Ambiguity, OER & Open Badges

Doug BelshawMozilla Foundation

http://bit.ly/OER13doug

I’m @dajbconf on Twitter

Here’s a tweet-sized summary for you...

Invented terms are ambiguous, but that’s OK. Both #ukoer and

#openbadges love metadata, so we complement one another.

Standards FTW! #OER13

http://bit.ly/LettingGrow(this is why I’m more hairy than usual)

2013

Threads that I’ll try to weave together at the end...

1. Evidence (OER & Open Badges)

2. Experience (Ambiguity)

3. Expectation (Web Literacy standard)

Structure

1. Ambiguity(Experience)

2. OER & Open Badges(Evidence)

3. Web Literacy standard(Expectation)

1. Ambiguity

Moreambiguous

Lessambiguous

“Since we cannot introduce the realities themselves into our discussions, but have to use words as symbols for them, we suppose that what follows in the words will follow in the realities too, like people reckoning with counters. But it is not the same. For whereas words and the quantity of sentences are limited, realities are unlimited in number. It is therefore inevitable for the same sentence and the one word to mean more than one thing.”

(Aristotle)

Ambiguity can be a

GOODthing

(but it needs to be the right type)

What have these got in common?

Open = open standards, open source, open

ethos

...whereas:

Open = open standards

(kinda), er... open for business?

Open?

http://fairworldproject.org/blogs/rainforest-alliance-is-not-fair-trade/

!=

FearUncertaintyDoubt

http://neverendingthesis.com

http://dougbelshaw.com/ambiguity

GENERATIVE AMBIGUITY

CREATIVE AMBIGUITY

PRODUCTIVE AMBIGUITY

closest to 'vague' - an individual gives a name to a nebulous collection of thoughts and ideas. (e.g. noticing a similarity between two objects or ideas, or having a similar feeling when in the presence of two otherwise completely different people)

GENERATIVE AMBIGUITY

CREATIVE AMBIGUITY

PRODUCTIVE AMBIGUITY

less ambiguous than Generative ambiguity - terms are more readily-understandable and

applicable to contexts other than the very narrow one originally thought of.

(e.g. talking of something being 'digital')

GENERATIVE AMBIGUITY

CREATIVE AMBIGUITY

PRODUCTIVE AMBIGUITY

least ambiguous part of the continuum - usually involves metaphor. Abbott talks of a

term exhibits a 'directness of feeling' while the concept behind the feeling remains ambiguous.

(e.g. divorce rates being taken to indicate something about the status of 'the family')

CC BY-NC Sam and Ian

“Old metaphors are constantly dying off into literalness, and then serving as a platform and foil for new metaphors.”

(Rorty, 1989:118)

CC BY-SA bandita

One definitionof ‘Open’ to rule

them all?

GENERATIVE AMBIGUITY

CREATIVE AMBIGUITY

PRODUCTIVE AMBIGUITY

OER?

Creative ambiguity = 360° of movement around a fixed point

</experience>

2. OER &Open Badges

What’s the biggest thing that impacts

learners?

ASSESSMENT

What’s the point of assessment?

Feedback&

Credentialing

Teacher

Senior Leader

JISC infoNet

Mozilla Foundation

“Open Educational Resources (OER) are teaching and learning materials that are freely available online for everyone to use, whether you are an instructor, student or self-learner. Examples of OER include: full courses, course modules, syllabi, lectures, homework assignments, quizzes, lab and classroom activities, pedagogical materials, games, simulations, and many more resources contained in digital media collections from around the world.”

(OER Commons, quoted in the JISC infoNet OER infoKit)

Is free the defining characteristic of OERs?

FreeOpenly-licensed

Metadata

(paradata?)

(hold that thought!)

v1.0 two weeks ago (March 2013)

60,000+ badgesissued to 23,000+ learners

by 600+ organisations

I don’t get this?

CC BY-SA Kyle Bowen

Trusted credentials?

Metadata!

This is not an Open Badge

(I just ripped this off David Kernohan’s blog in an attempt to trade on his reputation in the OER community)

These are Open Badges!

...but WHY?!

Silo 1

Silo 2

Silo 3

DegreeOERcontributor

PRINCE2qualificationWhat skills/

attributes are missing here?

(can we present them in a holistic way?)

BreakingSILOS

ProvidingTRUSTED

CREDENTIALS

JAILBREAKING FORMAL EDUCATION

OpenBadgeInfrastructure(OBI)

http://backpack.openbadges.org

Open Badges encourageLEARNER

SOVEREIGNTY

They allowNON-TRADITIONAL

PATHWAYS

Some examples:http://bit.ly/badgevalidation

Alice goes to an after-school program at the local museum and works with a robot exhibit where she has to use a computer program to move a robot across a course. She has to make decisions about angles and distances that require higher level geometrical thinking than she’s been exposed to at school. The museum encourages the youth to make videos about their robots and she’s learned a lot about digital storytelling and has emerged as the team documentarian.

Image: blackgirlscode.com

Bob is an accountant who was laid off a few months ago as his company cut back. He is actively looking for a job but things have changed a lot since he was on the job market years ago. He knows he needs to update his skills and understanding of changes to tax laws, but he does not have the money to pay for the program at any of the online certifications institutions. There are several open courses he finds online that each issue badges.

Eve’s Company is a nonprofit that is working on curriculum to educate people on

considerations for privacy online and how to be empowered web citizens, and plan to

issue badges to recognise these skills.

CC BY-NC LibrarianWithoutBorders

</evidence>

3. Web Literacy standard

Mozilla!(global non-profit)

We’re trying to create a more web literate

planet

With the community, we’re building a new, open learning standard for Web Literacy

Still under constru

ction!

Eve’s Company is a nonprofit that is working on curriculum to educate people on

considerations for privacy online and how to be empowered web citizens, and plan to

issue badges to recognise these skills.

CC BY-NC LibrarianWithoutBorders

Eve’s Company is a nonprofit that is working on curriculum to educate people on

considerations for privacy online and how to be empowered web citizens, and plan to

issue badges to recognise these skills.

CC BY-NC LibrarianWithoutBorders

Could align with the Web Literacy standard

Learners...

...earn badges around

the Web...

...aligned with a learning standard

OBI(Open Badges Infrastructure)

THE WEB

(complicated stuff)

INNOVATION

</expectation>

Conclusion

Bringing the threads together...

CC BY-NC-ND tpvarshitha

Remember this?

OER & Open Badges sitting in a tree...

• Metadata = important

• Can be designed well or badly

• Use open to mean beyond just ‘free’

• About changing the world for the better

OER13 = ‘creating a virtuous circle’

*OBI = Open Badges Infrastructure

OpenBadges

Learners

OBI*

Issuers

Employers?OER

Learners

Releasers/remixers

Institutions

Creative Ambiguity Productive Ambiguity

???? =Does?

OBI(Open Badges Infrastructure)

THE WEB

(complicated stuff)

INNOVATION

Here’s that tweet-sized summary again...

Invented terms are ambiguous, but that’s OK. Both #ukoer and

#openbadges love metadata, so we complement one another.

Standards FTW! #OER13

dougbelshaw.com