Category: #openbadges

A certificate is just an offline badge

When thinking about Open Badges, its easy to get stuck on the paper certificate paradigm and think about why an Open Badge isn’t that. Here’s is a thought from Chris Kirk and Doug Belshaw, emanating from an excellent dinner conversation, which looks at a certificate from the perspective of a badge.
Soft skills aren’t so soft

I liked this thought about "soft" skills by Beverley Oliver, at #epforall Barcelona Indeed, as Scott Wilson commented, they are hard to define, hard to acquire, hard to assess, hard to evidence – there’s very little that’s soft about them…
The T-shaped Student

I met some excellent people from JISC at the EPIC conference in Barcelona (2015). Simon Whittemore discussed using Open Badges to help create and recognise “T-shaped” students. I really like the thought of a broad compliment of skills and attitudes across a number of domains, coupled with an expertise and competence in one particular domain.
Levelling the Playing Field

This is a thought inspired by the Open Badges conference organised by @szerge in Barcelona recently. I am increasingly aware of how privileged I am, and how easy it is to accept the state of the playing field as just “how it is” as opposed to questioning it’s unfairness, and doing something about it. An…
Social Fabric

Here’s a thought from a conversation with @szerge at the EPIC conference in Barcelona. The underlying message points to the network of trust relationships that exist in a badging ecosystem, and how each assertion forms a relationship between two or more people or bodies. These relationships weave together to form a social fabric. I’m not…
A Constellation of Pathways

“When you are deep into designing your badge system, pause. Look outward: consider the bigger picture that your earner will see. Imagine the thrill of being a learning explorer charting new territory with badges as your guideposts! Now with that new perspective, rough out some potential badge pathways that do not solely include your badges—that…
Open Badges – now with Endorsements

This thought was created for Doug Belshaw‘s DML blog entitled “Extending Badges“.
I am more than just my grades

When you hire a person what do you look for? I look for what I would call character, and a spark… Yet grades are so big that that although voices say that other qualities matter, its hard to hear them. Could Open Badges be a game changer in terms of recognising value, in all its…
Badge Taxonomy

As part of our work for City and Guilds, Doug Belshaw and I decided to formulate a Badge Taxonomy – not in order to classify badges per se, but to evolve our understanding of how badges (and their intended purposes) differed. After a whole bunch of stickies and some brain crunching, this was the (half-baked)…
Recognition of a small step

If we change our outlook from long journeys to small steps how do that effect the landscape of learning that unfolds before us?
Open Badges

I cant remember where I came across the Maynard Keynes quote, but I immediately thought of the disruption of Education by Open Badge technologies. I was also struck by Bernard Bull’s parallel with the disruption of the Energy market.
More power to your elbow

This visual badge was created so that I could throw it at people in order to encourage them…