FR - Waterloo University - Open Badges Keynote Kicks Off Educational Technologies Week
On February 27, Don Presant of Learning Agents, providers of the CanCred.ca Open Badges service, delivered a keynote presentation entitled Recognizing Knowledge & Skills in a Digital Age.
The fast-moving presentation framed and explored emerging Open Badge practices worldwide, using emerging research, case studies and innovative practices from innovators such as Open University, Penn State University, Deakin University, UBC, and IBM.
Slides from the presentation are embedded below:
Don’s key message:
Open Badges can engage learners and make learning more visible, transparent, and modular. They have great potential to meet learning and recognition needs not well served by current credentialing systems and are already sparking new delivery models for institutions.
The presentation made explicit the symbiotic relationship between Open Badges and ePortfolios, an integrative learning strategy already adopted at Waterloo. It also recognized Waterloo’s position as a world leader in co-op education, but warned the university not to rest on its laurels, but to continue to innovate to stay ahead of the pack, taking inspiration from Stanford University’s Stanford 2025 design experiment.
The video of the presentation is here:
According to one participant:
“He was able to pack a lot of info into 90 minutes, and deliver the material in a very relatable way.”