Last week we held a webinar on “Badge System Models and Design” for the DML Badges for Teachers competition featuring a presentation by Carla Cassili on designing an effective digital badge system, and Q &A with David Theo Goldberg.
You can watch the video below, view it at http://youtu.be/fhDWfeGgrR4, or download the slides directly as a PDF right here.
Last week we held our fourth webinar for Stage Two “Badge System Models and Design” featuring another great presentation by David Theo Goldberg, who answered questions about the Stage One and Two application process, and Erin Knight of Mozilla, who discussed the many considerations of designing an effective digital badge system.
You can watch the video below, view it at http://youtu.be/Km6RerAYYLc, or download the slides directly as a PDF right here.
A few weeks ago we held our second webinar of phase 2, “Badge System Models and Design.” There was a delay in posting this recording due to a glitch in the recording, but I’m happy to say that I found and fixed the problem!
It featured a great presentation by Erin Knight of Mozilla about the many considerations of designing an effective digital badge system as well as some insights into the process from David Theo Goldberg. You can watch the video below or at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8CqMRzr30QM, or download the slides directly as a PDF right here.
Yesterday we held our second webinar of phase 2, “Badge System Models and Design.” It featured a great presentation by Carla Cassilli of Mozilla about the many considerations of designing an effective digital badge system. You can watch the video below, or at http://youtu.be/zCAy5weZyHc, and you can download the slides directly as a PDF right here.
In conjunction with the Badges for Lifelong Learning Competition, applicants are invited to propose badging systems not only for learning content, but also for teacher learning and feedback. Competitive submissions proposing badge systems that track and promote feedback regarding the competencies and skills as well as the programs and subjects over which teachers acquire expertise will be a central part of the Stage 1 and Stage 2 processes of the Competition. The winning proposal(s) will be awarded funding to develop the proposed badging system.
Learn more at http://www.dmlcompetition.net/Competition/4/teachers.php
The HASTAC/MacArthur Foundation’s Badges for Lifelong Learning Competition, launched in collaboration with the Mozilla Foundation, focuses on badges as a means to inspire learning, confirm accomplishment, or validate the acquisition of knowledge or skills.
During this live webinar for prospective Stage Two badge design applicants, we will delve deeper into the badge conversation and explore badge system design and development considerations. We will review different models of existing badge systems and discuss general guidelines and best practices. We will also walk prospective applicants through content, technological and team characteristics that should be considered when developing a badge system and putting together a proposal for Stage 2.
To learn more about the Badges Competition and the Research Competition, visit http://dmlcompetition.net.
Questions can be submitted in advance by emailing dml@hri.uci.edu and including “webinar question” in the subject line.
Yesterday we held our first webinar of phase 2, “Badge System Models and Design.” It features a great presentation by Erin Knight of Mozilla about the many considerations of designing an effective digital badge system. You can watch the video below, or at http://youtu.be/1Zrirng0_ls, and you can download the slides directly as a PDF right here.
Recorded on October 25, 2011.
The John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, in collaboration with Mozilla and HASTAC, invite you to an event on September 15th at the Hirshhorn Museum in Washington, DC and online at hastac.org/DML-competition-launch to explore the potential of Badges for Lifelong Learning. Badges are a new assessment tool that will help identify skills mastered in formal and informal settings, virtually and in physical spaces, and in schools, workplaces and communities.
Today learning happens anytime, anyplace, at any age. How can 21st century learners demonstrate their knowledge and skills? Digital badges can inspire learning, unlock jobs, educational and civic opportunities and open new pipelines for talent. The event will feature the announcement of the 4th Digital Media and Learning competition which will provide up to $2 million in grants for innovations in the use of Badges for Learning.
Watch the live video stream from the Hirshhorn Museum in Washington at hastac.org/DML-competition-launch from 9:00am to 10:30am EDT on September 15th.
Featured speakers include:
Announcing the Digital Media and Learning Game Changers Kids Competition! Please share the web site http://www.dmlcompetition.net/kidscomp and the announcement below with any kids or colleagues who work with young people that may be interested in applying.
Join the 2010 Game Changers Kids Competition for Spore and Little Big Planet players. This is your chance to prove yourself as an innovative video game creator! Winners must be under 18, and will be selected based on “Creativity” and “Playability.”
![[wild sack boy]](/Competition/3/kidscomp/images/lbp.sm.jpg)
Create an inspired LittleBigPlanet™ level with a team of 2 or 3 of your friends, or on your own for a chance to win a PSP® PlayStation Portable device and game!
Learn more at: http://www.dmlcompetition.net/kidscomp/lbp
![[Spore creature]](/Competition/3/kidscomp/images/spore.sm.jpg)
Create an inspired adventure with a team of 2 or 3 of your friends, or on your own for a chance to win a visit to Electronic Arts, home to Spore!
Learn more at: http://www.dmlcompetition.net/kidscomp/spore
The lists of finalists in both the Game Changers and 21st Century Learning Labs competitions has been announced. It’s available on our web site, but I’ll also paste the list below.
Soon their applications will be available online for additional commenting, and the applicants will be asked to add more detail including multimedia content to further explain their ideas.
Thanks again to all of the amazing educators, activists, and community organizers that applied!
Not many people think our Big Problem is that we don’t play enough games. But game designer Jane McGonigal says that’s exactly what we need to do. Even she describes this idea as “crazy,” but she’s also got a great point. What if all the time we spend playing games was dedicated instead to making the world a better place? And what if we could do both at the same time?
Check out her TED talk and see what you think.
![[Connie]](http://www.huffingtonpost.com/contributors/connie-yowell/headshot.jpg)
The MacArthur Foundation’s Connie Yowell wrote a great essay at Huffington Post this week highlighting the potential of the Game Changers awards. Here’s an excerpt:
News of the competition has been making its way through the gaming community, and a number of contest proposals have already come in. They contain some provocative creative plots and adventures: finding a missing genius scientist, repelling invaders of human consciousness, and the proper care and feeding of aliens. There are some intriguing new potential heroes, too, including: “Sackboy,” a Geico-like lizard named “Sal,” and an invisible time-traveling professor named “Momo.”- Connie Yowell: Inspire a New Generation of Game Experiences for Children, HuffingtonPost.com, 2/8/10
Got an inspiring idea? Digital Media and Learning Competition submissions close on Monday. Apply now!
Due to popular demand, the 2010 HASTAC/MacArthur Foundation Digital Media and Learning Competition has been re-opened to new applicants!
The application system is now open. Submit your application between now and noon EST on February 15th.
As planned, previous applicants are now also invited to re-submit their applications to include ideas and collaborators that may have arisen from the public comment. All previous applications must be re-submitted by February 15th to be considered. Click here to learn more about the Competition timeline.
Click here to create or re-submit your application now. Good luck!
Public commenting on the 2010 HASTAC/MacArthur Foundation Digital Media and Learning Competition is now open! Join the conversation. Log in to provide feedback and comments on applications.
I’ve been exploring the wide world of LittleBIGPlanet user communities today. (And it is a very BIG world!) I came across this great forum post on “Creating Your Level: The Four P’s.” Planning, Preparation, Playtesting, and Publicity – it’s good advice, and should be helpful for anyone developing content for the Game Changer awards in this year’s competition.
Thanks to the MacArthur Foundation’s collaboration with EA and Sony for the Digital Media and Learning Competition, I have been learning more about the games Little Big Planet (on PlayStation3) and Spore: Galactic Adventures (on Macintosh/Windows).
I haven’t had as much time as I’d like to play them (of course) but I have been dipping my toe in the water. In Spore I have graduated from the primordial ooze on up to “creature stage,” and in LBP I have been exploring The Savannah and unlocked the tools to make my own “level” in the game.
Being the social network junkie that I am, one of the features I tend to check out first are the profiles and friends. But sadly, I don’t have any friends on either network! If you play one of these games, would you friend me up? I’m using my standard handle rubyji in both My Spore and the the PlayStation network. I’m especially looking for people who are using these games for social or educational benefit.
Also, what are your favorite sources of information about these games and communities of game players? I ask for myself, but also because I am reaching out to LBP and Spore players to let them know they can submit content they make (or plan to make) in these games for awards of up to $50,000 in the Digital Media and Learning Competition! Please pass on the web site DMLcompetition.net to people who might be interested, and/or tell me where to follow up. Thanks!
Today HASTAC re-launched the website for the Digital Media and Learning Competition (dmlcompetition.net) with the long-awaited details of the 2010 Competition! This competition builds on two successful years of supporting projects that advance and DO participatory learning.
Each year, the competition addresses different themes. In 2008, 17 projects won Innovation or Knowledge-Networking Awards. In 2009, 19 projects won Innovation or Young Innovators awards. This year’s theme is Reimagining Learning and has brought some exciting new players to the table. We have been given the opportunity to participate in National Lab Day – part of the White House’s Educate to Innovate Initiative – on our Learning Lab Designers awards. And we’re also collaborating with videogame makers Sony and EA on the Game Changers awards.
Another new element of this year’s competition is you, dear reader. We will host public comments on the applications as soon as people begin submitting them in January, and in May we will invite you to vote on your favorites to select the winners of the People’s Choice Awards. (See our timeline for more details about this process.)
We’ll be writing more on this blog about learning labs, game changers, and participatory learning. So keep reading, and visit the re-launched DMLcompetition.net, to learn more about this year’s competition. Put on your thinking caps and start developing ideas now. The initial application period will be open from January 7th to 15th. We can’t wait to see what you will do!
I spent some of the wee hours of the Thanksgiving break actually playing LittleBigPlanet for the first time. (I have a son who is too young for TV, so gaming was restricted to after his bedtime.) I definitely get what all the fuss is about! The beautiful graphics have a depth my partner described as “the opposite of the Wii.” The personalization was reminiscent of Second Life, without being nearly as flexible of course. And the game play was not unlike the Atari video games of my youth, with a lot of jumping around, picking up glowing prizes, and avoiding dangerous pits.
The game does a nice job of walking the newbie through the basic skills and concepts, gradually ramping up the challenges to dexterity and problem-solving. After completing the first three story levels a whole new world of user-created community levels opened up before me, as well as an area of blank canvas for me to create my own levels!
…And that’s as far as I’ve gotten, but I will continue to report back here as I learn this game. If you are a Playstation gamer, and especially if you are interested in “serious games” or real-world applications of video games, drop me a line. Rubyji is my Playstation network ID, feel free to friend me there.
I thought folks might be interested to see the official press releases from the White House and the MacArthur Foundation about last week’s launch of National Lab Day and the Educate to Innovate program, of which the Digital Media and Learning Competition is a part.
They are excerpted below. Click the links in the previous paragraph to read the full document.
Speaking to key leaders of the STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering & Math) community and local students, President Obama announced a series of high-powered partnerships involving leading companies, foundations, non-profits, and science and engineering societies dedicated to motivating and inspiring young people across America to excel in science and math.
[...]
Today at the White House, President Obama launched the “Educate to Innovate” campaign, a nationwide effort to help reach the administration’s goal of moving American students from the middle to the top of the pack in science and math achievement over the next decade. President Obama announced a series of partnerships involving leading companies, universities, foundations, non-profits, and organizations representing millions of scientists, engineers and teachers that will motivate and inspire young people across the country to excel in science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM).
[...]
National STEM Game Design Competitions: The MacArthur Foundation, Sony Computer Entertainment America, the Entertainment Software Association (ESA) and its partners (the Information Technology Industry Council, the Information Technology & Innovation Foundation, and Microsoft) are launching a nationwide set of competitions that include the design of the most compelling, freely-available STEM-related videogames for children and youth. The competitions will include the 2010 Digital Media and Learning Competition, a $2 million yearly effort supported by the MacArthur Foundation that advances the most innovative approaches to learning through games, social networks and mobile devices. One of the competitions will be open only to children, to help them develop 21st century knowledge and skills through the challenge of game design. This year Sony will participate in one segment of the competition and encourage the development of new games that build on the existing popular video game Little Big Planet.
- whitehouse.gov: President Obama Launches “Educate to Innovate” Campaign for Excellence in Science, Technology, Engineering & Math (Stem) Education, 11/23/09
As President Obama called for new efforts to reimagine and improve education in science and math, the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation announced a $2 million open competition for ideas to transform learning using digital media. The competition seeks designers, inventors, entrepreneurs, researchers, and others to build digital media experiences – the learning labs of the 21st Century – that help young people interact, share, build, tinker, and explore in new and innovative ways. Supported by a grant to the University of California at Irvine, the competition was planned and announced in partnership with National Lab Day, a movement to revitalize science, technology, engineering and math in schools that was highlighted at a White House event today.Sony Computer Entertainment America (SCEA), in cooperation with the Entertainment Software Association and the Information Technology & Innovation Foundation, will team with MacArthur to support Game Changers, a new component of the competition. Game Changers will provide awards for the creation of new game experiences using PlayStation’s popular video game, LittleBigPlanet™. [...]
The competition is designed to promote “participatory learning,” the notion that young people often learn best through sharing and involvement. Participatory learning, as defined by the competition, is a form of learning connected to individual interests and passions, inherently social in nature, and occurring during hands-on, creative activities. Successful learning labs and games will exploit all of these elements. Awards will be made in two categories: 21st Century Learning Lab Designers and Game Changers.
The competition includes three rounds of submissions, with public comment at each stage. The public will also be invited to judge the final candidates, including the selection of People’s Choice awards in each category.
“Learning labs are digital media projects that promote hands-on participatory learning,” said Cathy Davidson, Duke University Professor and David Theo Goldberg, Director of the University of California Humanities Research Institute, HASTAC co-founders. “They promote learning together with others, by interactively doing, trying, sometimes failing. When we think of laboratories, the image of beakers and microscopes come to mind, but learning labs help us reimagine and expand our understanding of learning across all domains of knowledge.”
Competition winners will join an existing community of 36 awardees from 2007 and 2008, including a video blogging project for young women in Mumbai, India; a cutting-edge mobile phone application that lets children conduct digital wildlife spotting and share that information with friends; a project that leverages low-cost laptops to help indigenous children in Chiapas, Mexico learn by producing and sharing their own media creations; and an online platform for 200 classrooms around the world that allows young people to monitor, analyze, and share information about the declining global fish population.
- macfound.org: $2 Million Competition Seeks Ideas to Transform Learning, 11/23/09
One of the first public hints about this year’s competition theme was this story in yesterday’s New York Times.
To improve science and mathematics education for American children, the White House is recruiting Elmo and Big Bird, video game programmers and thousands of scientists.
![[Elmo testifies]](http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/2009/11/23/us/23educ_CA0/articleInline-v2.jpg)
President Obama will announce a campaign Monday to enlist companies and nonprofit groups to spend money, time and volunteer effort to encourage students, especially in middle and high school, to pursue science, technology, engineering and math, officials say.
The campaign, called Educate to Innovate, will focus mainly on activities outside the classroom.
…
Science and engineering societies are promising to provide volunteers to work with students in the classroom, culminating in a National Lab Day in May.
The MacArthur Foundation and technology industry organizations are giving out prizes in a contest to develop video games that teach science and math.
…
“We’re finding extraordinary engagement with games,” said Connie Yowell, director of education for MacArthur. If the engagement is combined with a science curriculum, she said, “then I think we have a very powerful approach.”
- NYTimes.com: White House Pushes Science and Math Education, Nov 22, 2009
Working for HASTAC has it’s perks. Today’s Presidential announcement about National Lab Day was the culmination of several frantic months of percolating, planning, wondering, worrying, creating, and kvetching. And it was all worthwhile to see the big public launch of this incredible strategic initiative to improve education and address global challenges.
One of the interesting aspects of this year’s Digital Media and Learning Competition is that it includes a partnership with Sony to create “levels” in their PS3 game LittleBigPlanet that incorporate science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) learning. So, dutiful New Media “expert” (ha ha) that I am, I have started to research the game. Not surprisingly, Wikipedia is a definitive resource. I also found a site where users can create their own avatars (known as “Sackboys”) for the game. Seen at right is my very own Sackgirl! Cick on it to make your own.
There’s more over on BoingBoing today about National Lab Day and on the unique art of LittleBigPlanet (a sample of which is below).
![[LBP artwork]](http://www.boingboing.net/assets_c/2009/11/islands02-thumb-960x296-28148.jpg)
![[PSN badge]](http://fp.profiles.us.playstation.com/playstation/psn/pid/rubyji.png)