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Related to our design exercise from section this week--check out what new blended learning models caught the eye of the Gates Foundation. "Next Generation Learning Challenges (NGLC), an initiative dedicated to improving college readiness and completion, today announced grants totaling $5.4 million for 13 new models of personalized, blended learning at the secondary and postsecondary levels."

The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation's Next Generation Learning Challenges, a collaborative, multi-year initiative, which aims to help dramatically improve college readiness and college completion in the United States through the use of technology.

The possibility for MOOC's to gain some legitimacy by offering credit through the administration of a fee-based exam.

There is an "uncollege" movement that encourages people to complete college degrees by pursuing self-study, then taking CLEP exams to gain college credits. The problem has always been that many higher-priced/name-brand colleges (e.g. Harvard) don't accept CLEP credits, requiring students to pay for credits the old-fashioned way. I wonder whether established schools will accept credits from MOOC courses.

The idea of "showing what you know" and earning badges instead of degrees? In this economic downswing, could something like this become the new emergent way of learning and of assessing? Thoughts?

Sounds like the digital badge is more lke a digital portfolio- which I would more likely support. I find it interesting that our education system (which strives and struggles to provide consistent, high quality education from coast to coast) is seen as deficient but this badge proposal will be the answer? It's like the flood of support for home-schooling after a home-schooler wins a national competition but no one knows about the tens of homescholers I had to remediate in rural NH. Standardization is the key for any system to be integrated into another system. The variety of education models we have in our country makes it difficult for employers to integrate employees. If this digital badge concept relies on a variety of models, they will have the same problem.

The prospect of digital badges to show what you know is both exciting with its potential affordances and worrisome with some of its limitations and ambiguity. It'd be great if the ideal came to pass that digital badges would allow valid demonstration of super-specific skills and knowledge over a greater range of fields and topics than what having a B.A. or B.S. currently does. Digital badges could represent the most particular concepts or skills at a granular level even-- those that are essential in the real-world (whether that be desired by employers or otherwise). If the task or test or challenge, or whatever else would be the means of assessment for earning a badge, was carefully designed and evaluated to be a truly valid measure of proficiency, then earning a badge for something would be a clear indication that you know something. But like Allison said, standardization would be key. What would these assessments/ badge challenges be- so that they would be truly valid indicators of proficiency? Who would be the purveyors or authorities to determine the assessments or challenges to accomplish a badge? Given the medium (completing badge assessments on one's own computer or mobile device - from any site they're at potentially) - what's to stop a user from going "open book" or "opening another tab" in order to look up answers to questions or tutorials on how to do a task, in order to complete the assessment? Doing this would allow a user to ace the assessment and earn the badge- but would defeat any value of the badge in truly demonstrating knowledge or skill. By imagining if digital badges did reach mass-acceptance and use in the real world, and we were to ultimately find them all over the internet like we're now finding social media widgets, it made me realize that the "prove proficiency anywhere I am in any way I want" won't work. I changed fields and career paths from what I studied in college, so I definitely appreciate the value in being able to truly show e

This article talks about online-learning and the ways it may change the college experience. While I agree that new technology is affecting the way our courses are run, I don't see it leading to the complete shut down of Universities. While it is wonderful that people have access to courses and resources that they may not otherwise have, I believe that there will always be a need for face-to-face interactions that one can only get from a University setting.

Universities are planning on using iPad to replace textbooks by giving free iPads to students. If universities continue this, it could completely change the textbook market.

Adults these days (especially those who love themselves some Dateline) seem really into chastising video games those crazy kids are into as symptomatic of the human race's inevitable, steady decline. Like every hobby and medium, legitimate concerns regarding these technologies certainly exist, but their complete lack of validity is decidedly not amongst them.

To what extent should videogames be used in classrooms, and what is the research support for this?

Note the author characterizes the National Educational Technology Plan as a "manifesto." Quoting this article, "... in March, Arne Duncan, the secretary of education, released a draft National Educational Technology Plan that reads a bit like a manifesto for change, proposing among other things that the full force of technology be leveraged to meet "aggressive goals" and "grand" challenges, including increasing the percentage of the population that graduates from college to 60 percent from 39 percent in the next 10 years. What it takes to get there, the report suggests, is a "new kind of R.& D."

A bunch of especially interesting quotes toward the end: "This concept is something that Will Wright, who is best known for designing the Sims game franchise...refers to as 'failure-based learning,' in which failure is brief, surmountable, often exciting and therefore not scary... According to Ntiedo Etuk, the chief executive of Tabula Digita...children who persist in playing a game are demonstrating a valuable educational ideal.... 'They'll fail until they win.' He adds: 'Failure in an academic environment is depressing. Failure in a video game is pleasant. It's completely aspirational.' It is also, says James Paul Gee, antithetical to the governing reality of today's public schools. 'If you think about kids in school - especially in our testing regime - both the teacher and the student think that failure will lead to disaster,' he says. 'That's pretty much a guarantee that you'll never get to truly deep learning.'"