Badges

Literally dozens of government entities, foundations, and other organizations are concerned about “the college completion problem.” The problem in a nutshell is that people go into significant debt to go to college, dropout for a variety of reasons (good and bad) without graduating, and are left with nothing to show for their trouble except the debt. In the popular framing of the problem, the value of a college degree is your ability to convert it into employment. (This is not a rant about the extra-employment value of education. If those were the droids you’re looking for, you can go about your business. Move along.) I simply want to point out that the convertability of a degree into employment is an artificial construct. Degrees are the gateway to employment only because the companies doing the employing say they are. But the universe doesn’t have to work this way. ...

I recently blogged about the Apple announcement and how it amounted to publishers ceding the “traditional” textbook market (whether print or digital) to OER makers. One way to interpret that concession is as a win for open education. And it is a win - temporarily. Another way to interpret the concession by publishers is to see it as electronics companies ending production of VCRs and doubling down on DVD players. In my previous post I asked, “If video-based, multimedia-rich, interactive textbooks are only worth $14.99 to the big publishers, what are relatively static, text-based books with a few photos worth to them?” Think about that for a minute. Sure, there are “traditional” OER textbooks available for free. But when you could have video, multimedia, simulations, and interactive assessments for $15, why would you take a traditional book (whether print or video) even if it is free? ...

I’m humbled and very excited to announce that, as of today, I am the Senior Fellow for Open Education at the National Center for Research in Advanced Information and Digital Technologies, also known as Digital Promise. I’ll post more detail on exactly what this means later this week. FAQ: No, I’m not leaving BYU; I’ll be acting in this role in addition to my responsibilities at BYU. In the meantime, here’s the SL Tribune story and the text of the article from the McKay School News: ...

A brief history of the impending transformation of post-secondary education, just to clarify where we are, followed by some commentary. Dates are approximate as I’m working from memory on an airplane. Perhaps later I’ll turn this into a proper piece of writing with supporting links, etc., if folks find it interesting. 7x - The internet. Data can be routed from computer to computer. The cost of copying and distributing content begins its drop toward zero. ...

My colleague and friend Gideon Burton (of silva rhetoricae fame among other things) and I have been discussing badges lately. To date the open education movement has focused almost exclusively on the production and sharing of content. Significant opportunities exist to reform or reinvent other, non-content portions of the education ecosystem with the support of open content. One of the areas ripest for innovation is alternative certification of informal learning. Hence, the recent excitement about badges. Badges have incredible potential for providing a viable alternative to the traditional system of credits most universities are tied to by accreditors. It seems to me that there is a critical need for someone to demonstrate that badges are a viable alternative to the traditional accreditation process. ...