Learning, Badging, Connecting: Mapping your MozFest Learning Journey
Learning happens everywhere, but it isn’t always recognised in a way that can be shared with others
At MozFest this year, DigitalMe led a pathway called ‘Mapping your MozFest Learning Journey’, where we helped people chart their route through the festival. We also recognised MozFester’s learning journeys with Open Badges.
Open Badges can be used to help people showcase all of their skills, not just those gained through formal avenues. Employers are particularly interested in how badges can showcase employability or soft skills — and at DigitalMe, we have been working with employers to develop badges that unlock placements and apprenticeships. Character traits like curiosity, determination and empathy, and employability skills like mentoring, discipline and communication, are sought by employers and can be captured and shared via Open Badges.
At MozFest DigitalMe pathfinders were on hand to teach people how to create, issue and display Open Badges. We also awarded badges for sessions and pathways, for making, hacking and learning, participation, session facilitation and volunteering to credential the learning and contributions that took place over the weekend. We asked people to capture evidence of their learning throughout the weekend, via photos, text, videos or links and to submit this to earn a badge.
As well as helping people find their pathway through the festival, the Mapping your MozFest Learning Journey pathway featured inspiring sessions focusing on Open Badges:
The Sprout Fund @sproutfund, @DustinStiver, @MargaretBBlack ran a session on developing interest-driven learning playlists. Participants created their own learning playlists and considered what experiences, badges and more would go into playlists to achieve a desired outcome.
Democracy Street @democracyst showcased the Democracy Street app which brings together open data for mapping, the arts and information about democracy. Participants could test their own art skills, explore the app and learn about how Open Badges are being used to support engagement with this large scale arts project.
@grainnehamilton from @DigitalMe led a couple of sessions on badge-based pathways to employment. These focused on participants documenting each other’s life stories in terms of badgeable moments and developing badge pathways to specific career related destination points.
@digitalme_ also ran an active learning session on how to use Open Badges to encourage engagement with the arts in a citywide context.
@peter0shea talked about using Open Badges with @CoderDojo to reward and encourage community participation in CoderDojo sessions.
@omnignorant from @Mozilla led a session with @HiveChicagoBuzz participant Marina, who discussed how she worked with peers to develop the @RideWithMeApp. The Ride With Me app was developed by participants at the Chicago Hive, who identified that young people can find it challenging to travel safely and cheaply to spaces where they can participate in educational opportunities. Robert Friedman and Marina shared how the app pulls on open transportation and social data and participants then worked on designing a badge to provide attribution in community developments.
As a fringe activity for MozFest, DigitalMe ran an event in Glasgow, Scotland called Open Badges as Bridges: Design, Create, Connect. This event featured collaborative, hands-on activities for designing badges of value, turning designs into digital badges and creating badge pathways to learning opportunities or employment. Participants learned how to share badges and gain evidence-based endorsements for their learning. Open Badges were considered in terms of the Scottish Government’s Youth Employment Strategy, Developing the Young Workforce, in terms of how badges can help to create bridges between different stages on a learner’s journey and support connections between education, business and industry.
Thank you to Mozfest for helping us test our new beta site, the Open Badge Academy, an open evidencing and endorsement platform. Badge evidence is still being submitted for badges in the MozFest Academy, to recognise making, hacking, learning, participation, session facilitation and volunteering at MozFest. Nearly 150 badges have been awarded so far and that number is rising! If you haven’t claimed some badges already, sign up for the MozFest Academy and submit evidence of your MozFest learning!
