It’s an attempt to create an open infrastructure for badges around the Web. I like the technical pieces that allow anyone to offer any badge to anyone else in a consistent way. It makes sense to build tools that work for everybody, and that are open. I like that. #

And I thought I was something I’d want to explore later, as I’m always looking for ways to help make the professional development I’m doing to make sense to other people. Maybe, I thought, a badge could help¹. I put that idea on a side burner. #

Then yesterday happened, and I’m going to have to pay a great deal of attention to the project. In a hurry. #

That’s because this year’s Digital Media & Learning Competition is all about the badges. #

It was fascinating to listen to the announcement² and to follow along as the tweets came rolling in. It was, and is, also fascinating to consider the possibilities opened up through the use of badges to build portfolios of experiences and skillsets, to show the world what students, of all ages, can learn and do. #

Except. Hang on a second. #

I’m writing this post when I should be working on my thesis. The thesis is the last thing I’ve got to do in order to earn my badge Master’s degree in English Education. But it seems like there’s an awful lot of important questions wrapped inside assumptions in DML’s competition announcement. Felt right to at least try to get them down. #

The Twitter stream of commentary, a piece of which was captured earlier by Audrey, was chock full o’ questions and concerns. Alex and plenty of other folks have all written thoughtfully about the announcement. It was clear to me, as I watched the announcement follow up panel, that the group, as a whole, didn’t have a consistent idea about what badges were/are/for/might do. I heard each of these possibilities: #

Badges as credentialing #

Badges, I heard, might be used as a way of denoting that someone has a particular skillset in a field in which there might not be a current credentialling method. Makes sense, and is the most straight forward use of a badge. Think Boy Scouts. Girl Scouts. Medal of Honor. #

Badges as awarding credit #

This one seems mostly similar to the previous function of credentialling, but it’s not. Quite. Earning a badge that counts as credit would require that a credit-granting institution³ would accept the badge in lieu of another requirement. Put enough badges together, and you get a really advanced badge. Or a diploma. Or a degree. So, not only can you do something in the eyes of an institution, but will another institution believe them and let you take a pass on their test of competency? #

Badges as a way of honoring non-school learning #

I’ve written before about how I find some of the most interesting learning taking place on the edge of school and home, in semi-school spaces. After school clubs. Fringe projects. And I want that learning to “count,” in the sense that I don’t think that teachers should have to fight so hard for those types of learning experiences. But I wonder if the best way to honor that learning is to make sure it stays out of school. If, as I heard a panelist say during the announcement, school is so ineffective and terrible at learning, then shouldn’t we try to fix school? Might we want to move some of the good semi-school learning into the classroom?⁴ #

If badges are an attempt to rebuild school, well, that might be a fascinating idea. Or a terrible one. #

Badges as motivation #

Students will be more inclined to go after a particular type of learning, I heard, if there were a motivator to push or pull the student along.⁵ That’s a dangerous reason to even consider a badge, I think, as I know enough about motivation to know that, as soon as the badges go away, the learning stops. Not good. Uh uh. Don’t pursue this one. #

Badges as assessment #

Actually, the badges wouldn’t be the assessments – just proof of their successful completion. And that’s where this starts to get tricky for me. For one thing, I don’t think enough folks understand that a badge involves assessment of one sort or another. And it’s the assessments and experiences that we want to fiddle with in school. #

Badges as curriculum design #

If badges can count as far as credit in traditional schools and universities, then badge program designers are now curriculum designers. What I didn’t hear at the announcement, but hope to hear about soon, is how folks might think about the Common Core SS, the current consortia developing the next generation of school assessments, and their thinking about badges. #

Those were the purposes I heard in the time I was listening. And that’s complex stuff. #

Other folks, I’m sure, who are smarter and more articulate than I am, will soon start talking about this work and what it means for power relationships between traditional schooling and other institutions.⁶ But what I’m not hearing people talk about, or suggest that they understand, is what it is that it means to “count.” I mean count in two senses of the word – both the mathematical meaning of seeing how many of something that you have, but also the way a student asks when they’re handed an assignment – will this count? Does it matter? #

And, at school, we’ve done a bad thing by tying “counting” or “mattering” to “grading.” #

If all badges do is fiddle with the object that students are taught to worship, rather than working to eliminate idol worship altogether, then there’s not much sense in exploring them. #

If badges transform all grades that matter into “pass/fail” situations, well, that might be something. To match what students can do with their academic credentials as measured by actual performance tasks would be a good thing⁷. #

But, if the DML competition encourages thinking and writing and exploration and action around ideas like the idea that any accountability system, or accreditation system, is ultimately a subjective system, made by people, however we design it, then I say, let’s rock. But let’s do so carefully. #

Badges are not magical. They do not cure cancer. They are unable to stop large (or small) scale forest fires. Badges, particularly digital ones, cannot be eaten. The digital kind can’t even be burned for fuel. Badges do not make children smarter, or hard work less difficult. #

But they’re certainly worth talking about, if they might lead to productive change. And, if they’re going to make a grand entrance in teaching and learning, at school and in the community, then I hope to goodness that teachers are paying attention. #

1. Give us a way to show scope and sequence, or perhaps a “brand” for our teachers in a way that would be postiive. I wasn’t sure, and still am not.
2. I only caught the second half, but I think that was the really fascinating bit.
3. school, university, etc.
4. Or, can that learning only happen on the fringes? If that’s the case, then I want more fringe.
5. Cathy explains that idea further here, in point four of a definition of badges.
6. As I was about to post this, I ran across this post from Alex. And while I don’t have a place to stick this quotation properly in the text, I wanted to save it and share it with you, so here it is: What I believe we must resist is mistaking real motivation and meaningful learning for increasing our value as a human commodity in the marketplace. I’m fairly sure that education doesn’t make us “better” humans. I don’t even think learning can make us “more” human (whatever that might be), though it could expand our experience in interesting ways. The one thing we have to prevent is schooling making us feelless human.
7. Parents and plenty of other people would have trouble, for a time, as ranking their children to other people’s children might be more difficult, but that would pass.

#

A few weeks previously, I had begun my teaching career as a graduate student teaching freshman composition in room 110 of the Natural Resources Building at Colorado State University.  I remember room 110 very well because it was where, six years previously, I took my first English class as an undergraduate at the school.  Introduction to Literature. ² #

As an undergraduate, it was my job, I thought, to unpack the secrets of the stories and novels and plays that we read together.  And I wrote.  Lots.  Every week, I produced two typed pages of thinking and reflection and wondering about what I was reading and why it mattered.  This was college.  It was important. #

And back in room 110, with my class of college freshfolk, I was in charge of helping them to unlock the mysteries of the College Essay, the texts that they were expected to produce early and often in their college careers.  These 18 and 19 year olds were looking to me, a 23 year old grad student, to provide them with the keys to college literacy.  Or, they had to take the class, and I was in their way.  Either way, there we were, from 10:00 to 10:50 every MWF. #

September 11th was a Tuesday.  I remember because that made September 12th a Wednesday.  At 10:00am, I was supposed to “teach.” And no one said otherwise. #

I made one of the most important discoveries of my teaching career that day³, when I decided that class would be optional.  It made sense to go.  People, I thought, were counting on me to make sense of this.  And that couldn’t be done. #

But there was something I could do. #

I emailed the class that no one had to be there, but that I would be there.  Attendance, for a change, would not be taken. #

I didn’t expect anyone to show up.  But they came.  Not all, but most. #

And I started class.  Sitting on a table in the front of the room, I reminded folks that no one had to stay that morning.  I would not advance the syllabus.  Instead, we were together, and something monumental had happened.  What, I wondered, did folks want to talk about? #

And I don’t actually remember the specifics.  I remember that there was lots of misinformation and rumor in the air that morning, and that mostly, as someone who had read several articles, watched some CNN, and had spent the previous afternoon in the newsroom of the student paper, where I had worked as an undergraduate, and would work again that Spring, and pulled everything I could off the AP wire as it was released, I was likely the “expert” in the room. #

Like that makes any sense. #

But I dispelled rumor where I could, suggested sources for folks to explore if they wanted to know more.  I mentioned the school’s counseling program for students.  And it was quiet.  Not silent, but much quieter than a usual day of argument and conversation.  We were together, but we weren’t really talking all that much. #

I guess it was just normal, or whatever on September 12th could approximate normalcy in the wake of the events of the day before, and normal, on September 12th, 2001, felt pretty good.  It was enough. #

On Friday, September 14th, we resumed talk of what makes good summary, and how to use others’ ideas in the services of our own, and all the things that you talk about in a college writing class. #

We kept going. #

And now, as we look back and consider all that’s happened in the world in the last ten years, and how that day changed this country, and me, and most other folks I know in some way, I get the feeling that keeping going is a pretty good way to honor that day. #

By all means, take a deep breath and a look back.  Think about what happened and what that changed or what that didn’t change.  Reach out if you need or want an ear.  Look after yourself.  Consider what’s worth doing and what’s worth remembering and what’s worth working to restore.  But then, one last deep breath. #

There’s much to do. #

Let’s keep going. #

1. Sure.  September 11th.  I woke to the phone ringing and was told to turn on the news.  I’d been married for all of three months and what I saw on TV didn’t make sense.  Still doesn’t sometimes.
2. I sat next to What’s Her Name, who took good notes and who, three years later, I would date.  Once.  And screw that up royally by inviting a friend over to watch television with us.  As I drove her home, I backed into a car in the street behind my apartment.  It did not go well.  A second date was dodged.  By her. Repeatedly.  I didn’t understand what happened there, either, until much later.
3. The discovery, for me, was in two parts – first, that the world doesn’t stop when you start your class.  Be of the world and in the world as often as you’re about and/or removed from the world. The second part is about modeling and how teachers, in some sense, are always on.  We are always being seen as teachers.  So might was well act like one, even if, at 23 then, and 33 now, I don’t always have a clue as to what that means or should look like.  ”What would a teacher do?” is a question I approach as I prepare for any class or learning experience.  And it’s one I’ll always struggle with.  But in this case, a teacher would dig in.  Check facts.  Explore sources.  A teacher would seek to be sure his students were okay.  A teacher would pause and reflect.  So that’s what we did.

#

And I’m not one to stop someone who’s trying to make progress, even if that progress might be dangerous. #

So we’ve been through lots and lots of boxes of Band-Aids for hurts both real and imagined. And we’re quick to wash out wounds and make sure that we keep them looked after. #

But no matter how well we wash and watch, some of them are going to leave permanent marks. Like the time Ani discovered that you can’t make a ninety-degree turn on a bike. Or the time that Teagan realized, in a most unfortunate way, that you cannot stop a tricycle like Fred Flintstone could stop his car.¹ Quinn forgets, sometimes, about “down.” She’s still kind of new. #

Each of those moments hurts. But hurt can have an upside. In fact, some would tell you that hurt, or pain, has an evolutionary advantage. It tells us when we hit a limit of some kind. #

And those marks will help them remember the stories of the injuries one day. They’ll proudly show the little scars and blemishes that never quite go back to normal and explain that they rode a bike early, or took a chance on a curb or wrestled with a cat or went head over handlebars in a moment of panic. #

But hurt, like fear, well, it just hurts. And to know someone you love is hurting is the worst kind of pain, a pain of helplessness and empathy and doubt. #

Oh, how I wish I had a suit of Nerf and armor that I could force my children to wear when they go out into the world, or want to wrestle that cat. To be able to ensure the safety of my children, be they walking to school or traversing a steep hiking trail along the edge of a narrow cliff, would make my sleep come much easier. #

But I don’t. And the marks and memories would be hard to accumulate from inside an impenetrable shell of foam. I also suspect it’d be mighty difficult to hear with all that Nerf so close to one’s ears. #

There are plenty of days I want to say “Today, let’s stay here, where cars and cats and cliffs and sticks and stones and words can’t hurt us.” But I can’t. Because that’d be parental malpractice. As a dad, it’s my job to listen and bandage and help my children to be brave, to not stop when it’d be a whole lot easier and may well hurt a great deal less and be more safe to just stay still. Being brave? It’s important. And I hate it. Oh, there are days I very much dislike that job. #

As a teacher, that’s my job, too. #

I hope you’ve got a kit full of peroxide and Band-Aids with you as you take your charges out into the world. I hope you, and they, are being very brave. #

1. Of course, Teagan would have no clue who Fred Flintstone is. Or was. Whatever. But I do find it interesting that “Flintstone” is in my Web browser’s dictionary.

#

And Mary Ann and I, and some others, worked our way into a conversation back and forth talking at one another chat about a post of Mary Ann’s.  You should read the post².  As I read it, I was struck by the notion of connectedness – and the implication that it was about online.  Now, the Gee concept she references³, and I’m about to requote, does state that: #

An affinity space is a place where informal learning takes place. According to James Paul Gee, affinity spaces are locations (physical or virtual) where groups of people are drawn together because they share a particular common, strong interest or are engaged in a common activity.[1] Often but not always occurring online, affinity spaces encourage the sharing knowledge or participating in a specific area, but informal learning is another outcome. #

And I want to push back on the assumption that connected of today is somehow significantly different than the connected of yesterday.  Just as I wonder about the importance of the Internet in the notion of connective writing, so, too, would I wonder about the necessity of the Internet for the creation of the modern connected child. #

That’s not to say that it’s not a factor, that speed and access are not better than they’ve ever been⁴.  But I want to push against the idea that they’re new.  That wanting to know what’s going on somewhere else as quickly as possible is a trait of only the 21st Century.  That seeking an audience for one’s efforts is a notion of those of us born after 1985.  That being in conversation with someone from a different place didn’t happen prior to Skype. #

Easier?  Perhaps.  Likely, even.  Faster?  Often.  But new? #

I don’t think so⁵.  And when I say that I wonder about connectivity, or connectedness, this is what I’m talking about.  Certainly important.  I want my children, and their schools, to be about connectedness through the tools of today. But what makes them differently different than all the children that’ve come before? #

But I’m not so sure that’s new⁶. #

1. That’s one thing Twitter’s good for – having open conversation – both so that you can model what that might look like as well as allow folks to intrude.  And, yeah.  I know I just wrote this.  And am now praising Twitter.  It’s a contradictory night.
2. And most of what she writes.  She’s wise.
3. By way of Wikipedia
4. Too many nots there – of course it’s faster and better than ever.  But that’s mostly been the case for the last several hundred years.
5. I may well be wrong.  I argue with myself about it.  Frequently.
6. I’m grateful for Pam Moran’s gentle suggestion that I should pause to write this up.  She was right.

#

It was awesome and scary for some to be in charge of their learning. #

More often than I’d like in the DLC, the teachers that we’re working with, and we work with the leaders of the teams, folks identified as teacher leaders in their schools, so chew on that a bit, are afraid, or unwilling, or unable, to take control of their own learning. These teachers, quite fine and thoughtful people, are often waiting for Michelle or I to tell them what’s worth learning and/or doing. That’s troublesome¹. #

This is mostly a rhetorical question, but I’d encourage you to consider it anyway – what’s happened to teachers and teaching that it’s so difficult for teachers to feel they have agency enough to follow their own lines of inquiry and learning? #

And why in the world is that okay? #

1. And the word “troublesome” is quite the understatement, I think.

#

Too often lately, I’ve read statements from teachers that sound something like this: “We have to give students voice” or “We have to give our students control over their learning.” #

Sure. Students should have voice. And control. And agency. And plenty of things. #

But, well, a student’s voice just isn’t mine to give. #

By that, I mean that there’s a big problem with “giving somebody” their voice. As a teacher, I can’t give you much of anything that you don’t already have. Nourish it? Cultivate it? Help develop or refine it? Sure. #

But give? No. Because that would mean that someone took it away in the first place. And that’s not okay. Further – that would assume that such a thing was mine to take. #

And any time we assume that we must give our students those things, or that teachers, too, must be given those things, we make it that much more difficult for the exchange to happen. We get the entire power dynamic backwards when we are handing out voices. Or power. Or control. Human beings have those things, anyway. With or without our permission. We would do well to remember that in the classroom. And plenty of other places. #

Teachers, and students, have voices. And agency. It’s up to them, to all of us, to use those things in the service of what’s important¹. #

Don’t work to “give” students voices. Help them find the ones they already have. #

1. And, yeah. You’ve got to decide what counts as “important,” too. No free lunches here.

#

One of the foundation’s main initial interests was schools with fewer students. In 2004 it announced that it would spend $100 million to open 20 small high schools in San Diego, Denver, New York City and elsewhere. Such schools, says Mr. Gates, were designed to—and did—promote less acting up in the classroom, better attendance and closer interaction with adults. #

  #

“But the overall impact of the intervention, particularly the measure we care most about—whether you go to college—it didn’t move the needle much,” he says. “Maybe 10% more kids, but it wasn’t dramatic. . . . We didn’t see a path to having a big impact, so we did a mea culpa on that.” Still, he adds, “we think small schools were a better deal for the kids who went to them.” #

Perhaps the metrics used to evaluate the effort were the wrong metrics.  College attendance may not be the right way to measure whether or not small schools are good places for our children.  We might want to investigate some other metrics and see how they tell us about the experience of students in smaller schools.  I’d wonder about things like safety.  Or the knowledge that students in a small school are members of a cohesive and human community.  Were these students well looked after and mentored by grown ups who genuinely cared for them?  Were they engaged in work that was meaningful and purposeful?  Did what they did each day matter? #

You can say those schools failed – but let’s make sure we know what your criteria are. The more someone¹  is pushing to tell me what counts as a “good school,” the more I’m finding I’m willing to say - #

Hang on.  Wait.  What do we want our schools to be? #

And just what do you mean by failure? #

I think those’re some of the kinds of questions that the folks who are organizing the Save Our Schools March are asking. #

If I could be, I’d be there in Washington DC as they congregate to push for change. Perhaps you will be.  Take good notes. #

1. “Like Bill Gates,” I want to say, but it’s not about him.  Like anyone who wants to tell you what’s working or what’s not.  Dig deeper.  Ask more.

#

Engchat 2011 from Ben Grey on Vimeo.¹ #

1. Special thanks to Ben for spending time capturing this work.

#

Masterfully facilitated by Chad Sansing and Meenoo Rami, the event took us to some interesting places and conversation.  Here’s my recap. #

We started the day in table groups with a box of Monopoly and a simple task – hack the game.  Chad and Meenoo explained that our task was to fiddle with the rules until we found a game that was better than the one we were handed – and so Sandy and Gail and I tinkered our way through a version of Monopoly that was all about freebies.  Other groups fiddled to make the game about tossing pieces and giving to charity.  It was good¹. #

But the point of the hacking was to give us an opportunity to explore that games and systems have rules – rules that were made by people.  And we can mess with those rules if we understand the underlying principles involved.  That’s powerful learning – and applies not just to board games, but to school, and to work, and to civic engagement and to computer systems or the Internet. #

Hacking matters.  Douglas Rushkoff would say that we need to Program or Be Programmed, but I’d fiddle with that statement and say instead that we need to hack or be hacked.  Someone made the rules and systems of the Internet, power structures, as John Spencer called them during out conversation yesterday.  And, as others have said before, we’ve got to help our students fiddle with them, understand them, and, hopefully, change them. #

We moved from that work into a visual exploration of our definition of hacker – folks focused on several things, but I was reminded of MacGyver, and thought of duct tape and wrenches and making things out of what we’ve available.  Purposeful play. #

This led to some interesting conversation that I think was my key takeaway from the day².  Paul Allison, who is always thoughtful, wrote this during the workshop: #

My first thought is that hacking sounds like an important idea, but really? Do we need another word that takes teachers out of the mainstream “common core” standards conversation? Does hacking get my students more college-ready? Like gaming, isn’t hacking just another thing that pushes the risk-takers into the margins, and makes risk-adverse teachers run? How do we find a way to be more inclusive in our language and processes? Is it just a language thing? What else might we call hacking? #

So part of why we hack has to do with understanding our sources more deeply, and this is absolutely an academic concern. But don’t we need words like “analytical reading” and carefully sourced research? Right so what else might we call hacking? It’s about creativity, but it’s also about making new things by really understanding the old, and this is a traditional, academic exercise. #

I’m looking for language that will encourage the risk-adverse teacher to join with us in these enterprises. #

I think we need the National Writing Project and folks like them to help navigate these spaces, and to explore them thoughtfully with teachers – and to help folks recognize that reading and writing and thinking and gaming and hacking are related – but in a way that doesn’t lead to further fragmentation and paradox.  I think we need teachers to play, like we played in the Hack Jam, with the rules and ideas that affect them. #

Yes, let’s teach kids to hack.  Both the Internet and Shakespeare.  Minecraft and Fitzgerald.  Wordle and essay.  Picture and paragraph.  Logarithm and link. Tweets and Tennyson.  Second Life and the State Legislature.  It’s a big world. #

Worth doing.  If you get the chance to attend a future NWP Hack Jam – you should go. I’ll see you there. #

1. Because it was a National Writing Project event, there were snacks.  Good ones.
2. And I know I’ve buried the lead, but that’s okay.
3. Read the whole piece.  It’s good and I can’t stop thinking about it.

#

I wonder, finally, what would happen if we simply opened the doors and let the students go; if we let them walk out of the dim light of the overhead projector into the sunlight; if we let them decide how, or whether, to engage this monolith? Would it be so terrible? Could it be worse than what they are currently experiencing? Would adults look at young people differently if they had to confront their children on the street, rather than locking them away in institutions? Would it force us to say more explicitly what a humane and healthy learning environment might look like? Should discussions of the future of school reform be less about the pet ideas of professional reformers and more about what we’re doing to young people in the institution called school? #

via What Would Happen if We Let Them Go? – The Futures of School Reform – Education Week. #

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