Stephen Downes

Knowledge, Learning, Community

It's not MOOCs, says Scott Leslie. It's badges. As he comments, "when met with the prospect that the value of a University degree is under threat and that their 'market' will get as disrupted as the newspaper business, or travel agencies, etc., the response is simply 'yeah, but we're the only one who can issue degrees that people trust.'" Break that monopoly (how can it not happen?) and the universities' main argument against, well, pretty much everything fades in to nothingness. And as he arues, "implemented in a robust, open way that really does allow a badge to represent learning at various scales (micro-lessons to full programs) and to be attested to, *bi-directionally*, by all the parties involved (learners, issuers, endorsers, "recognizers") at scales ranging from the individual to the national, an open badge infrastructure opens the field to upstarts who really could disrupt the existing system." I don't think it's badges, per se, that will do the trick. But something will.

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Stephen Downes Stephen Downes, Casselman, Canada
stephen@downes.ca

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Last Updated: Mar 28, 2024 06:07 a.m.

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