Mozilla

After 18 months in the darkness of beta world, Mozilla’s Open Badges project stepped out into the light recently with the unveiling of Open Badges 1.0.

But will the concept of organizations bestowing their own virtual endorsements for the mastery of skills hold up to critical examination from a world that, even in an information economy, demands most of its skilled workers hold a framed degree?

The list of more than 600 badge-creating and -designing partners would suggest so. Especially when that list includes names familiar even to digital-phobes, like the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, multiple branches of the Smithsonian, NASA, and Disney-Pixar.

Yet even Erin Knight, the Mozilla Foundation’s senior director of learning, concedes it may be a while before badges resonate the same as a resume to an admissions or recruiting office, even if badges have the potential to be more authentic and certifiable.

“I don’t see badges replacing degrees as something that is going to happen tomorrow,” Knight says. “But I see it as more incremental.”

The idea behind Mozilla’s project, Knight says, is to create a common currency of how badges are structured and discussed. While Mozilla can’t — nor does it want to — control the quality of the elements required for badges listed within its project, it does require every badge to provide authentication for the organization issuing the badge and for the user receiving it, as well as a link to the criteria needed to earn it and the evidence of the learner meeting that criteria.

But the first incremental step to fostering a public understanding of what badges can offer may not be a top-down, widespread knowledge of the anatomy of a badge. Instead, judging by the stories of a few of Mozilla’s early partners, it may be local organizations explaining and publicizing their badge system to partner organizations they trust.

The Providence After School Alliance, or PASA, in Providence, Rhode Island, has reached an agreement with the city school district that badges issued to high school students for the completion of a semester-long course will count as a high school credit in extended learning.

Often, that credit isn’t needed for a graduation requirement. But it does find its way onto a high school transcript as its reviewed by a college admissions office.

“It is important to have a college admissions officer have it on a transcript,” says Patrick Duhon, PASA’s director of expanded learning, “because it’s a secondary validation.”

PASA has also succeeded in convincing Rhode Island College to include a section for students to link to their individual badges to a common college application after personally visiting the school to show the development of their badges.

“We would like to get to a place where all the colleges in Rhode Island would accept that,” said Hillary Salmons, PASA’s executive director. “But we’re building this and flying this. We don’t have the opportunity to go to every other admissions office and introduce this conceptually.”

Meanwhile, Digital On-Ramps, an initiative in Philadelphia focused on delivering career-focused training via online and mobile content, is using badges to help apply a credential to the skills learned by its users in three areas: 21st-Century skills and digital literacy; professional vocational certifications; and community leadership.

Initiative organizer Lisa Nutter, the president at nonprofit youth development organization Philadelphia Academies Inc. and wife of city mayor Michael Nutter, says the badge process will only be successful with a concerted effort to explain it to community schools and businesses.

“We basically have been preparing ourselves to put in a lot of energy in capacity building around this, both inside and outside of schools,” Nutter said.

Here’s a look at a few other badges in development and the weight they are expected to carry:

• NASA is working on launching badges in robotics and in the STEM fields to be earned through working with NASA content and used to identify candidates for internships and jobs.
• The Manufacturing Institute is developing a badge to be earned by current workers and students to demonstrate skills necessary to succeed in an advanced manufacturing job or internship.
• The Intel Society for Science and the Public is developing badges to affirm and evaluate scientific research and tie it to professional and academic skills.
• Carnegie Mellon is developing badges that will eventually be issued on a curricular path that terminates in certifications recognized by computer science and STEM industries.
• Badges for Vets is creating a series of badges that will help offer civilian-applicable credentials for professional skills learned through military training.

In his book, Hacking Your Education, Stephens outlines a path that he says will allow students to “ditch the lectures, save tens of thousands, and learn more than your peers ever will.”

Below, a few excerpts from the book, among many useful ideas called “Hack of the Day” that are sprinkled throughout the book among personal anecdotes.

MyEdu

Despite a deeply held belief that success in college is crucial for success in life, the traditional path students assume they’ll take is more an exception than the rule, according to a new report.

Though most students believe the college path — high school, college with chosen major, internship, job — will smoothly go from one phase to the next, the reality is quite different for many students. And as a result, stress and anxiety is causing them to make haphazard decisions about their education.

Switching majors, falling behind the academic schedule, and feeling disenfranchised by the conventional college system are becoming institutionalized student experiences, states the report [PDF] from MyEdu, an Austin, Texas-based company that offers online tools to help college students manage their academic lives and career opportunities.

So how to fix it?

Though many believe access to online courses through one of the proliferating MOOCs, study author Jon Kolko suggested online learning represents the wrong application of the right technology. Instead, he says the same kinds of algorithms that contribute to a self-paced math course, for example, should instead be used to evaluate a student’s progress in traditional college courses. For example, he envisions MyEdu and its competitors (such as Koofers, Princeton Review, and HeyCampus) offering tools that can take a student’s performance and feedback from a general education course and suggest or rule out potential majors.

“I don’t think computers are that good for learning, but they’re really good for this administrative side of things,” said Kolko, MyEdu’s vice president of design, who is planning on using feedback from the study to hone its tools and inspire new ones. The company currently has profiles of about 300,000 students who are mostly enrolled in large state institutions in Texas and elsewhere in the American Southwest. The company makes its revenue by providing data about those students to career recruiters.

On a larger—if more unrealistic—level, the simplest way to help students be more productive and less anxious in college may be to alter the typical path of their common experiences.

For example, in its analysis of 14 in-depth interviews with college students and more than 1,000 surveys completed by a representative sample of MyEdu users, the report found that students were most influenced by nontraditional academic experiences like study-abroad trips, internships, and mentorships. But while those experiences often lead to the identification of a long-term life goal, they generally come toward the end of college, and don’t leave time for a change of course in study, at least while an undergraduate student.

Kolko accepted the suggestion that encouraging students to enroll in apprenticeships, service initiatives, or gap year programs might help more of them find their goals more quickly and lead to a more efficient path through college. But he said the stigma attached to an indirect path to college would likely keep most from considering them, so instead colleges should look at ways to make the path to a degree more flexible.

“I don’t think it’s fair at all, or even legitimate, to expect an 18-year-old to exit high school knowing what they want to study,” Kolko said. “But if we’re not going to change the way the game works, we need to give them the information to make that decision more proactively, and we need to make those decisions less binding.”

MyEdu

This isn’t to say students don’t take college seriously—in fact the report finds most believe the college experience will determine what happens during the rest of their lives. But that sense of finality often leads to mistakes like choosing a major based on ease of completion, relying on parents who themselves did not go to college for college advice, and making any sort of big academic choice before it’s necessary.

Here’s a look at the report’s four primary findings:

COLLEGE PREDETERMINATION: Students believe the path from college to career is relatively linear and rigid—choose a college, choose a major, get an internship, get a job—and then aren’t mentally prepared to work around roadblocks to that path when they arise.

FORCED TO DECIDE: Students often feel they have inadequate time to make informed decisions about their academic future, and thus resort to less substantive reasons to guide that process, such as the plans of their friends and the opinions of their family.

OUTSIDE LOOKING IN: 37 percent of students labeled themselves as “nontraditional” because they could no longer meet the cost, time, or other requirements of conventional colleges and universities.

APPEARANCES VS. REALITY: Most students feel empowered to apply to jobs and internships and believe how to effectively show their unique skills; instead they are more skilled at generic cover letter and resume writing than at selling their best talents.

Justin Sullivan/Getty Images

As tech tools continue to proliferate with new launches and new products, it’s difficult to predict what will stick and what won’t. A recently released report by the New Media Consortium and EDUCAUSE Learning Initiative (ELI) tries to sift through the fads and find the few that will have a real impact on education in the next few years.

What’s worth noting? Sometimes what seemed impossible only a few years ago has already become a new trend. The 2013 NMC Horizon’s Report on Higher Education, which brings together international experts in education and technology, attempts to take the pulse of emerging technologies in higher education and predict where the field will move in the near, middle and far term.

The report points to MOOCs, Massive Open Online Courses, as the big change agent in the higher ed landscape, but it also reaches a little further, bringing 3D printing and wearable technology into the mix.

KEY FACTORS

The panel considered some key factors influencing whether technologies take hold, identifying a move towards “open” content and the ability to share, manipulate, and mold. Even more critical for institutions of higher education is the rise of MOOCs. As more elite institutions align themselves with one MOOC organization or another, university leaders are considering the idea of “micro-credit” as an alternative to the traditional credits given at brick and mortar universities.

[RELATED READING: For the Future Student, Higher Education Will Be Redefined]

Equally important to information access are skills that employers expect recent graduates to bring with them — like communication and critical thinking. These skills are often augmented by real-world or informal learning experiences that move beyond the college lecture hall. Acknowledging that the trend of personalization and taking it a step further, the report also notes the increasing importance of learning analytics. Colleges will need to follow a student’s digital footprint to better tailor their educational experience. And all of this means a different role for university instructors. Students have much better access to knowledge through technology which necessitates that professors become mentors, collaborators, facilitators and ultimately not the center of the learning experience.

CHALLENGES

By and large the biggest barriers to implementing technology in higher education are the institutions and people who run them. Employers increasingly recognize that digital media literacy is an important skill set in the coming decades, but university faculty are neither equipped to teach those skills nor especially proficient themselves in many cases.

Lack of digital fluency is affecting scholarly collaboration, as well. Social media, blogging, link backs and other tech-based publication methods are not well understood or recognized by older, traditional faculty and administration. It’s far easier to continue with the status quo and too often professors trying new things are seen as teaching outside their role. This stodgy mentality stifles innovation.

The panel also found that while there is a hunger for more personalized learning, the demand is not well supported by the technology. The mechanics of earning analytics are still in the nascent stages. Collecting, collating, and understanding the sheer volume of data is overwhelming to most at traditional universities. Many college instructors are not using technology in their research or in their teaching. It would take a larger cultural shift before many technologies could be considered widespread.

[RELATED READING: Can Free, High-Quality Education Get You a Job?]

Lastly, the competition that MOOCs are bringing to the long-held university system is challenging the value of higher education. Many argue the competition is exactly what slow-moving universities need to change, but others wonder if the instruction offered by MOOCs reaches the same caliber. “As these new platforms emerge, however, there is a need to frankly evaluate the models and determine how to best support collaboration, interaction, and assessment at scale. Simply capitalizing on new technology is not enough; the new models must use these tools and services to engage students on a deeper level,” the report notes.

NEAR-TERM PREDICTIONS (WITHIN THE YEAR)

Both MOOCs and tablets will be widely adopted in university settings within the year. The popularity of MOOCs like Coursera, Udacity and edX are undeniable with enrollment in some classes exceeding 100,000 students. Unparalleled access excites many people, but raises questions. “One of the most appealing promises of MOOCs is that they offer the possibility for continued, advanced learning at zero cost, allowing students, life-long learners, and professionals to acquire new skills and improve their knowledge and employability,” notes the report.

As for tech hardware, tablets fit well with the university lifestyle. They’re light, portable, and allow students to interact with the lesson and their networks at the same time. Competition in the tablet space has increased, driving down the price and pushing the limits of capability. The report predicts tablet manufacturers will continue to offer more robust options for less money.

MID-TERM (TWO TO THREE YEARS)

A big prediction here is the rise of games and gamification to encourage students to participate with material in deeper ways. Educational gaming might seem like old news to some, but most often gaming comes up in a K-12 context. Now the same benefits are being applied to older students and more complicated subjects. Most of the excitement centers on gamification – integrating mechanics of games into non-game situations to inspire creativity and productivity. The strategy works well for many businesses and is gradually making its way onto college campuses.

Similarly, the report predicts that learning analytics will find a foothold in higher education in the next few years. “Student-specific data can now be used to customize online course platforms and suggest resources to students in the same way that businesses tailor advertisements and offers to customers,” the report said. Universities are already using big data to improve advising and help offer advice and strategies to struggling learners to improve retention. The data can also help universities to better allocate resources, fill holes and accurately understand how well they are serving students.

LONG TERM (FOUR TO FIVE YEARS)

The rise of the Maker movement has helped launch 3D printing back into the NMC Horizons predictions where it first appeared in 2004. The emphasis on design learning and DIY culture make 3D printers appealing.

Wearable technology will take off on college campuses as thin film technology makes it possible for screens to mold around body curves. And these devices aren’t just cool. “Wearable devices are also proving to be effective tools for research because they use sensors to track data, such as vital signs, in real-time. Although wearable technology is not yet pervasive in higher education, the current highly functional clothing and accessories in the consumer space show great promise,” the report says.

Flickr: Javi Velazquez

By Holly Korbey

Higher education options are changing for all students — not only for gutsy school reformers and tech enthusiasts dropping out with hopes to become the next Steve Jobs or Mark Zuckerberg. As MOOCs proliferate and college costs keep rising, more young reformers and “edupreneurs” are looking for a way around a four-year degree, some opting for a gap year to work on personal passions they hope will take off, and some looking for meaningful work experience in the world’s classroom.

They’re not alone. In fact, they might even be the majority. According to a panel of higher education experts, only 27% of today’s college students have a “traditional” four-year college experience away from home. The rest work toward a degree in pieces while living their lives – holding down jobs, having families, and taking care of other responsibilities.

But while economists and entrepreneurs debate who’s right for college, and we question the value of a college degree, young school reformers who are trying to figure out what’s on everybody’s mind: Can dropping out or putting off college advance their budding careers in reforming the system, or will the lack of a college degree put them at a disadvantage?

Nineteen-year-old Zak Malamed, a freshman at University of Maryland College Park majoring in government and politics, is looking for ways out of the four-year degree track to spend more time on his growing school-reform organization, Student Voice. He’s been considering a break, like the Gap Year Program offered by UnCollege, an organized year off that includes international travel, internship, and instruction in “building your personal brand.” The hands-on learning available in the Gap Year, Malamed says, would be helpful to him in building his organization. And he believes the program plays to his strengths.

“In high school, I really felt like I learned more outside of the classroom. I was more of an experiential learner. I loved student government most because I learned how to work with people,” he said.

While guidance counselors report that the gap-year trend is on the rise, the logistics for Malamed are mostly financial – UnCollege’s program costs $12,000 for the year, and Malamed made it clear that for a gap year program to work for him, he would have to be paid, not pay. And while Malamed’s not exactly sure a degree will help him with his goals, it couldn’t hurt.

“I really don’t like the way school works. I believe that, as it stands now, I could learn more outside college than in. But, I have to take the opportunities given to me. If I can’t support myself financially with work that I’m passionate about, then I’ll stay and get my degree.” In the interim, Malamed has promised his parents that he will finish, even if he takes a gap year (or two) to grow Student Voice.

NO CHOICE FOR SOME

For 20-year-old Mpaza Kapembwa, a Gates scholar and sophomore at Williams College, there’s only one way to become a formidable school reformer: get a college degree. College was one of the top reasons Kapembwa’s mother moved him and his sister from Zambia to the U.S. six years ago.

The first years of American life were a struggle, and for a period of time they were essentially homeless, while Kapembwa continued to earn the highest grades and found his passion in American education reform. He believes that for many living at or near the poverty line, a four-year degree is still the best and most reliable way to move into the middle class.

If a major education think tank or policy group wanted to tap his talent early, would he leave college — even for a year? No way.

“A college degree gives you legitimacy in a way,” he said. “If you hear people tell us we don’t need to go to college, they have college degrees and I bet their children will also have college degrees. I don’t get their logic.”

[RELATED: For the Future Student, Higher Education Will Be Redefined]

Kapembwa feels that, for him, dropping out — even for a good job — poses a serious risk. “Very few people who are movers and shakers don’t have college degrees. If you are a low income student, living in or just above poverty, forgoing college to pursue something might be disastrous because you have no safety net in case you fail.”

He also believes that, in order to be an effective school reformer, teaching inside a classroom is a must — and that requires a four-year degree (at least). “I don’t take people who want to talk about education seriously if they have never been in a classroom, or don’t plan to.”

PROVIDING ALTERNATIVES

While ambitious college students search for alternatives to four-year degrees, school reform efforts have fostered a group of startups attempting to help younger students navigate a changing landscape of growing choices. The Future Project, founded by two Yale grads, is one such startup: Chief Dream Director Sallomé Hralima, a Weslyan grad and former educator, is in charge of hiring and training young people just like Malamed or Mpaza for Dream Director positions inside of high schools. She describes the salaried Dream Director job as “part human catalyst and part social entrepreneur,” and says the job requires the ability to help kids recognize, organize, and implement their passions.

Hralima, a former “straight-A student” who didn’t feel challenged in school, feels that for many kids, college should be Plan B. “So many people have been indoctrinated into the belief that college is access to the life that they dream of. And for so many people it has resulted in lifelong debt. We live in a time where arguably our most influential people either didn’t go to college at all, or they dropped out. The kids are looking to these icons and saying, uh-huh, they have the life I want and they didn’t go to college.” Hralima herself is $45,000 in education debt.

Would The Future Project hire young Zak Malamed or Mpaza Kapembwa to be Dream Directors, even though they don’t currently have college degrees? Hralima hesitates, then says, yes, probably. “On the application, under educational qualifications, it says, ‘undergraduate degree preferred, but not required.’”

[RELATED: Should Work Experience Come Before College?]

For these ambitious student school reformers, conforming to what they consider an ailing system and getting a degree continues to be the most promising choice. Zak Malamed’s upcoming Student Voice Live! conference will be sponsored and hosted by Dell Computers, making the gap year option look more promising. Mpaza Kapembwa is currently on a Williams-led trip to Uganda, designing technology and curriculum for an HIV-awareness initiative.

Whether a well-paying job and career opportunity is available for school reformers without college degrees, even as “college” morphs and changes, is still questionable. For now, each appears to be forging their own path.