How Open Badges Could Really Work In Education
http://www.edudemic.com/open-badges-in-education/
Higher education institutions are abuzz with the concept of Open Badges. The concept was presented to SCSU CETL some two years ago, but it remained mute on the SCSU campus. Part of the presentation to the SCSU CETL included the assertion that “Some advocates have suggested that badges representing learning and skills acquired outside the classroom, or even in Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs), will soon supplant diplomas and course credits.”
“For higher education institutions interested in keeping pace, establishing a digital ecosystem around badges to recognize college learning, skill development and achievement is less a threat and more an opportunity. Used properly, Open Badge systems help motivate, connect, articulate and make transparent the learning that happens inside and outside classrooms during a student’s college years.”
Educational programs that use learning design to attach badges to educational experiences according to defined outcomes can streamline credit recognition.
The badge ecosystem isn’t just a web-enabled transcript, CV, and work portfolio rolled together. It’s also a way to structure the process of education itself. Students will be able to customize learning goals within the larger curricular framework, integrate continuing peer and faculty feedback about their progress toward achieving those goals, and tailor the way badges and the metadata within them are displayed to the outside world.
Math, Science, History: Games Break Boundaries Between Subjects
http://blogs.kqed.org/mindshift/2014/05/math-science-history-games-break-boundaries-between-subjects-interdisciplinary-learning/
possibilities for a formal Renaissance-Man-Liberal-Arts education remain limited to the elite. The average, or common, student is encouraged to choose majors and institutions that track into a specialized vocation.
MincraftEDU and SimCityEDU provide flexible options for integrating familiar games with traditional classroom curriculum.
The ability to apply knowledge across disciplines is important, but it is not enough. It is important to combine that knowledge with strong social and emotional skills that serve as the foundation for good citizenship in the 21st Century.
The MindShift Guide to Games and Learning
more on gaming in this blog: https://blog.stcloudstate.edu/ims/?s=gaming
http://cdn.nmc.org/media/2014-nmc-horizon-report-library-EN.pdf
p. 4 new and rapidly changing technologies, an abundance of digital information in myriad formats, an increased understanding of how students learn evolving research methods, and changing practices in how scholars communicate and disseminate their research and creative work.
Engagement requires an outward focus
A liaison who understands how scholars in a particular discipline communicate and share
information with one another can inform the design and development of new publishing services, such as
digital institutional repositories.
Liaisons cannot be experts themselves in each new capability, but knowing when to call in a
colleague, or how to describe appropriate expert capabilities to faculty, will be key to the new liaison role.
an increasing focus on what users do (research, teaching, and learning) rather than on what librarians do (collections, reference, library instruction).
hybrid model, where liaisons pair their expertise with that of functional specialists, both within and outside of libraries
p. 6 Trend 1: Develop user-centered library services
Many libraries are challenged to brand such a service point, citing a “hub” or “center” to refer to services that can include circulation, reference, computer support, writing assistance, and more.
For liaisons, time at a reference desk has been replaced by anticipating recurrent needs and developing
easily accessible online materials (e.g., LibGuides, screencasts) available to anyone at any time, and
by providing more advanced one-on-one consultations with students, instructors, and researchers who
need expert help. Liaisons not only answer questions using library resources, but they also advise and
collaborate on issues of copyright, scholarly communication, data management, knowledge management,
and information literacy. The base level of knowledge that a liaison must possess is much broader than
familiarity with a reference collection or facility with online searching; instead, they must constantly keep up
with evolving pedagogies and research methods, rapidly developing tools, technologies, and ever-changing
policies that facilitate and inform teaching, learning, and research in their assigned disciplines.
Librarians at many institutions are now focusing on collaborating with faculty to develop thoughtful assignments
and provide online instructional materials that are built into key courses within a curriculum and provide
scaffolding to help students develop library research skills over the course of their academic careers
p. 7 Trend 2: A hybrid model of liaison and functional specialist is emerging.
Current specialist areas of expertise include copyright, geographic information systems (GIS), media production and integration, distributed education or e-learning, data management, emerging technologies,
user experience, instructional design, and bioinformatics.
At the University of Guelph, the liaison model was abandoned altogether in favor of a functional specialist
approach
p. 8 Trend 3: Organizational flexibility must meet changing user needs.
p. 9 provide education and consultation services for personal information management. Tools, workshops, websites, and individual consults are offered in areas such as citation management, productivity tools, managing alerts and feeds, personal archiving, and using social networking for teaching and professional development.
p. 11 data management, knowledge management and scholarly communication
digital scholarship
p. 12 Liaisons need to be able to provide a general level of knowledge about copyright, data management, the need for metadata and the ontologies available in their disciplines.
p. 13 Liaisons need to be able to provide a general level of knowledge about copyright, data management, the need for metadata and the ontologies available in their disciplines.
p. 16 replacing the traditional tripartite model of collections, reference, and instruction
Teaching Is Not a Business
http://mobile.nytimes.com/2014/08/17/opinion/sunday/teaching-is-not-a-business.html
Business does have something to teach educators, but it’s neither the saving power of competition nor flashy ideas like disruptive innovation.
While technology can be put to good use by talented teachers, they, and not the futurists, must take the lead. The process of teaching and learning is an intimate act that neither computers nor markets can hope to replicate. Small wonder, then, that the business model hasn’t worked in reforming the schools — there is simply no substitute for the personal element.
Game Design Finds a ‘Sweet Spot’ with Education
http://www.edtechmagazine.com/k12/article/2014/06/game-design-finds-sweet-spot-education
\three areas that generally get neglected in school: architecture, animation and game design.
students create their own games using these concepts. They may choose from several programming platforms, including Beta, Kandu, Flowlab, Unity, Atmosphir, Gamestar Mechanic and Game Maker. Some of these require knowledge of coding; others are almost purely visual.
Game Design Toolkit Available
http://education.mit.edu/blogs/carole/2014/11/05
https://gamestarmechanic.com/
http://gamesandimpact.org/
A brief history of video games (Part I) – Safwat Saleem
http://ed.ted.com/lessons/a-brief-history-of-video-games-part-i-safwat-saleem