Posts Tagged ‘digital microcredentials’

UPCEA 2019 online education

UPCEA is the leading association for professional, continuing, and online education.

http://conferences.upcea.edu/annual2019/schedule.html

Challenges and Issues: A Conversation Regarding Micro-Credentials
Level: Foundational
Location: Cedar
Alternative Credentials are important to the future of understanding cradle-to-career opportunities in Professional Education. Institutions interested in considering the use of micro-credentialing face many challenges and issues. This session will be presented from the perspective of panelists who are dealing with the issues and challenges of alternative credentials. The panelists will suggest pathways for institutions to consider as they work toward cradle-to-career opportunities.

  • Janet Staker Woemer, University of Wisconsin
  • Linda Kingston, Winona State University
  • Patricia Cook, University of Arizona
  • Asim Ali, Auburn University
  • Jacqui Williams, University of Melbourne

Moderator: Ray Schroeder, University of Illinois Springfield

Badgr Credly for school microcredentialing

Hello Rayan,
I am familiar with Badgr and Credly, but cannot speak to the ease (or difficulty) of implementation. Here are some resources that might be helpful.
Comparison tools and platform lists
Write-ups by other institutions or systems:

Kevin Kelly, EdD

Lecturer Faculty, Department of Equity, Leadership Studies & Instructional Technologies

San Francisco State University
Email: kkelly@sfsu.edu
Phone: 415.794.5327

We are exploring the very same topic.  We have been using Credly for the past year or so to give badges to faculty who complete courses in a 3 course series we developed for effective online teaching.

That said, we are a Canvas school and, as we explore our own pilot program, are looking at Badgr’s badging solution (which is free to use, at least for Canvas, maybe all though?) as well as their Pathway’s solution for stacking badges and providing a view of that badge path for participants.

It’s is all very early stage but those are the two platforms and vendors we have focused our time currently.

John Kinsella
Instructional Systems Consultant
ITS – STELAR: St. Thomas E-Learning and Research
(651) 962-7839
jrkinsella@stthomas.edu
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https://support.suitable.co/hc/en-us

https://support.suitable.co/hc/en-us/articles/115000780372-Achievements-Badges-

mostly working with undergrads.

the emphasis (strong side) is the streamlining of the different offices and activities on campus

levels of proficiency is very much geared toward undergrads

aspects of gamification, but no peer support credit/badge

U of Pittsburgh – OCC outside the class curriculum
Monclair U (NJ second largest):
U of Wyoming: after level 3, career coach does storytelling appointment.

pilot is $5K and institutional can vary between $10-15K

segmenting capabilities.

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more on Credly in this IMS blog
https://blog.stcloudstate.edu/ims?s=credly

how to gamification

Gamification: Understanding The Basics

What is a game?

When you take off all the technical parts of a game, you are left off with four elements: a goal, rules, a feedback system and voluntary participation.

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more on gamification in this IMS blog
https://blog.stcloudstate.edu/ims?s=gamification

microcredentials concerns

As students flock to credentials other than degrees, quality-control concerns grow

Policymakers try to bring consistency to what “microcredentials” actually mean

As students flock to credentials other than degrees, quality-control concerns grow

Degro took the course and earned the badge that turned out to be a way to list his new skill in an online resume with a digital graphic that looks like an emoji.

Such non-degree credentials have been growing in popularity.

“We do have a little bit of a Wild West situation right now with alternative credentials,” said Alana Dunagan, a senior research fellow at the nonprofit Clayton Christensen Institute, which researches education innovation. The U.S. higher education system “doesn’t do a good job of separating the wheat from the chaff.”

Thousands of credentials classes aimed at improving specific skills have cropped up outside of traditional colleges. Some classes are boot camps, including those popular with computer coders. Others are even more narrowly focused, such as courses on factory automation and breastfeeding. Colleges and universities have responded by adding non-degree programs of their own.

some 4,000 colleges and other providers issue industry certifications, according to the Lumina Foundation, but fewer than one in 10 are reviewed by a regulatory body or accreditor.

That companies need trained employees is uncontested: More than three-quarters of U.S. manufacturers told the National Association of Manufacturers this year that they had trouble finding and keeping skilled workers.

Despite those hiring and retention concerns, industry appears reluctant to discuss the topic of policing new credentials. The National Association of Manufacturers declined to answer questions.

“If an organization wants to grant a badge, there’s nothing stopping them from doing that,” Richardson said. “It’s important for consumers to do their due diligence.”

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more on microcredentials in this IMS blog
https://blog.stcloudstate.edu/ims?s=microcredentialing

Microcredentials and Digital Badges in Higher Ed

Microcredentials and Digital Badges in Higher Education

November 27 – 29, 2018  Savannah, GA

https://www.academicimpressions.com/microcredentials-and-digital-badges-in-higher-education

Badging programs are rapidly gaining momentum in higher education – join us to learn how to get your badging efforts off the ground.

Key Considerations: Assessment of Competencies

During this session, you will learn how to ask the right questions and evaluate if badges are a good fit within your unique institutional context, including determining ROI on badging efforts. You’ll also learn how to assess the competencies behind digital badges.


 

Key Technology Considerations

This session will allow for greater understanding of Open Badges standards, the variety of technology software and platforms, and the portability of badges. We will also explore emerging trends in the digital badging space and discuss campus considerations.

Key Financial Considerations

During this hour, we will take a closer look at answering key financial questions surrounding badges:

  • What does the business model look like behind existing institutional badging initiatives?
  • Are these money-makers for an institution? Is there revenue potential?
  • Where does funding for these efforts come from?
Partnering with Industry

Badging can be a catalyst for partnerships between higher education and industry. In this session, you will have the opportunity to learn more about strategies for collaborating with industry in the development of badges and how badges align with employer expectations.

Branding and Marketing Badges

Now that we have a better idea of the “why” and “what” of badges, how do we market their value to external and internal stakeholders? You’ll see examples of how other institutions are designing and marketing their badges.

Consultation Time

Alongside your peers and our expert instructors, you will have the opportunity to brainstorm ideas, get feedback, ask questions, and get answers.

Next Steps and the Road Ahead: Where Badging in Higher Ed is Going

Most institutions are getting into the badging game, and we’ll talk about the far-reaching considerations in the world of badging. We’ll use this time to engage in forward-thinking and discuss the future of badging and what future trends in badging might be.

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more on microcredentialing in this IMS blog
https://blog.stcloudstate.edu/ims?s=microcredentialing

microcredentialing and students abilities

Badge breakthroughs

Micro-credentials awarded for in-demand skills give employers deeper detail about a student’s abilities.Matt Zalaznick. June 7, 2017
While employers increasingly demand that new hires have college degrees, the transcripts supporting those hard-earned credentials are no longer the most informative tool students have to exhibit their skills.

An estimated 1 in 5 institutions issue digital badges, which can be posted to social media, stored on digital portfolios and displayed by other specially designed platforms. When clicked on, the badge lists a range of skills a student has demonstrated beyond grades.

“The reason they’re taking off in higher education is most employers are not getting the information they need about people emerging from higher ed, with previous tools we’ve been using,” says Jonathan Finkelstein, founder and CEO of the widely used badging platform Credly. “The degree itself doesn’t get to level of describing particular competencies.”

For instance, a Notre Dame student who goes on a trip to Ecuador to build bridges can earn a badge for mastering the calculations involved in the construction, says G. Alex Ambrose, associate program director of e-portfolio assessment at the Indiana university’s Kaneb Center for Teaching & Learning.

Students can be pretty certain when they have passed calculus or creative writing, but they don’t always recognize when they’ve excelled in demonstrating soft skills such as critical thinking, communication and work ethic, says MJ Bishop, director of the system’s William E. Kirwan Center for Academic Innovation.

Badges have been most popular in the school of education—including with student teachers who, in turn, have created badges for the elementary and secondary classrooms where they’ve apprenticed, says Anna Catterson, the university’s educational technology director.

The campus library is another badging hotspot. Students there have earned microcredentials for research, 3D printing and other skills. These badges are being shared on LinkedIn and other platforms to obtain internships and scholarships.

The university runs faculty training sessions on badging and has established a review process for when faculty submit ideas for microcredentials.

One pothole to avoid is trying to create a schoolwide badge that’s standardized across a wide range of courses or majors. This can force the involvement of committees that can bog down the process, so it’s better to start with skills within single courses, says Ambrose at Notre Dame.

When creating a badge, system faculty have to identify a business or industry interested in that credential.

Badges that have the backing of a college or university are more impressive to job recruiters than are completion certificates from skill-building websites like Lynda.com.

Students won’t be motivated to earn a badge that’s a stock blue ribbon downloaded off the internet. Many institutions put a lot work into the design, and this can include harnessing expertise from the marketing department and graphic designers

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more on micro-credentialing in this IMS blog
https://blog.stcloudstate.edu/ims?s=microcredentialing

Microcredentials and Digital Badges in Higher Education

Join us in Savannah this November for our conference, Microcredentials and Digital Badges in Higher Education,

Microcredentials and Digital Badges in Higher Education

and learn the strategies and processes that other institutions have used to develop digital badge initiatives and programs. You’ll learn the different ways that badges can add value to the learner experience, key considerations for developing badges, and how to effectively connect learners to industry.

Your instructor panel for this event is an impressive lineup of experienced speakers, all from higher ed themselves, who have been immersed in this work and have likely seen and overcome the same challenges you have. Come ready to learn from the experts.

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more on microcredentialing in this IMS blog
https://blog.stcloudstate.edu/ims?s=microcredentialing

Why Blockchain is Hard

Why Blockchain is Hard

Jimmy Song Bitcoin Educator, Developer and Entrepreneur/PGP Fingerprint: C1D7 97BE 7D10 5291 228C D70C

https://medium.com/@jimmysong/why-blockchain-is-hard-60416ea4c5c

What is a blockchain?

The main thing distinguishing a blockchain from a normal database is that there are specific rules about how to put data into the database. That is, it cannot conflict with some other data that’s already in the database (consistent), it’s append-only (immutable), and the data itself is locked to an owner (ownable), it’s replicable and available. Finally, everyone agrees on what the state of the things in the database are (canonical) without a central party (decentralized).

It is this last point that really is the holy grail of blockchain. Decentralization is very attractive because it implies there is no single point of failure.

The Cost of Blockchains

  • Development is stricter and slower
  • Incentive structures are difficult to design
  • Maintenance is very costly
  • Users are sovereign
  • All upgrades are voluntary
  • Scaling is really hard

Centralization is a lot easier

Like it or not, the word “blockchain” has taken on a life of its own. Very few people actually understand what it is, but want to appear hip so use these words as a way to sound more intelligent. Just like “cloud” means someone else’s computer and “AI” means a tweaked algorithm, “blockchain” in this context means a slow, expensive database.“blockchain” is really just a way to get rid of the heavy apparatus of government regulation. This is overselling what blockchain can do. Blockchain doesn’t magically take away human conflict.

So what is blockchain good for?

Most industries require new features or upgrades and the freedom to change and expand as necessary. Given that blockchains are hard to upgrade, hard to change and hard to scale, most industries don’t have much use for a blockchain. a lot of companies looking to use the blockchain are not really wanting a blockchain at all, but rather IT upgrades to their particular industry. This is all well and good, but using the word “blockchain” to get there is dishonest and overselling its capability.

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more on blockchain in this IMS blgo
https://blog.stcloudstate.edu/ims?s=blockchain

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