Florez criticized academic resistance. “I think every professor in the nation starts with, ‘I think online education is going to ruin higher education,’ " he said. "What I think every professor is saying is, ‘Online learning is going to significantly disrupt the way I’ve been doing things.'"

think every professor in the nation starts with, ‘I think online education is going to ruin higher education,’ " he said. "What I think every professor is saying is, ‘Online learning is going to significantly disrupt the way I’ve been doing things.'"

Ovum analyst Joe Dignan has a word of caution for those hoping to grab a piece of the action. "Companies produce videos of glass houses of lovely people doing Minority Report-style stuff, but show me how this will help people sitting in their council flat 20 storeys in the sky?"

any professors simply are not up to the task, having nestled into their tenur

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To keep this discussion from getting too complicated, I have so far only focused on evaluating summative and formative learning outcomes.  Things gets a lot more complicated when considering the how assessing learning with badges might be used to transform existing ecosystems or create new ones.  This is because the “learning” associated with transformative assessment defies conventional characterizations of learning.  The learning associated with transformative outcomes is really systemic change.  Such learning is highly contextualized within the social and technological practices that collectively define a specific learning ecosystem.