Transitioning - a liminal space

 

Navigating the landscape - photo by @warwicklanguage CC BY SA

The academic year 2024 has just started. Not for me though. For me this is the third year of retirement and I am still in the process of transitioning from the professional me to the personal me - identities which have been enmeshed for so long it is tricky to navigate. When I read this post from Alastair Creelman, I was reminded that I need to continue to work on my navigation skills. I always found his blog really helpful and I felt rather sad to read that he would no longer be posting, although I fully understand and respect his reasons. I tried to add a comment to reflect how important his thoughts have been along the way but sadly it did not appear. So if you read this Alastair please know I am grateful for your open sharing and for how you helped me. 

Another blog post which influenced my own thoughts on transitioning came from another open hero of mine, Martin Weller. This post  is so significant as it captures the ongoing challenges of our time and reminds me of the importance of fighting for open practices. This has been an aspect of my professional life which transcends the "employment" phase and is deeply embedded in my personal psyche. I have reflected often as to whether, post retirement, I should continue to research and publish. I am still in two minds on this. I don't lack things to do to be honest!

There is one area of openness however where I feel progress is not where it needs to be yet and where I can hopefully continue to be of use. It is the area of open recognition. I think I find this so important because it goes to the very heart of my commitment to self determination (both political and psychological). The technical mechanisms include ownership and curation of an eportfolio and collection and curation of open badges. For me these tools have so many uses:

• fostering community belonging and pathways to self development
• offering recognition and encouragement in online fluency
• supporting creative activity in assessment and knowledge creation
• providing safe spaces for experimentation and individuality

Life in the age of AI will bring bigger challenges and some temptations which we must review critically. Spoiler alert: Open AI - it is NOT Open, nor is it Intelligent. This is an age which must relish in the nature of the human, must celebrate our creativity and diverse intelligences. Academia and our educational instutions must embrace the opportunity to be on the right side of history. Money and league tables must matter less; values and integrity must dominate your futures. 

I can see my next steps more clearly now. Funny how blogging helps. 

AULC conference 2021 #AULC2021: What can open badges do for you?

 

The slides shared above were part of a presentation for ALT NE (the North East regional group of Association for Learning Technology). I add them to this post as they provide some useful resources for those who wish to know more about open badges. A recording of the presentation done by Deb Baff and myself is also available on my You Tube channel. 

For the AULC conference Mirjam and I will share how we used open badges in a language learning context. Knowing AULC as I do, I am sure there will be those who would like to try out the technology and the point of this post is to support you in doing just that. Go for it!

Collect a badge. 

We have all managed against all the odds to do all we can to protect each other from a global pandemic. Now you can get recognition for playing your part in making the world a safer place.  

In the slides above, at slide number 12 you can scan a QR code on your phone and pick up a Socially Distanced badge. Or you can simply go here to claim it.

You can display your badge using a free Open Badge Passport account. Just make sure that you have your email address/es in your profile and then follow these instructions to share on your website, social media accounts or make a page for curating your badges. There's more on this You Tube tutorial made for the Open Centre for Languages and Cultures. 

Design a badge.

If you are thinking of creating badges for issue to your students there are many things to consider. These are summarised in an article I've written on Innovative Pedagogy published this month.  

Of course you can do your thinking using traditional technologies such as paper and pens but I couldn't resist sharing a badge planning tool with you thanks to Bryan Mathers and his Fabulous Remixer Machine. The Badge Bloom was useful when communicating our badge ecosystem for Erasmus Plus Virtual Exchange. You can see our badge bloom here.

I have set up a private gallery where you can share your badge ideas with each other and get inspired. The most useful part of engaging with badges is the conversations we have together about what we value in our teaching and learning. To create your own remix just click on the example given and change the text and colours to your heart's delight. Save your creation as a new remix on the gallery. You can comment on those of others and share your ideas on social media. 

Let's embrace the affordances of the internet as creators and not merely consumers.