Doug Belshaw and I made a little talk for the Open Education Talks at the University of Calgary. It is also Open Education Week currently which means it is the perfect timing to talk some more about Open Recognition in education.

Feel free to leave us comments and questions!

As an example we are talking about my five months of studying abroad at the University of Lapland in Finland. For me it was one of my biggest live experiences and I learned so much about myself, professionally and culturally. But in my CV or my LinkedIn profile it is just a sidenote without any proof.

The Eramus+ Program has started to experiment with Open Badges for their virtual exchanges. But also the people who are going abroad can benefit from earning badges for their experiences. They are very individual and badges can help to tell a story in different ways. For an employer you might prefer showing the badges for knowledge and personal development but if you want to apply for another exchange you might prioritise showing the cultural awarness badges and personal development ones.

Example: my imaginary badge backpack for Finland

This excercise of remembering what I did in Finland and think of badges I would’ve earned was great. It is fun to go back to all these memories and I might design some of these badges further and issue them myself. Because this is the great thing with Open Badges, I can do this, I don’t need the offical program to do it for me. And over time I will meet people who can endorse these badges because they might see some of the skills and understandings that I gathered.

Interested in helping foster an ecosystem of Open Recognition? Come join the KBW community or get in touch!