[P2P-F] Fwd: Badges for Lifelong Learning: 4th Digital Media & Learning Competition

[Michel Bauwens]

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: HASTAC .org <hastac at gmail.com>
Date: Thu, Sep 15, 2011 at 9:31 PM
Subject: Badges for Lifelong Learning: 4th Digital Media & Learning
Competition
To: HASTAC Organization <hastac at gmail.com>


The John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, in collaboration with
Mozilla and HASTAC, invite you to an event on September 15th at the
Hirshhorn Museum in Washington, DC to explore the potential of Badges for
Lifelong Learning. Badges are a new assessment tool that will help identify
skills mastered in formal and informal settings, virtually and in physical
spaces, and in schools, workplaces and communities. Badges for Lifelong
Learning, the 4th Digital Media & Learning Competition, will will provide up
to $2 million in grants for innovations in the use of Badges for Learning.

Learning happens in K-12 and college classrooms, adult education and in
professional development programs. Learning also happens in an array of
other online and in-person environments: in afterschool programs and online
tutorials, through mentoring, playing games, interacting with peers in
person and in social networks, with smart phone apps, in volunteer
workshops, at sports camps, during military training, and in countless other
ways and other places.

*Badges*

A badge is a validated indicator of accomplishment, skill, quality or
interest
that can be earned in any of these learning environments. Badges
can support learning, validate education, help build reputation, and confirm
the acquisition of knowledge. They can signal traditional academic
attainment or the acquisition of skills such collaboration, teamwork,
leadership, and other 21st century skills.

Badges are used successfully in games, social network sites, and
interest-driven programs to set goals, represent achievements and
communicate success. A digital badge is an online record of achievements,
the work required, and information about the organization, individual or
other entity that issued the badge. Badges make the accomplishments and
experiences of individuals, in online and offline spaces, visible to anyone
and everyone, including potential employers, teachers, and peer communities.

In addition to representing a wide range of skills, competencies, and
achievements, badges can play a critical role in supporting participation in
a community, encouraging broader learning goals, and enabling identity and
reputation building. For a learner, a sequence of badges can be a path to
gaining expertise and new competencies. Badges can capture and display that
path, providing information about, and visualizations of, needed skills and
competencies. They can acknowledge achievement, and encourage collaboration
and teamwork. Finally, badges can foster kinship and mentorship, encourage
persistence, and provide access to ever-higher levels of challenge and
reward.

*Digital Media and Learning Competition* <http://dmlcompetition.net/>

The Fourth Digital Media and Learning Competition focuses on building
digital badges for lifelong learning. The Competition is designed to
encourage individuals and organizations to create badges – digital tools
that support, identify, recognize, measure, and account for new skills,
competencies, knowledge, and achievements for 21st century learners
regardless of where and when learning takes place.

The success of badges as an alternative path to accreditation and
credentialing for learners relies on a significant “ecosystem” of badge
issuers, badge seekers, and badge displayers. The Competition aims to spur
the development of that ecosystem through the creation of high quality,
valuable individual badges and sets of badges. The Mozilla Foundation, with
support from the MacArthur Foundation, is building an Open Badge
Infrastructure to enable the interoperability and collection of badges. The
infrastructure will support badges from any issuer across the Internet. It
will allow learners to collect, carry, and display their badges across
websites and experiences and from youth through adulthood. All badges and
sets of badges developed through the Competition will be designed to plug
into the Mozilla infrastructure— which will contribute, in turn, to the
development of the larger badge ecosystem.

In this ecosystem, each digital badge or collection of badges can inspire
learning and translate “anytime, anyplace, any age” learning into a powerful
tool for getting jobs, finding communities of interest, and demonstrating
skills, competencies and achievements. For more on the Mozilla Open Badge
Infrastructure, please see https://wiki.mozilla.org/Badges

Connect with the Digital Media & Learning Competition:



Web: www.dmlcompetition.net

Winners' Hub: http://hastac.org/competitions

Scoop.it: http://www.scoop.it/t/badges-for-lifelong-learning

Twitter:  www.twitter.com/dmlComp

Facebook:  https://www.facebook.com/DMLcomp

LinkedIn:
http://www.linkedin.com/groups/Digital-Media-Learning-Competition-3935137




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