On Monday I attended the White Rose Learning Technologists (WRLT) forum meeting at Sheffield Hallam University (SHU). This special edition WRLT meeting was a change from the usual format as it was all about a specific topic/theme – Open Badges.
If you’re not sure what Open Badges are then see my previous post on Open Badges.
The presentation and workshop was delivered by Doug Belshaw, Badges & Skills Lead for the non-profit Mozilla Foundation, and here are the slides from his presentation…
The session started with a presentation on what Open Badges are, how and why they might be used, and Doug shared with us some really useful resources, including a great Badge Design Canvas from DigitalMe, which comes with some accompanying slides which explain how to use the canvas as a tool to design Open Badges…
Doug also shared this great graphic on ‘Open Badge Anatomy‘, which really helps visualise the makeup of an Open Badge…
Some of the key points from Doug’s presentation were:
- Open Badges are images with metadata hard-coded into them.
- They can act as visual representations of achievements, learning, skills, interests, and competencies.
- They can accommodate formal & informal learning pathways.
- They can also represent hard & soft skills, peer assessment, and stackable lifelong learning.
- Open Badges can capture learning wherever & however it occurs – allowing for innovation.
In the second half of the session we took part in a range of workshop activities which encouraged us to think about how and why we might use Open Badges in our own context, something which the TEL team have already given quite a bit of thought, and hope to develop further this summer.
Since Monday I have also come across this great short animated video about Open Badges…
…and a great new graphic on how Open Badges work…
There is still a lot for us to think about in terms of coming up with a strategy for Open Badges here at YSJ, but we’re really excited (*cough* geeks *cough*) about the possibilities!
Phil
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