The following question comes from yesterday's MOOC Talk, given by Mark McBride and moderated by Michele Forte. Tom Mackey posed this question right near the end of the event.  It might suggest different things to different individuals, which will be interesting in itself.  (For UUNL300x students: My recommendation is to view the MOOC Talk first, and then respond. Please feel free to include responses or connections to others' comments when you do.)

Please describe a situation where you learned something through a community. Would you have learned this if the community were not involved?

#metaliteracy

 
First, let me say it is so exciting and energizing to see MOOC participants discussing metaliteracy! I am looking forward to our conversations over the next few months.

One of our projects mentioned in the first MOOC Talk is the metaliteracy badging system . This idea was initially developed as a part of the SUNY Innovative Instruction in Technology grant that a group of SUNY librarians, faculty members, and an instructional designer received last year. Mark McBride, who spoke briefly in the first Talk, and who will participate in the Openness and Metaliteracy MOOC Talk on October 2, was the catalyst for our investigation of badging. We looked at badge systems used by others, then went through a training module arranged by Learning Times.  We grew increasingly convinced that there was great potential for a robust alternate way of acquiring knowledge and providing evidence of learning. The University at Albany Information Literacy  Department intern at the time, Lily Shafer, worked from  the metaliteracy learning objectives to visualize a constellation of badges made up of quests and challenges. As we work to develop the content for the badges, we are  reviewing a portion of the constellation.

If you are interested in an overview of  badging, take a look at Educause's 7 Things You Should Know about Badges.

There are 4 high level badges in the constellation:  EvaluationDigital Citizen, Collaborate & Produce, and Empowered Learner, and all of the learning objectives map to one of these 4 areas.

I have been working on streamlining the components of the Collaborate & Produce badge, which was a bit unwieldy in its original version.  It now has two themes that lead to it: Global Contributor and Creator. And at the lowest level, i.e., the level at which students would start, there are 5 components (rather than the original 8). My working titles for the Global Contributor quests are
  • Participate (based on learning objectives 3.1 and 3.2)
  • Listen & Learn (based on learning objective 3.9) 
  • Share (based on 4.7)

Creator has two quests
  • Produce (based on 3.8)
  • Expand Horizons (based on 3.4)

While this is just a draft which I'll be sharing with others in the Metaliteracy Learning Collaborative, I'd be interested in getting more opinions.  Do you think these quest labels adequately address the material in the corresponding learning objective(s)?  



 
The Metaliteracy MOOC will be starting soon. We're confirming dates for the last few speakers, developing grading rubrics for students taking the course for credit, and getting excited.