Education badges - not like the one Barney Fife wore

Jeffrey Young writes a good summary of the badge concept - competency based learning - which seems to be taking hold (at least in publication and discussion if not in practice).  Comments from Belle Whelan and Kathy Davidson below provide a nice summary of where this issue rests in the higher education community.

'Badges' Earned Online Pose Challenge to Traditional College Diplomas - College 2.0 - The Chronicle of Higher Education

"The idea of badges hasn't risen to our radar as a concept, but I think we can't ignore it," says Belle S. Wheelan, president of the Commission on Colleges of the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools. "The whole idea of learning beyond high school has changed," she adds. "College used to indicate that not only did you have a skill set in a particular area, but that you gained a body of knowledge that made you a well-rounded person. People don't care about being well-rounded anymore, they just want to get a job."

Fundamentally, badges are all about perception, so it's difficult to predict whether the key players—employers and job applicants—will click the like button on the concept.

"The biggest hurdle is the one I had, which is prejudice," says Cathy Davidson, a professor of interdisciplinary studies at Duke University and author of Now You See It: How the Brain Science of Attention Will Transform the Way We Live, Work, and Learn. She says she initially viewed educational badges as frivolous, but is now a leading proponent as a co-founder of Hastac.

"People seem to think they know what school is and they know what work is," she says. "We live in a world where anyone can learn anything, anytime, anywhere, but we haven't remotely reorganized our workplace or school for this age."

Creating Jobs in America! (Or, the changing nature of the instructional workforce)

Social media and job titles: A pixelated portrait of labour | The Economist

LinkedIn, however, says it knows that, and much else gleaned from the profiles of its millions of members. The social-media website for professionals can tell you that one of the fastest-growing job titles in America is “adjunct professor” (an ill-paid, overworked species of academic). One of the fastest-shrinking is “sales associate". 

My thoughts: Two items of note - the mining of social media data from sources like Linked-In and Twitter as reflections of trends + the changing nature of the instructional workforce. 

This just in...breaking news about instructors and technology and media

Sarcasm aside, it's still mysterious that we are only beginning to admit to poor use of media related to student learning attainment and outcomes.  It's hard work so I'm glad the study gives a leg up on identifying the issue.

Study Suggests Many Professors Use Interactive Tools Ineffectively in Online Courses - Wired Campus - The Chronicle of Higher Education

It found that most professors relied on text-based assignments and materials. In the instances when professors did decide to use interactive tools like online video, many of those technologies were not connected to learning objectives, the study found.

Lecture: Epic Fail (or the Lecture Fail project) #lecfail

Good stuff from Jeff Young at the Chronicle.  @jryoung

Lecture Fail? - Technology - The Chronicle of Higher Education

The Chronicle is putting together a multimedia feature exploring the state of the college lecture, and how technologies point to new models. While some enthusiasts see the high-tech changes as a much-needed upgrade to an education model that is more than a thousand years old, others see dangers ahead. Is all that gear a distraction? Is academic freedom threatened when Web tools and video make public the once-sacred space of the classroom?

If you're a current college student, fire up your laptop’s Web cam, or your smartphone's video camera, and let us know whether your professor's lectures are boring, inspiring, or something in between. Would you rather something more interactive happen in class, or should lectures stick around for the long haul? Please don’t name your professors, and you don't have to give your name if you prefer not to.

@nextgeneducate

Cal State Online - is this where we are all going?

Cal State's plan for online is drawing praise and criticism.  It's quite an interesting proposition and should serve as a great experiment to see if this is the direction in which all large states and entitities should be headed.  I was struck, though, by the following statement.  It occurs to me that this effort to "create a standardized, centralized, comprehensive business, marketing
and outreach support structure for all aspects of online program
delivery" should be standard operating procedure for any distance education deployment.

California State rolls out plan for centralized online learning portal | Inside Higher Ed

The goal of Cal State Online is to create a standardized, centralized, comprehensive business, marketing and outreach support structure for all aspects of online program delivery for the Cal State University System,” says the draft RFP. In the open letter, the executive director offers assurances that “participation is optional” for each of the system’s nearly two dozen campuses, “all programs participating in Cal State Online are subject to the same approval processes as an on-campus program,” and “online courses will meet or exceed the quality standards of CSU face-to-face courses.”