OnPhD: Identify your domain of study

This is the blog post describing completion of the second task of the OnPhD candidacy challenge. In this post I describe my domain of study and provide a potential PhD thesis statement.

This sentence and slide stack (with audio) should answer questions 1 thru 6.
My domain of study is the union and intersection of the educational technologist, the solution architect and the self-directed adult learner (heutagogue). The intersection of these three topics encourages the study of personal learning ecologies, the technology stack and distributed computing that supports personal learning, and the devices and user experience that best suits the self-directed learner.

Domains of study from Peter Rawsthorne

These two sentences provide a potential PhD thesis statement.
The ability to validate and cluster all the events of life-long learning, regardless of their origin, will provide the required alternative to emancipate the self-directed learner from the limits of traditional accreditation. This shift will enable every learner, regardless of approach, to pursue learning with the same level of recognition as learners in traditional institutions.

To do: The completion of this task exposed a gap in my knowledge. I need to do a bunch of research on Heutagogy. From this reseach I will build another concept map, but this work will become a part of my OnPhD.

Course Design Sprint

Outstanding!!! Early last year I wrote a post playing with the idea of a course design sprint. The main idea being the development of a full online course in a reduced amount of time. less than five days, or some low number of days like that. In my post I dreamt of having the time to execute on the idea to see if it would work.

Agile Instructional Design Sprint

Well it turns out my friend Billy Meinke ran a course sprint this past weekend.  The course was developed as a launch course for the School of Open during Open Education Week (Mar 11-15). I really don't want to take the wind out of their sails... so you can read about all there great work yourself. I'm just so flipped out they proved this idea out! Kudos to everyone involved, particularly Billy!

• http://billymeinke.wordpress.com/2013/02/11/open-science-course-sprint-an-education-hackathon-for-open-data-day/
• http://creativecommons.org/weblog/entry/36600
• http://blogs.plos.org/scied/2013/02/21/guest-post-open-data-day-sprint-courses-and-hackathons/
• http://onlinelearninginsights.wordpress.com/2013/02/26/a-course-design-sprint-my-experience-in-an-education-hackathon/

The Solution Architect

This concept map is a compliment to the previously posted "Educational Technologist" post. These two concept maps together provide the visuals for my identified domain of study as I work through the P2Pu challenge to declare my OnPhD candidacy. This concept map contains the two related concepts of Solution Architect and Information Technology (IT) Architect. Many of the skills and knowledge for the solution architect are a part of the overarching role of IT Architect. It is my intention to seek a research domain that occurs within the intersection of Education Technologist and Solution Architect. I believe bringing greater architectural discipline to the educational technologist role will assist greatly in growing this important role within the rapidly innovating educational space.

Teach people to teach themselves

What stands out for me most is that we need to teach people to teach themselves. Everyone needs to design and develop their own learning methodology and implement for the rest of their lives. This methodology needs to include and recognize other people as places where your knowledge resides. People also need to alter the methodology through time, but it is still their own learning design methodology customized and upgraded for them and by them. I believe people can begin to get meta-cognitive during their teens. I think this timing would be different with everyone. But when a person is ready they need to develop (with rigor) their own learning approach.

The Educational Technologist

Peter Rawsthorne's Career Narrative

Family on Quiniscoe Summit, 2551 m

I really do love to build and integrate software solutions, particularly internet solutions. And the more information sources and distribution, the better. I am truly invigorated when building solutions that take the complexity of a well thought out business strategy and create kicking customer facing internet portals. I also get jazzed when the solution directly supports the business' back-end processes so the business can be smarter and more nimble. If there is uncertainty around strategy due to the project being a start-up idea (or wild-ass dream), I can proceed with experience using agile and lean approaches. I can create a project heartbeat where we ship regularly with focus on customer need and successes. This is all fun for me, and if all this falls within the knowledge management or adult education domain, all the better.

Over the last 23 years I have occupied almost every role within the development of information technology software and internet solutions; I've worked as a programmer, a database administrator and solutions architect, through to manager of information technology. I have been successful in large organizations, in small internet start-ups, and many organizations in between. I feel it is a great accomplishment that I can bring projects to completion regardless of when I join the project and within any technical or leadership capacity. I believe it is important to finish the things we start.

I am excited about opportunities with medium sized organizations and consulting firms who are looking to innovate their business through information and internet technology or assist others in improving their business through technology innovation. My experience and education would have me in the role of senior solutions architect, consultant, or director of information technology.

If you have an interest in working together please do not hesitate to contact me; peter AT rawsthorne DOT org.

If you want to view my career history my linked in profile is a great place to start; http://www.linkedin.com/in/prawsthorne

Gears of my childhood

I am involved in the current running of Learning Creative Learning with MIT and P2Pu. A fantastic online course which is prompting much reflection and confirming much of what I am doing with inspiring adult learners. I am definately on the right road!

This weeks activity is to;
Read Seymour Papert’s essay on the “Gears of My Childhood” and write about an object from your childhood that interested and influenced you.

I struggled with this. I didn't have an object like Papert had, something that I grew my learning around, something I would use to visualize or conceptualize my learning. Something I did have, and still have... is the bicycle. I rode my bicycle everywhere, to school, from school, to the park, just up and down our dead-end road. My social life was around the bicycle for many years, we had a bike club on our street. Every day and every weekend we would meet-up and do things, the bicycle was a constant.   I didn't think about the bicycle in direct relationship with my learning. It never was a gear to my learning. I would rather see is as a foundation to most of what I did, and played a big part of forming who I am today.

• The bicycle provided a freedom to travel great distances, unsupervised. Today, I love to travel.
• The bicycle provided me access to a number of different social circles and friendships. Today, I know many people and socialize across social and economic domains.
• The bicycle provided me travel to many different events. Today, my interests and studies are broad.
• The bicycle allowed me to escape the restraints of what was expected of me. Today, I seek (with confidence) alternate routes to desired outcomes.
• The bicycle was easy to take apart and put back together. Today, I am constantly taking things apart and putting them back together, often improving them along the way.
• The bicycle caused me injury, but I always made it home. Today, I pick myself up on bad days and have persistence to keep going.
• The bicycle took me places I could not have otherwise gone. Today, I am still curious and follow thoughts, ideas and inspirations to places I would not have otherwise gone.

I know that the bicycle isn't the same as the gear as described by Papert. I never used the bicycle as an analogy or image to base my learning. The bicycle provided me a freedom to become an autodidactic.

Badge System Design: Task 1

This is my work toward completing the first task of the badge system design challenge on P2Pu. This post is exactly the same as the comment I entered as completion of the task.

1. Please introduce yourself. And include information about your experience with badges (both traditional and digital) and what you are wanting to learn specifically about badge systems design.
   • My name is Peter Rawsthorne. I am creating this Badge System Design Challenge for P2Pu. The best way to get a sense of who I am is to view my blog and related links; http://criticaltechnology.blogspot.ca/ Particularly, the connect with me links top of the right column.
   • I have been involved with badges most of my life. I was a scout, I participated in a number of programs with the YMCA, I was a Canadian Sailing Association participant, and a number of other merit badge issuing organizations. The depth of my early experiences with badges is well described in my confessions of a badge addict post.
   • I have also been developing learning resources for the Open Badges project since Q2 of 2012. A summary of this work can be found in this post about agile learning and open badges.
   • My focus in creating this course and with badge system design in general is to deepen my understanding in how best to design a system of badges and to what granularity of criteria for each badge.
     
     
2. Describe your experience with course and curriculum design. Don't be shy, tell us about a small lesson you created for yourself or a complete degree program. Or any possible descriptions of works in between.
   • I have been creating courses and curriculum for over 20 years. I have worked in small computer stores providing digital literacy workshops for parents, I have worked for Universities and created faculty workshops, courses and curriculum for students. I have built many online courses and curriculum. I enjoy building learning materials and most recently have enjoyed creating Open Educational Resources (OER).
   • Most recently I created a two week seminar series about badge systems design. The seminars were a combination of directed online discussion and two 1 hour lunch-and-learn screencasts. The wiki containing the all the artifacts from this seminar series can be found on the SCoPE site; http://scope.bccampus.ca/mod/wiki/view.php?id=9011
     
     
3. Tell a story about rubrics or learning outcomes. And if or how you have you used them? and within what context? Do you know what a rubric or learning outcome is? And how they would apply to learning. If you don't know what a rubric or learning outcome is, describe a badge (traditional or digital) you have earned or someone you know has earned. Describe the requirements to earn the badge.
   • I have created rubrics for many different courses and learning tasks. One of my favourite experiences in building rubrics was when teaching into a B.Ed program at Memorial University. All the students collaborated and built a rubric for evaluating other students educational blog posts and their strategy for using blogging as a learning tool with K7 students. I believe rubrics are an excellent way of focusing the tasks along a learning journey.
   • I have used learning outcomes only a few times, and they were a part of a course description. The idea was to describe what the student would know or what they would accomplish through the course. It was a description of the outcomes of the course.
   • I believe rubrics and learning outcomes fit well, as a proven educational approach, when creating the criteria for an open badge.
     
     
4. Consider your commitment to this challenge. Do you want to just complete each task within the challenge or do you want to contribute to creating each task within the challenge. Building this challenge as collaborative effort will make it way better. Either way, engage, contribute, enjoy...
   • I am committed to creating this challenge end-to-end. I will create a few tasks within the challenge and then complete each task as if I am also a learner taking the task.
   • I'd like to encourage others assist in creating this challenge and would enjoy working with other badge system designers in building this challenge. I believe we would all learn more, and create a better product, if we worked together.
   • I am wanting to implement a flipped assessment approach within this challenge. I see flipped assessment as an experiment. And P2Pu is the right place to conduct this experiment.
     

Learning theories, frameworks, and approaches

So I'm building a concept map for my application of candidacy for the Open and Networked PhD program with Wikiversity and P2Pu. The related P2Pu challenge requests a creative work that describes your area of study. My areas of study are self-directed life-long learning approaches (Heutagogy) and software architecture. One of the concept maps I am creating attempts to answer the question "what is life-long learning?" I started to visualize the terms;  pedagogy, andragogy, heutagogy, behaviorism, cognitivism, constructivism, and connectivism. I began to struggle with how these terms relate to each other within a concept map... so this micro learning journey began and inspired this blog post. How best do I visualize the connections and relationships among all these terms?

I read, I reflected, and I settled upon two main categories for the following reasons;

1. Approaches to teaching and learning
This set of terms describe ways of teaching and learning. And they describe how a person can learn and provides ways to plan and conduct learning.

1. Behaviorism - a large amount of repetition to achieve the desired action.
2. Cognitivism - sequenced learning. Learning is a determined journey, that with direction desired learning can be achieved.
3. Constructivism - a persons learning is built upon previous learnings and knowledge. New learning are put into place based on this previous knowledge.
4. Connectivism - knowledge is stored in your friends, the information appliances and the objects around you.
5. Others - there are many other approaches, but I see the above four as the most generalized set
6. Inquiry - I'd also include inquiry based approaches, cause they work really well... IMO.

2. How I perceive the learning theories
All of the theories are about how humans learn (or can be taught, depending on your perspective). I believe the biggest factor in applying learning theory is age. I do believe children learn differently than adults. I also believe adults can learn a lot from how children learn.

1. Pedagogy - how kids are educated [taught or learned (let's say K12... could overlap into higher education and before kindergarten)]
2. Andragogy - directed education strategies for adults
3. Heutagogy - self-directed learning by adults (strategies for the adult to learn without the direction of others)

So there you have it, three theories and six approaches... I do believe that all six approaches can be used within each of the three theories (with varying degrees of success). All this reading and reflection influenced the organization of my concept map to look as follows; more on this to come...

DRAFT Knowledge Domain for the Educational Technologist v0.2



Flipping assessment

I've been exploring the idea of flipping assessment for a while. It started with my work as a TA during my M.Ed graduate studies, also explored it during my time with WikiEducator, it was confirmed as I reflected upon my graduate studies and every community of practice since, and I designed it into a language learning portal I architected a while back. Why do we have people who have already completed the work (and possibly long since forgotten the details) assess those currently working on building their understanding. Why not have the cohort of learners most current with the subject provide the bulk of the assessment. Why not flip the assessment and have the novice learners assess those a few steps ahead on the same learning journey? I believe the cohort of novice learners (working with master learners) would be the most motivated to develop understanding and invest the most time in the assessment of another learners work. Particularly, if the assessment event is a formative event and just a part of the overall assessment.

This is what I envision for flipping assessment. This wouldn't be a complete flip, where novice learners do all of the assessment, but they would have an increased role in the assessment of the learning cohort. As I see it the elements of the diagram are as follows;

• Working from left to right a person masters a subject.
• A subject within a knowledge domain is exactly that, a complete subject that fits within a larger domain of knowledge. An example would be baking bread is a subject within the food preparation (or cooking, or baking) knowledge domain. And the subject of bread baking is large enough to be considered a subject within itself where someone would develop an expertise.
• An Interested learner is a person with an interest in the subject, who never actually studies the subject, but they will read about it and not shy away from a discussion.
• A Novice learner is a person committed to learning a subject. They actively seek out information, read and consume information about the subject. They participate in learning events (online and otherwise) to increase their understanding. They would even take a course from a traditional institution.
• A Master learner is someone nearing completion of their studies of a subject. They could be considered to have "almost" mastered the subject.
• Teaching assistants are people who are rewarded for providing mentorship to learners. This role is a part of traditional institutional learning, and plays a role in helping learners master a subject. Teaching assistants are often much closer to a subject than a professor as their learning was more recent and, given their role, they are closer to the learning cohort due to their frequency of personal interaction with the learners.
• A Seasoned learner is someone who has mastered a subject, and is not actively involved in learning the subject. They do continue to read about the subject and actively seek out new and related information. They are members of communities of practice regarding a subject and occasionally engage and/or contribute to the community. They are very current with the subject and provide feedback and guidance to other community members.
• The Professors are well, professors. They are most often people with Ph.D`s who are very active in furthering and adding to a domain of knowledge. Their focus is not always on teaching or the details of a specific subject within their chosen domain of knowledge, unless that is their area of research. I guess what I want to say is that a professor won`t be focused on the subject matter (and the learners study) of an undergraduate level course and its specific subjects. This is not to say professors can`t be an amazing resource for someone learning a new subject. A professors time should be used very wisely, but finding ways to encourage their engagement is good.
• The Experts are people who, through a number of different methods, have become experts in a subject. They continue to be experts by ongoing reading, personal research tasks, and involvement with online communities. They sometimes lurk (even engage) in online learning communities. Getting experts to contribute to assessment would be great, and finding ways to include them is time well spent.

My plan to implement flipped assessment
I want to experiment with the idea of having novice learners assess the work of master learners. Both the novice and master learners need to be active within the same learning journey, where the master learner is only a few lessons (or tasks) ahead of the novice. The idea being the novice is beginning their study of the subject and the master is almost finished.  I want the novice learners to read and understand the work of a master learner and give it an assessment. If the novice has questions, they ask them of the master learner. The master learner also has to encourage the novice learners to assess their work. Without this assessment neither the novice or the master will progress to completion. If novice learners want to team up to assess a master learners work, they can. This flipped assessment will not be the only assessment the learners will receive as a peer based summative assessment will occur when a learner has finished their study of the subject.

I plan to implement this flipped assessment in the Badge System Design challenge I am creating in P2Pu. The design of the challenge is iterative in that we will be covering the topics more than once with increasing depth as the challenge progresses. This iterative approach allows for a task earlier in the challenge to include the assessment of another learners completed works later in the challenge. Essentially, a novice learner is assessing the work of a master learner. Flipped Assessment.

If you are interested in the previous background chat discussing this idea it can be found in Google+.

Challenge 301 - Badge System Design

So I'm starting the development of the Badge Systems Design challenge for the School of Badges at P2Pu. In time we hope this challenge will become a part of the larger School of Badges, but a bunch of things have to happen for that to manifest.

I've been working with Badge System Design for a while now and have been involved in a number of discussions and learning communities. All of this taught me a few things about badge system design. What stands out for me is that I perceive three aspects to badge systems design;

1. The graphical look of the badges within the whole system. This includes things like colour scheme, branding, graphics and icons, the text to display, how badges graphically relate to each other, how levelling is recognized, and a few other attributes.
2. The network, hierarchy, or system of badges and how the badges relate to the learning or curriculum. There may be some kind of a rubric that identifies the tasks, knowledge or learning represented by each badge and the badge system as a whole.
3. Where the badge system is going to be hosted. Is an existing free and open system going to be utilized or are you going to build your own issuing capability. This is important for you may decide that the badge system design has specific attributes toward how the badges relate to each other, or how the badge criteria and evidence needs to be hosted. Some of the attributes of your badge systems design may be restrained by how you decide to host your badge system.

Once you have all this considered and have begun to dive deeper into each of these aspects of badge system design you are going to need to loop around to that first task and see if the restraints from one of these aspects don't change the design of another aspect (as an example; the chosen hosting system doesn't support the evidence attribute of the badge). I'm looking forward to developing this challenge for the School of Badges over the next while. If you want to help out, let me know; it could be fun. Stay tuned I'll post here as things proceed and new challenge tasks are developed... to see the beginings of this challenge visit this link; https://p2pu.org/en/groups/badge-system-design/

Mozilla, Agile Learning Design, and Everything else

It was an active year for my reading, research and writing (106 blog posts in 2012). I feel I learned a whole lot. I particularly like that I had an opportunity to deep dive into open and digital badges. I believe my year of learning can be broken into three main themes; First, my work with Mozilla Open Badges and Badge systems in general; Second, my further proving out an Agile Learner Design methodology; and Third, everything else I thought about.

Mozilla Foundation

Its difficult to express the gratitude I have for the time I spent on contract with the Mozilla Foundation. In the six months I spent with Mozilla I did a whole lot, and I learned a whole lot;

• Created a lot of learning resources for on-boarding the newbie open badges user / implementer
• Completely updated the Open Badges FAQs by reading through the related google group end-to-end
• Went deep into Webmaking with my kids and some of the youth on Bowen Island
• Engaged in a number of discussions on curriculum design and building communities of practice
• Dug into some emerging open technologies like WebGL, WebRTC... and how they fit within an virtually unlimited bandwidth network
• Played with popcorn.js and wrapped learning resources to highlight formative and summative learning events
• Deepened my understanding in using distributed technologies to facilitate meetings and collaborative efforts. With a good understanding of the nature of the engagement the appropriate technologies and approaches can facilitate a very collaborative effort and keep a comprehensive record of the event. These records can be indexed (and therefore searchable) and used for later reference or as resources for subsequent events. All done with open and free technologies and approaches. Mozilla is very good at all this!

Agile Learner Design

My focus on an Agile Learner Design methodology for creating and determining your own curriculum got a renewed focus this year. It all started with my last post of 2011 where I revisited and summarized Agile Instructional Design. I have come to the conclusion that what I am doing isn't focused on instruction, but upon the self-directed learner. Therefore, what I am doing is developing an Agile Learner Design methodology, not an Agile Instructional Design methodology. An important distinction in the fundamental focus of the methodology. To build upon my last post of 2011 I kicked off the year by looking at some of the existing research and approaches to self-directed learning. And looked at some of the approaches that I would consider similar to ALD. I also considered some of the people and approaches within my inspired learner series of posts, because it is these inspired learners that drive me to further develop ALD.

The Agile Learner Design (ALD) Methodology

• Envisioning your curriculum
• Planning the learning journey
• Apply the sprint approach

ALD Reference Materials

• New image for progressive inquiry
• Personal Curriculum Mapping
• Narcissism and Presentism
• Agile Instructional Design References

ALD Examples and Inspirations

• Mobile learning concept map
• Agile Instructional Design in Practice
• Social Artistry
• Learning in the Open
• Example implementations 
• Mitch Resnick and Progressive Inquiry
• Inspired Learners  

Everything else
Outside of these two main themes for last years postings came everything else. And if there were any themes they would have been either community building or mobile web development.So here is a list of the other learnings / explorations I had from last year.

Online learning communities

• Creating online learning communities
• Inquire, Paraphrase, Acknowledge, Advocate

School of Badges 

• School of Open Badges

Learning Approaches

• Emersive and transformative learning
• OER Assessment

Screencasting

• Lighting for video capture
• Screencasting Guildelines

Mobile Web Development

• Mobile First
• Mobile web pages in HTML5 part 1
• Mobile web pages in HTML5 part 2
• Explaining CSS as a skin
• Tighten up lists for the mobile web
• Book Review: HTML5, Mark Pilgrim

Polling for posts

• Half finished blog posts
• Let my readers decide
• My readers have chosen

So there you have it. My 2012 in review. What I'm looking forward too in 2013;

• Further developing learning materials for digital badges at the P2PU School of Badges
• Officially starting my OnPhD by achieving Wikiversity / P2Pu OnPhD candidacy
• Start coding the aggregation for disparate badge systems to create and display badge clusters

P2Pu School of Badges

Thanks to the amazing graphic design work by Leah MacVie I will be taking a lot of the Mozilla Open Badges resources I have created over the last year to lead the development of a couple of challenges within P2Pu.

P2Pu School of Badges Curriculum

I will start by focusing my efforts on the 301 challenge which will have the learner explore badge system design. I will draw heavily on the materials and discussion that were a part of the two week seminar series I facilitated at the end of last year. I'd also like to encourage any and all badge system designers to help out or provide suggestions or a critical eye.

Responsibilities of Institutions

Over the last few days there has been a bunch of work taking place to describe the rights and principles of network learners. The original document was drafted by an amazing group of people, for whom I have a great deal of respect. I also have a great deal of respect for everyone who commented on and contributed to the rights and principles of networked learners. The one disappointment I have with this document is that it was written by this amazing group from the perspective of the learner (or student), and didn't focus more on the responsibilities of the institution. Don't get me wrong, I think this is an amazing piece of work and I am very happy it has been started. Given the influence this group would have, it would be great if they would also write the responsibilities of institutions and then advocated for them to be adopted by the institutions for which they work or are affiliated. If we were to have this activity from both the learner and institutional perspectives, then we would really have something!

Agile Learning and OpenBadges

I spend a lot of my personal time deepening my understanding of self-directed learning and its direct application. I'd rather walk-the-walk than talk-the-talk... and pedagogically you learn much more by walking-the-walk. Over the last eight months I have focused a lot of my learning on badge systems as a method for recognizing learning and achievement, and as an alternative method of accreditation. I have been exploring, what I consider, the four different approaches to badge systems and have utilized my Agile Learning Design (ALD) approach to direct my learning. Over the last eight months I have learned a considerable amount about this subject. And given there is yet to be a person or school that focuses on teaching about badges systems I really didn't have a choice but do it myself.

ENVISION
During the envisioning step of the ALD methodology you focus on a creative effort which defines what you know of a subject domain. Even if what you know starts with a single word or just the name of the subject you can still start exploring the subject and build a creative effort that defines your current knowing of the subject. With open badges I was able to read a few of the sites dedicated resources and was able to put together a concept map, and this really got me started and allowed me to set a direction for my learning.

My first concept map capturing my early understanding of open badges.

During the middle six months of 2012 I immersed myself in learning about digital badges and open badges. I wrote extensively and participated in many online events and created many online resources. All of this deepened my learning. The ALD approach helped focus my learning and assisted in identifying gaps in my knowledge. I followed an iterative learning approach and studied concepts as identified in my concept map and as they became apparent through my reading, investigation and peer feedback. My learning journey occurred as follows;

PLAN
The first few steps of my learning journey were planning my approach and setting the context and learner perspective. The importance of this is described in the planning step of ALD.

• Context and User Roles: This step was really important for setting the context and learner roles to define how I was looking at the learning I was about to embark upon. It really helped me understand who the learner was, and to what depth and direction I was to take my learning.
  
  • Learning plan
  • Learner roles
• Learning Themes: What did I want to get out of my learning and how would I anchor my learning.
  
  • Concept map
  • Learning themes
  • Anchor subject

BUILD
My next step in deepening my understanding was to build learning resources. These resources covered many of the topics I had identified in my concept map and during my planning. Each resource I created added depth to my understanding of open badges.

• Getting Started: What are the general concepts within open badges and what are the main technologies to be understood. What does it take to implement badges using these technologies.
  
  • Getting Started
  • Issuer vs. Displayer
  • Learning so far
  • Step-by-step guide
  • Making a badge
• Badge taxonomies: I began to realize that badge systems design was a big part of all this. And it seemed to me the first step of all this was in the taxonomies surrounding badge systems. So I explored further.
  
  • Badge taxonomies
  • Martial arts belt hierarchy
• Badge systems design: There came a point where I had deepened my knowledge of open badges where I wanted to create my own badge system. This seemed like the natural next step for me. This took me into understanding the criteria and evidence attributes of the badge and how the criteria would fit within a badge system.
  
  • Criteria and Evidence
  • Badges for Wikiversity
• Create learning resources: Wow! So after all of that learning I begin to build learning resources. This deepens my learning and creates artifacts that will hopefully assist others with their learning. Fortunately I was in the situation where Mozilla provided an incentive to build these resources.
  
  • Introduction
    suggested readings
    more suggested readings
    first look at the meta-data
    open badges on P2Pu
  • Claiming a badge
    claiming your first badge
  • Technical prerequisites
    JavaScript
    the technology stack
    server infrastructure
  • Issuer Technologies
    technical prerequisites
    a look at the json message
    the different servers
  • Wikiversity Case Study
    scenario and badge system design
    manually issuing the badge
    claiming the badge

STABALIZE
Once the first iteration build of my learning resources was complete I sought feedback by having others use the resources. In truth, I was continually asking for feedback. As soon as a resource was built I would publish it to the internet and seek input. All very iterative, all very lean. As you can see the above resources were all published at different times and as I published I would engage my learning community and ask for input. With some resources the feedback would initiate a change for others the resource remained the same, sometimes the change would come as how the new resource was hosted or the context around the learning was changed.

DEPLOY
The final step within this iteration of learning was to deploy the final versions of the learning resources. I chose to wrap the video resources in popcorn.js and to build a small portal to organize all the resources. This allowed further enhancement to the resources by focusing in on key learnings and also providing a listing of the embedded URL's as follow on learning resources. To view this portal visit the dedicated Bowen Institute of Technology website; http://badges.bit.bc.ca/

NEXT STEPS
I feel I learned a lot over the last nine months regarding digital badges and open badges. The next steps to deepen and continue my learning will be;

1. to assist others who are learning about digital badges, mostly through the following activities;
• facilitate online workshops whenever possible
• continue building out P2Pu School of Badges
• answer questions regardless of where they come from
• continue to engage the community as time permits
2. to loop around back to the start of the ALD where I revisit my learning themes and do another deep dive into my concept map.
3. to Plan, Build, Stabalize and Deploy another iteration of learning resources

The purpose of these activities is to celebrate all I have learned so far, expose the gaps in my knowledge regarding digital badges and open badges, create more resources for others to learn from, and refocus my learning. All good.

OnPhD: Describe your learning history

I am in the process of declaring my Open and Networked PhD (OnPhD) candidacy. After some discussion with a few like minded people, and the input from a couple of existing PhD's, it was agreed that declaring candidacy for a PhD was important. The idea of creating a P2Pu challenge for declaring OnPhD candidacy seemed like a great way to get started.

This is the blog post describing completion of the first task of the OnPhD candidacy challenge.

Informal and formal learning

• http://en.wikiversity.org/wiki/User:Peterrawsthorne/PhD#My_Learning_History

Publishing and research projects

• http://criticaltechnology.blogspot.ca/
  I publish frequently on my blog, the main themes of my writing include;
  1. agile software development and software architecture
  2. agile learner design / agile instructional design (my self-directed instructional design methodology)
  3. open access accreditation and open access assessment
  4. Pedagogy and emerging pedagogical approach innovations
• http://wikieducator.org/User:Prawstho
• http://wikieducator.org/images/0/01/PeterRawsthorne.OERProgram.pdf
• http://wikieducator.org/WikiEducator:Quality_Assurance_Framework 
• http://criticaltechnology.blogspot.ca/search/label/AID

merit, online, image, digital, and open badges

I read a tweet the other day about badges and it got me thinking about all the different types of badges and the names being used for badges. I wanted to capture what I understand to be four different kinds of badges;

• traditional badges - these include merit badges (scouting), awards like ribbons, martial arts belts, and other patches, buttons, and displayed insignia, etc...
• online (or image) badges -These are logos or images that infer participation or membership and are displayed on blogs and websites. These provide links back to the origin site, and, in general, don't provide an acknowledgement of achievement. More used for an affiliation.
• digital badges - achievement and recognition type badges that are digital and awarded by online communities, learning/educational sites, and social networking sites. (Khan Academy, Four Square, P2Pu, and WebMaker are a few).
• open badges - A badge infrastructure to support all of the above badge types with the addition of embedding meta-data into the badge image file. The ability to embed meta-data adds the ability for a badge to be self-describing and link back to why the badge was awarded.

In the end I hope all types of badges support an open meta-data standard describing the badge. This includes the traditional badges. I'd hope any badge earned over the course of a life could be displayed as a part of a persons online profile [wherever a person chooses their profile to be (facebook, linkedin, blog, wiki, etc)].

Badge Clustering

As my digital badges seminar series came to an end I was doing a lot of thinking about badge clustering and what I meant by the term. With a little creative thinking, and some fun, I borrowed and edited three clustering terms and applied them to badges.

Badge Cluster

noun, epistemology:
A bunch of badges (ranging in number from a few to hundreds) which are bound to each other by their mutual knowledge domain as defined by the badge earner.

Open Cluster
noun, epistemology.
a comparatively young, irregularly shaped group of badges, often numbering up to ten to one hundred, and held together by and active learning journey; usually found associated with people who are gaining new knowledge where new ideas are forming on a regular basis. As the open cluster grows domain mastery increases.

Globular Cluster
noun, epistemology.
a comparatively older, spherically symmetrical, compact group of up to a few hundred badges, held together by a shared knowledge domain, that are located in the earners digital badge repository. Globular clusters are often stable with few new badges being added. In general, they show a mastery of a subject domain.

What is a Badge Cluster?
Badge clustering happens as a badge earner groups their badges into knowledge clusters as defined by themselves (the badge earner). This provides an approach for people to deepen their learning through grouping knowledge in ways that make the most sense to them. It also provides visual queues or information organization to identify gaps or holes in their self-directed study. Badge clusters can be compared to personal curriculum maps to identify the gaps in their learning.

Mozilla digital backpack as a badge repository.

Why badge clustering will be important?
As learners gather more badges into their digital badge repositories they will organize the badges into groups for a variety of purposes. The groupings will be for;

• display purposes
• setting public and private display
• identifying personal knowledge domains
• achievement towards a learning goal
• inspiring others toward similar (yet personalized) learning journeys
• organizing badges into micro and macro badges

With the correct number of badge endorsements, badge assertions, verified badge criteria, confirmed evidence, and the ability to analyze a cluster of badges against a known knowledge domain we could get to a persons completed learning efforts being assessed towards the mastery of an identified knowledge domain. I dream!

An Introduction to Badge Systems Design

I believe there are two ways to explore badge systems design;

1. what already exists in badging (and related) systems
2. what innovations could be for awarding badges

Existing badge systems fall into two areas;
1. traditional badge systems
There are a number of proven badge systems. People often refer back to scouting as a solid and proven badge system. The martial arts belts also have much to offer.

• scouting (and similar organizations)

• martial arts (Taekwondo, Karate, Judo, Juijitsu, Etc.)
• university degree, diplomas, etc. (I know, many would not consider this a traditional badge system. For the sake of design, consider the course (with grades and completion) a badge and a collection of courses (degree or diploma) and patch or super-badge.

2. digital badge systems
There are also a number of existing badge systems and these exist in a number of different contexts. A thorough evaluation and a compare and contrast to these different digital badge systems can offer some interesting insights into what is possible with digital badge systems design.

• Khan Academy - http://www.khanacademy.org/badges  
• FourSquare - http://www.4squarebadges.com/foursquare-badge-list/ 
• Stackoverflow - http://stackoverflow.com/badges 
• OERu - http://ask.oeruniversity.org/badges/
• Wikipedia Barnstars - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Barnstars

Innovations for badge systems design

I believe this falls into two main areas, and where much investigation, innovation and research remains to be done with the emerging badge paradigm. Ah, the journey of a thousand steps...

1. badge systems

• digital badges for the self-directed and life-long learners
• digital badges for peer learning and communities of practice

Badge Clusters

2. meta-badge systems

The systems that form between and among badging systems that allow a person to create their own credential map (or badge clusters) of their accomplishments. Essentially allowing them to create their own credential(s) of proven mastery of their chosen area(s) of expertise. Mapping their own Personal Curriculum!

implementing a really simple badge system

I aspired to create a really simple badge system design so a beginner could implement open badges. I had the following restraints to this implementation;

1. creating the badge images needed to be really simple, and saved as .png files.
2. the badge system design was to be a basic hierarchy where three micro-badges lead to a badge.
3. the tasks to earn each badge were to be simple.
4. the badges needed to be hosted and issued from one of the free services currentlly available.
5. the badges had to easily move over to the Mozilla digital backpack for organization and display.

Scenario: the badge to be earned was by making a cup of tea. I know, not a rigorous amount of learning, but I was wanting to keep it simple. To make a cup of tea you need to prove the following three basic skills; boiling water, finding a teabag, and add the boiling water and teabag to a teapot.

Step 1: decide on the hierarchy of badges and their design
I chose to follow my thoughts on the martial arts for coloring my badges. Making hot drinks can become increasingly complicated and I want to be able to add more complicated tea making badges later. I want to become a tea ninja! The next level up could be to make filtered coffee or tea from dried leaves...
Step 2: create the badge images.
These images needed to be quickly created and contain a simple design. I chose visio to create the badges cause it allowed for transparent background, supported the png and svg file types, was *gak* windows based, and had a few basic shapes. There is no reason why you couldn't use windows paint to create a basic square with a couple of words in it as your badge. just remember to save as a png file.
Step 3: use a simple badge issuing site
I wanted to use a simple badge issuing site that integrated well with the Mozilla Open Badges backpack. I ended up using http://badg.us. This site allowed me to easily add badges and issue them. Once the badges were issued they could also be easily claimed via links in the issuing email.
Step 4: move the badges into the mozilla backpack
Once the earner had claimed their badges from within badg.us they could easily move them into their mozilla backpack by selecting the badge within badg.us click the "Add this badge to your Mozilla Badge Backpack" button.

image attribution
tea bag - http://thenounproject.com/kenset/#
kettle - http://thenounproject.com/Simon%20Child/#
teacup - http://thenounproject.com/CrocodileJock/#

Confessions of a badge addict

I'm fully into moderating a two week seminar series on digital badges. The seminar has far exceeded my expectations, the dialogue is outstanding and the participants are more than I could have dreamed of. 

When I was responding to one of the discussion threads I realized I am a badge addict. I have badges from more sources than anyone I have met during my last eight months of exploring and discussing digital badges.

In my youth I earned badges from at least five different sources. As show here I have badges from; Scouting, YMCA leaders and swimming, Red Cross, Canadian Particip-Action, and Canadian Yachting Association. I always knew what the criteria was and planned out my earning of the badge(s). And I don't recall ever just being given a badge. I looked forward to the events when I received my badges. I think I now know why I am so commited to furthering the idea of digital badges... and most of my efforts are in a volunteer capacity... this is all good!

I also spent time in organizing my badges, at first they remained sewn onto the scout sash or another appropriately wearable piece of clothing. I wore them with pride. When i was in my teens (I was into stitching) I moved all my badges onto a single piece of fabric and displayed it on my wall. I organized them by issuing organization. Now they exist in an old brown leather covered box and they are one of the things that stays with me as I move house, change cities. I'm not a big believer in keeping stuff (IMHO, it just clutters ones life), but the fact that these badges remain as one of the things that stays with me, implies I continue to attach importance to these achievements...

http://scope.bccampus.ca/mod/forum/view.php?id=9010

If you want to join in the two week seminar series on digital badges, feel free to jump in, introduce yourself, add to the discussion or just follow along. You would be very welcome!

The essential tasks for understanding digital badges

Over the next two weeks I will be facilitating a seminar series and two lunch-and-learns focused on understanding digital badges and how they can be deployed and issued to learners of all kinds. The seminar series will take place in SCoPE and begins on December 1st. Feel free to join in...

http://scope.bccampus.ca/mod/forum/view.php?id=9010

Over the first week I will be working through a number of tasks to help build understanding of digital badges and the resources available and required to be able to issue badges to learners (institutional and otherwise).  For an idea of the tasks feel free to review the six described here;

Task 1: The merit badge
1. Identify a merit badge you earned during your lifetime.
What did you have to do to earn it? Did you earn more than one badge? And were they awarded by the same organization?
2. Describe how you displayed the merit badge(s).
If you earned more than one badge, did you display them together? Did you display badges from different organizations together?

Task 2: The digital badge
3. Identify the digital and internet technologies best suited to create a digital merit badge.
How would you create the digital file (image) of the badge? Is it possible to keep people from copying the badge without having earned it?
4. Describe the technologies that could be used to attach (or reference) the learning to the badge.
Is there more than one way of "attaching" learning criteria to a badge? Would this criteria attribute differ from a learners evidence of fulfilling the criteria? Could a badge criteria change through time?

Blooms Rose

Task 3: Identifying the curriculum
5. Identify the completion criteria for any badge you have earned (traditional or digital).
Did you have to complete a series of tasks? Did you have to prove mastery of a skill? How was the mastery described? Was the badge knowledge based, how was the knowledge domain described as a learning criteria?
6. Describe a hierarchy or network of badges.
Does a single badges stand on its own or is it best associated with other badges? Do badges cluster in and around knowledge domains? Do badges exists in hierarchies or networks or both? What other patterns can an collection of badges exist?

Task 4: Go earn some badges already!
7. Identify a variety of sites that issue badges.
Spend some time to find two or more sites that issue badges. Are these event based badges or learning based badges? Do the badges exist on their own or are they a part of a hierarchy or network? Earn some badges and figure out how they are displayed. Were the badges easy to earn? How easily can they be displayed outside of the site where you earned the badges? Display your badges or send the link to a friend.
8. Describe the skills, knowledge and curriculum the badges represent.
Can you easily describe the criteria for earning the badges you just completed? Were they part of a bigger curriculum? Were the badges more commercially oriented? Would displaying the badges attract other to earn the badges or participate in related learning?


Task 5: Building the digital badge(s)
9. Identify the visual elements that best describe the learning represented by a specific badge. 
Does the learning represented by the badge have a de facto standard image. Are there elements of your group, team, organization or institution that also need to be part of the badge? Are there visual elements that are well suited to the badges target learners?
10. Describe the skills and knowledge required to design and create the digital badge(s).
Does your team or organization have resources familiar with creating graphics? Are the resources familiar with the design, branding and layering of images? If your badges start showing up all over the internet do they promote a strong organizational brand? Why does this matter?

Task 6: Defending the digital badge
11. Identify as many objections to digital badges your organization or group may offer that keeps them from further exploring digital badges.
Are the objections focused on current accreditation approaches and why badges shouldn't to be integrated into existing courses, programs, etc? or are they focused on areas of opportunity? Do the objections include new and emerging technologies and pedagogical approaches? or are they focused on the traditional? Where do most objections come from?
12. Describe the different ways badges can be used for the institutional learner, peer-based learner and the self-directed life-long learner.
How do the three learner types described differ when it comes to accreditation. Does each different context / environment offer different opportunities for the issue of badges? What activities outside of courses and programs offer the opportunity to issue badges? Do badges offer things other than just accreditation? How can these be leveraged? Could peer evaluations be represented by badges? Could an independent learner prove competency with a collection of related badges from different sources?

Task 7: Deploying the digital badge(s)
13. Identify the internet technologies required to deploy the digital badge(s).
Think of this in non-technical terms; do you need a location to store descriptions and images? Where / how would you store the association of a badge to each earner? Are there security or information privacy issues you need to consider? Try and describe each of these in non-technical language with as much detail as you can.
14. Describe the skills and knowledge required to develop and administer the software and technical environment required to host digital badges.
Could you be non-technical and successfully deploy digital badges? Can you find any of the self-service digital badge issuing sites? Do any of these free digital badge systems insulate the non-technical person from the technology required to issue digital badges? If technology skills and knowledge are required can they be identified?

A simple three badge system design

I am facilitating a two week seminar series on digital badges and one of the participants suggested issuing badges for the series. Well that seems like a no-brainer, particularly if I build out the badge development as a part of the seminar series. I see value in proposing what I see as the three badge system design and grow the discussion from there. So these are the three badges I am considering issuing, and the basic criteria for earning each badge;

1. Learner badge - person introduces themselves to the group via the discussion forum and contributes to a couple of discussion threads. Mostly, they could be considered lurkers (much can be learned through lurking)
2. Participant badge - person introduces themselves to the group via the discussion forum and actively contributes to 7 of the 12 primary discussion threads, also participates in one of the two lunch-and-learn sessions.
3. Contributor badge - does everything the participant does with the addition of contributing;
   • by designing badge images
   • creating a badge system design for another curriculum
   • blogs about their participation in this seminar series
   • other creative endeavours regarding digital badges

So depending on a persons engagement they will earn a badge. And this recognizes whether a person just "shows-up" or engages deeply. It allows the learner to determine their amount of engagement, and still honors their effort.

OER + OAA² Slide Stack

As an outlier, I still believe the current innovations within education are off target. I think all the disruption is good, but the real innovation is in breaking the emancipation of learning from the institution.

OER + OAA² from Peter Rawsthorne

This isn't to say that institutions aren't still good places to learn, its just an institutional approach should no longer be considered the first or only approach to learning.