Multilitteratus Incognitus

Trust Network Badge Well, this is it!  We are in the final week of  the #OpenBadgesMOOC, and this is the last post (for badge purposes anyway) from Mozilla's #OpenBadgesMOOC. As with previous blog posts in this series I am brainstorming about including badges in an #ESLMOOC that I am thinking of designing, developing, implementing and them studying for a potential PhD.  With this week's materials we are tackling the Badge System.  Since this brainstorming is all theoretical and planning, I will most likely have some assumptions that underlie this brainstorming session.  As with previous weeks, we have the prompt (from the MOOC site) followed by my brainstorming on the topic. Prompt: Challenge Assignment 6: Building a Successful Badge System Verification Authentication In order for Open Badges to gain full acceptance, extra precautions must be in place to ensure transparency in and confidence about the badging process.  This involves authenticati...

The real badge? Alright!  The penultimate week in #OpenBadgesMOOC, brought to us by Mozilla and Coursesites.  Continuing this week is the exploration of how badges can be incorporated into this #ESLMOOC that I've been thinking about designing, implementing, and hopefully collecting some data for some interesting analysis.  Dissertation-wise it seems like a good topic, but considering the University I was considering applying to has suspended operations due to Austerity Measures in Greece...well, I guess I'll keep looking at other programs while Greece sorts its issues out :-) So, as with previous Badge Challenges, the Prompt comes before my brainstorming. Prompt: Challenge Assignment 5: Authentic Assessment and Evidence for a Badge Ecosystem Badge system design acknowledges that not all learners are the same, not all learning situations are alike, and not all ways of ascertaining learning accomplishments and skills attainment are the same. Badges offer learners...

Value Map Badge It's Saturday, so it must be #OpenBadgesMOOC time :)  The thing that I just noticed about these badges on the #OpenBadgesMOOC is that if you look closely enough they look stitched.  Maybe there is an easter egg hidden somewhere, whereby if you earn all #OpenBadgeMOOC badges they send you a sash with all of them stitched on - LOL :) In any case, it's the end of Week 4 on the MOOC (2 more weeks to go) and this week we are talking about validation.  It's interesting.  One of the things that comes to mind as I progress through these is that the initial "levels" were a little easier to articulate, at least for my #ESLMOOC project, but as the weeks progress it's getting harder since I don't have all of the information. This also draws a parallel to Kirkpatrick's Level's of Evaluation where Levels 1 and 2 are easier to measure, at least in the short term, but Levels 3 and 4 (and if you look at Philip's 5th level ) it gets harder...

Custom is an odd name of a badge :) Week 3 of the Mozilla Open Badges MOOC on Coursesites (half way through) and we are continuing our exploration of using badges for the #ESLMOOC. As with previous posts, the prompt of the challenge comes first followed by my thoughts on the subject. Prompt: Challenge Assignment 3: Competency Frameworks for a Badge Ecosystem At the next level of complexity, we consider the ecosystem of five principal sets of stakeholders: Learning Providers Assessors Job Seekers Employers Standards Organizations And an additional component: Badges Competency Definition Employers are governed by regulations, industry standards, and best practices. Employers need employees whose skills and competencies support and advance business objectives in accordance with these requirements. Standards organizations get input from academic research and employers about evolving best practices, and, in turn, provide guidance, even governance, over business pract...

It's week two (of six) in the #OpenBadgeMOOC and the challenge for this week is to think about and define the Currency  of an Ecosystem. As with the first blog post in this series, this thought process relates to the #ESLMOOC that I am thinking of developing as part of a potential dissertation proposal, and the writing instructions for this challenge are posted in the first part of the blog post, followed by my brainstorming. Challenge Instructions: Challenge Assignment 2: Define the Currency of an Ecosystem At the next level of complexity, we consider the ecosystem of four principal sets of stakeholders: Learning Providers Assessors Job Seekers Employers And an additional component: Badges When badges are introduced into the basic ecosystem model, we can see the decoupling of learning providers and competency/skill assessment, and “Assessors” are added to the model as another set of stakeholders. Why? Because badges are tied to assessment; badges are awarded when ...

Who am I? ** Updated on 9/19 with more detailed personas** Well, I will try to stay regular with these Mozilla Badge MOOC challenges (goal is it get them our each Saturday so I don't fall behind and other things get in the way).  I've decided that for the Badge Challenge I will start brainstorming on the topic of my ESL MOOC, that topic that's been floating in my mind as a potential PhD Dissertation topic.  These, of course, may change while I further process the topic, but someone's gotta start somewhere. Prompt for the challenge (scroll down for my contribution): Define a Current Ecosystem At a basic level, we consider the ecosystem of three principal sets of stakeholders: Learning Providers Job Seekers Employers Traditionally, we have viewed these three principal sets of stakeholders as having a fairly simplistic, linear relationship: Traditional higher education institutions and other types of learning providers (e.g., trade schools) impart knowledg...

Image by DawnOfHope2012 Over the past few weeks I've been knee deep in an initial literature review. This past summer, while vacationing, I met up with a colleague who teaches for my department as an adjunct, but he's got him own full post in Greece as well.  While having coffee and talking about life in general we spoke about my PhD prospects, and my current feeling on the subject is that I am interested in getting my hands dirty and working on a dissertation already.  I have already spent 2004 - 2010, full time (including summers) as a graduate student, having earned 4 masters degrees. Throughout those six years, I have taken 47 courses (138 credits). Thus, at this point, the prospect of spending late nights in class (another 14 of them minimum), plus qualifying papers before I get to have my dissertation proposal approved doesn't specifically appeal to me. If there were a PhD where I could just start working on my cool dissertation project, and fill in any gaps in my...

I was reading a post titled Language learning, critical thinking and the role of the teacher on the linguist the other day and I was really surprised. Now granted I am not a member of his list-serv, perhaps I should be to get the whole story, even though ESL isn't my immediate field of interest. Now long story short here, it appears that some people have their feathers ruffled because of the belief that critical thinking should (or should not) be included in the foreign language curriculum. Personally I think that critical thinking activities should be part of the curriculum in any language learning situation because when you are learning a language you are also learning about many other things that influence a language - such as culture, history, popular sayings, predispositions of the natives, and so on. Language is not used in a vacuum and simply learning more vocabulary doesn't mean that you will necessarily be getting more comprehensible input. Yousef writes (in the co...