Category: #edtech

We don’t know what we don’t know

When we think about how to solve a problem we can only really use what we’ve come across before. We don’t know what we don’t know. That’s why it’s useful to be exposed to all sorts of different potential solutions and to ask yourself what can I use that for? This Thinkery was captured live…
What can you make from a box of wheat pops?

What can’t you make from a box of wheat pops? When you’re trying to solve the problem with technology there’s always a big temptation to start from scratch and build something completely bespoke, but it’s almost always the wrong approach. Better off thinking about what already exists and how it can be reused… This Thinkery…
Default User

I’m guilty of thinking that “user” is a gender-neutral term. It turns out that this is rarely the case. By “default user” we commonly unconsciously think white male. That’s because those that are doing the building are while males. Blind Spots 1, Bryan 0. I’ve been listening to the excellent book Invisible Women – Exposing…
Machines

If you’re anywhere near the land of EdTech, then it’s worth reading this piece on Edtech Agitprop by Audrey Watters from top to bottom. It’s straight up. And I like straight up…
Here may lie an Open Badge programme. Time for a pre-mortem…

Last week I was facilitating a Think-a-thon with a WeAreOpen client in Edinburgh alongside co-op member Grainne Hamilton. We were helping our client to think through the integration of an Open Badge programme into their current offering. The Pre Mortem is an extremely helpful way to air intuitive spider-sense discomforts amongst the team, without anyone…
Stand in their shoes

“We’re going to start issuing digital badges.” Great. Make sure you stand in the shoes of the people you intend to be the recipients of your badges, and understand why they might want to earn badges from your organisation in the first place… Created for the recent IDB Digital Credentialing Workshop run by We Are Open Co-op
Distribution of Innovation

Together with Doug Belshaw and WeAreOpen Co-op I’ve been working a micro-credentialing project with the Inter-American Development Bank in Washington D.C. On the second day of workshops we put together, we organised a succession of badge project “surgeries”. I captured some of the dialogue using live drawing – which we then evolved into the Credential Project Blueprint. Here’s one of the many doodles…
Adventures in Blockchain!

Anywhere there’s innovation being touted, good ol’ Blockchain won’t be far away. There’s no end to the possible adventurin’. Embrace the future!
Is technology addictive?

It feels like I’m missing something. I wonder if there’s a record-setting sporting contest I need to witness. Um… nope. I wonder if anybody’s retweeted that awesome last thing I drew. I’d better check. Sheesh, tumbleweeds. Maybe something’s breaking in the news. It’s still snowing in Scotland. It feels like I’m missing something… Inspired by the post – Is…
Open Badges 2.0

I attended the badge summit in London last week. I had the opportunity to visually digest the chatter from different speakers regarding V2 of the Open Badges spec. If you have a look at how the standard is described, you hopefully agree that abstract things need all the visualisation help they can get…
Pathways

Gold, Silver, Bronze, yawn… This (standard) approach prevents the issuing organisation from having to think too deeply about how learners might interact with what they’ve got to offer. There’s more than one way to string together some badges.
Artificial Intelligence…

So I’ve been meeting with Kin Lane recently (aka API Evangelist) trying to get a deeper hold on all things API (or Application Programming Interface for what it’s worth). As an ex-programmer, I’m interested to understand the evolution of how APIs are being used. A number of insights emerged from our conversation, including this aligned view…