recognize
learning. Tech Know Learn (2015) 20:115-122.
DOI 10.1007/s10758-014- 9232-6
Verne
Wortman
Liberty
University
Webibliograpy:
The World is Open
Summary
The author of this book
wrote this treatise to explain how “anyone can learn anything from anyone at
any time.” Bonk (2009). He uses the
model “WE-All-LEARN,” to explain how open web technology is revolutionizing the
world as we shift from a formalized education pattern to compete open learner
participation. He explains open in regard to free and open software, free and
open web searching, free and open E-books, free and open coursework, portals
for all people to object research, learner participation in open communities,
collaboration for expanded group learning, open reality identities,
portability, networks, and future advances and dangers. He shows how business
education and technology intersect in many ways.
This article lists
parents, children, teachers, trainers, bloggers, podcasts, theorists,
technology administrators, school and university administrators, technology
companies, government agencies, politicians, media members, and all of us as
learners through open technology. The treatment of each of the areas of
openness is told with real stories and possibilities of happenings and use.
Each tells about developments, how they came about and are used and real
stories associated with each one. Many of these are new and many are old but
still used at the writing of this book. The four digital freedoms are one
example of his guide to free software. The book shows over and over examples of
how the world of digital learning is in our own hands as we have great freedoms
of use and future development.
Critique
The history and present
uses of all aspects of open world digital web technology is well laid out
according to ten converging openers to the “WE-ALL-LEARN” theory. Every area of
technology up 2009 is explored through real stories and encouraging uses and
programs. For the novice to technology, this would be a great beginning read.
The challenge at the end to different ideas to research, start and develop are
a good jumping off point for this book. For teachers this is a good beginning
book also but they should continue their learning and research with the
authors’ new book of practical activities and suggestions. Other suggestions
are sporadically given for teachers such as classes, workshops, sharing with
other teachers and students. Collaboration is pushed several places in the
book. One would like to see more time given validation and integration of
technology with existing learning. No mention was made of digital badging or
digital micro-embedding of learning experiences. I think most of that started
in 2010 and onward. His newest book was released July 1, 2015, which is called,
“MOOCs and Open Education”. One of the best parts of this book was written on
collaboration. I would have hope for more detail in less areas.
Reference
Bonk, C. (2009). The world is open. San Francisco, CA:
Jossey-Bass.
Verne
Wortman
Liberty
University
Webibliography:
Digital badges in education
Summary
In
response to users around the world who are curious and need to know about
digital badging, the authors, (Gibson, Otashewski, Flintoff, Grant, & Knight
2013), have written this expose of the whole universe of digital badging. It
was written in response to Mozilla’s Open
Badges program and the Lifetime
of Learning Competition along with a global inquiry and the leadership of the
Secretary of Education for the United States. Starting in 2010, digital badging
became a new area to be developed and researched reaching its high points by
2013 and even now. Much needed to be exposed and tried in this area. “Open
Badges” became an area that the Education Department developed through its
study and research. Now there are more than 700 users and thousands of students
participating. Google searches on this topic have gone up exponentially from
2009-2013. See insert 1 from the article.
The
author defines digital badging as a
practice of creating, awarding, and
displaying digital badges occurring in a variety of ways for online engagement
to reach performance benchmarks, responding formally or informally. Many blog sites
and funded products have been observed. The authors went directly to people and
sources to obtain their information first hand. They were collected in field
notes, direct conversation, e-mails, and blog postings from founders, creators,
and autographs. They found that in education badging was used for engaging and
encouraging positive learning behaviors.
It was used to identify progress, to signify achievement, for excited
learning, and scaffolding experience. They found digital uses of embedding
standards, activities, situations, products, outcomes, and performance to
validate the learning experience.
The
origins, history and development of badging are traced. Infrastructure and
metadata transfer systems are discussed as well as the impact of academic
credit transfers and responsive learning systems. This is all based on
students’ actions, interests, automatic scoring, organization of study teams,
problem solving, course selection, links, class choice. Many badge styles were
shown available along with some stand-alone products that were written.
The
accepted use of blogs was divided into four areas to consider. These four were:
motivation, recognition, achievement evidence, and instructor competence and
leadership. Each is discussed in his article.
Critique
This
article is very useful to the novice to badging who needs to know the history,
definition, examples of use, links to use, the impacts on motivation, status,
achievement levels, and validation procedures, in order to approach later use
and research on the subject. It was a good introduction for one like myself who
has not read much about the procedures involved. The article show a high
potential to transform this technology to be used for generations to come in
education. Research could be done to expand and set procedures to use this
program in lower economic conditions and among students that are low in
confidence and need to build and scaffold from this program. More use could be
researched in the use of digital badge in portfolios and in future use of
students in higher education and job advancement. The validating process seem
to me to be one from which that many questions arise and need to be addressed
and could be a subject for further research,
Reference
Gibson,
D., Ostashewski, N., Flintoff, K., Grant, S., & Knight, E, (2013). Digital
badges in
education. Education Information
Technology (2015) 20, 403-410. DOI 10.1007/s10639-013-9291-7.
Webibliography
: Digitalbadges in afterschool learning: Documenting the perspectives and
experiences of students and educators.
Summary
(Katie Davis and Simrat
Sing, 2015) investigate perspectives from a student and an educator’s
standpoint. They include interviews of 43 students and 25 educators to find
credibility of opportunities and their respective challenges. They measured and
compared the outcomes of motivation, empowerment, learning directions, as well
as the achievements gained in through taking part in afterschool activities.
Badges succeeded in proving credibility to external sources such as addm9ssi0n
counselors and employers. One thing that was found was the connection between
settings and learning contexts that were presented externally and internally.
It was found that youth benefitted most from rich learning experiences with new
and challenging new media technologies. Participation gaps were challenging. It
addresses the gap in low-incomes and immigrant backgrounds. Meaning is found in
success and failure in different social contexts. (Lave & Wenger, 1991),
say that learning is supported when students practice meaningful roles in a
practice community. One such identity is track and field that shows stunts
identities that are practice linked. Personal identity is shown to be imbedded
as the learner engages and is able to get recognition for skills. Motivation
are show and embedded from within and without.
Enthusiasm is found to
increase as micro-credentials are documented. Gatekeepers and employers become
involved as boundreys are set. The questions involved were asked to teachers
and students about their engagement and experience with the badges in
afterschool’s expanded learning experience and what are the challenges to
stakeholders as badges are earned. Data collection was done over a period of
time most students and teachers were unaware of badges and did not see any connection
to grades and evaluation or course credit. Potential opportunities were shown
as the challenges of badging were shown.
The main themes were
motivation, credibility, and empowering students. These included social equity
and hard work. Alternate ways of credentialing through badges were found to
have the problems of recognition, documentation, key stakeholders, access to
technologies, fitness to goals and values, and wide acceptance.
Critique
The paper is a good
research as to the amount and kinds of participants. The findings are mostly
helpful to future administrators who might want to include this in afterschool
activities. Ernic codes were directly derived from the data and are included in
the report. Independent researchers applied the codes in the early stages and
again later in the data collection. Kappa statistics were given following
guidelines and found well above the .60 threshold. Coders were primary and
secondary and met together frequently with sub-codes being attached. Many relationships
and connections were found to exist between the codes. By formulating these
relationships four main themes emerged those of credibility, motivation,
student empowerment, and integration.
Awareness of badges
seemed to be a major problem that could be researched further. The
opportunities and challenges of each stakeholder were charted well and each
group were not very aware of badges and their purpose. Credibility was
discussed by using what came first the chicken or the egg. Some statements of
participants were included in the report. These included the problem of whether
the badge is symbolic, just for oneself or useful for external audiences. These
could be researched further. The shallowness of some badges seems to be
somewhat of a problem and should also be addressed in further research. That
also has links to recognition and worth of badges.
One problem with the
afterschool program was the fact that all participants received a badge, thus
watering down the value of such a badge. The idea of motivation seemed to
unlock more opportunities for students. The idea should be researched more in
the future to prove value of such programs. Some thought a single badge would
not provide ample motivation. It would be interesting to compare groups of
students with and without badges, or complete systems of badges against
sporadic uses not interconnected. Potential empowerment of badges seems to be
contingent on value, fairness, availability, and opportunities of usage.
Availability to show badges to socially or to valued educational or
work-related entities, is a problem addressed by some students. This idea is
sometimes in conflict with itself and should be addressed in further research.
Teachers listed problems of integrating badges
into existing practices and institutions. It would take much research to resolve how this
integration can come about in a creditable way.
Of all the problems,
the one of credibility was addressed well but needs more research into how the
value can be increased and how many obstacles can be overcome to incorporate
this program into existing technologies. Also the three high schools used may
not be enough of a cross section of schools to be a completely valid study.
Many other studies need to be evaluated and compared and also the idea of open
badging added to these studies.
How do badges fit into
the goals and values of badge holders? This question was not addressed
completely and needs to be assessed by laying goals and values alongside the
completed outcomes of a badge program that is more than just a superficial
summer program.
Despite limitations,
this article provides a good starting point for educators and administrators to
help design a summer badge program and to escape many of the problems beset in
this article. The author of the article
points out the need of comparing many researchers and other programs to assess
the best routes for the future.
References
Davis, K. & Singh,
S. (2015).Digital badges in afterschool learning: Documenting the perspectives and experiences of students and teachers. Computers & Education, 88, 72-83.
Lave, J. & Wenger,
E. (1991). Situated learning: Legitimate
peripheral participation. New York: Cambridge
University Press.
