Badging the Library, Part 1: What and Why

 News / Last Modified: 09 May 2013

This is the first post in a series talking about badges and what they mean for libraries. In this post, we'll focus on what badges are and why they might be important to libraries.

What is a badge?

Much like a scout badge, the badges we are talking about today are a way to recognize learning and reward achievement. As we explore more online learning contexts, and as libraries continue to develop online community-building tools, digital badges become a more important way to engage with and reward users for active participation. Badges can be used for a number of reasons, including "to set goals, motivate behaviors, represent achievements, and communicate success in many contexts."

Badging the Library, Part 2: How

 News / Last Modified: 08 May 2013

In our first post on badging the library, we talked about what badges were and why libraries might consider implementing badges. There are a lot of good uses for badges in the library world, and hopefully you saw some that fit in with your work. In today's follow-up post on badging, we'll talk more about some of the tools we need to create badge images and what we do with them once they're made. If you haven't already, go read Badging the Library: Part 1 before you jump into this article. It's a quick read and will help with some context as we move into discussing how to create and implement badges.

The first step in creating a badge is also the hardest. Unless you already have rubrics and learning plans and assessment techniques built in to the activities you want to badge, then this is where you should start, and it breaks down more or less like this ...

M.A.P. for the Future of Online Learning

 News / Last Modified: 23 April 2013

Whether we are training our patrons, other library staff, or we are the learners, online learning is increasingly the reality for our learning opportunities. From a purely economic standpoint, online learning just makes sense as budgets continue to shrink. With an online course, we are no longer limited by geography or conflicting schedules. We can now reach more people, more times. But efficiencies do not create effectiveness. In our recent webinar, The Future of Online Learning: a Changing Landscape, Joann Flick, Continuing Education Coordinator at the Montana State Library and Betha Gutsche, WebJunction Programs Manager, explored education innovations that are increasing engagement through learner-centered discovery, flipped classrooms, and enhanced online learning.

MOOC Learner: at the Center of What?

 News / Last Modified: 01 April 2013

The idea of placing learners at the center of their own learning is seen as a positive shift away from traditional sage-on-the-stage approaches to education or training. Allowing more autonomy, making room for personalization, and developing learners’ accountability for their own outcomes are well supported ideas. However, I wonder if the learner is ready to be at the center, especially the large and amorphous center of a MOOC.

Having just completed my first MOOC experience as a participant in the E-Learning and Digital Cultures online course (edcmooc), I emerge both fascinated and skeptical. MOOCs are disrupting higher education, inviting thousands worldwide to freely participate in (mostly) high quality, online offerings from major universities.