Birthdays and Badges

So today I turned 40. Not bad, all things considered. And what did I do for my birthday? Why, I finished up the artwork for the Intro to Openness in Education course badges and finished the technical work necessary to award the badges through the Mozilla Open Badge Infrastructure‘s new Issuer API. I now have some shiny new badges ready to award to folks who complete the appropriate requirements.

I think these more granular, learning outcomes-based badges (or LOBs, which I wrote about in more detail the other day) provide students with more immediately actionable credentials than three credits on a transcript do. It’s nice to be able to award both the badges and the credits to the formally enrolled students – it’s the best of both worlds for them. And I think the informal learners will appreciate the badges, even without the credits.

It’s been a good day! Here’s to at least 40 more years of increasing access to educational opportunity…