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Chicago E-Learning Scheme Embraces Virtual Badges For Public Schoolers
theodp (442580) writes "Over at the Chicago City of Learning, children are asked to join the CPS Connects initiative and instructed to provide their Chicago Public School (CPS) student ID to "connect your learning experiences in your school and around the city". Doing so, explains the website, will allow kids to "earn digital badges that unlock new, related opportunities and can give access to live learning experiences throughout Chicago from program partners," which will serve as "an indicator of achievement to colleges and employers." The initiative aims to "get 80% of all 3rd-12th grade students to claim their accounts by January 30th." Before you scoff at the idea that a child's future could depend on his or her Digital Badge collection, consider that the supporters helping government make it happen include the MacArthur Foundation, Gates Foundation, and Mozilla, and a number of business and education partners have made public pledges committing to help accelerate the spread and scale of digital badges for learning. Digital badge-based employment has also earned a thumbs-up from the White House. It's unclear, but might make sense that Chicago kids' digital badges will be collected and shared in the citywide data warehouse being built by the 'cradle-to-career' Thrive Chicago initiative, which is working with the Mayor's Office and CPS to develop a "data system that integrates data from multiple partner agencies, links program participation data to other youth data, and provides a web interface where partner agencies can access youth data targeted on improving youth outcomes at the individual and aggregate levels." After all, the data collected will include "student demographics, school attendance, grades, student behavior, out of school time program participation, and progress to graduation." Not only that, Thrive Chicago's Leadership Council includes the interim President of the MacArthur Foundation (as well as Microsoft and IBM employees)." Update: 01/12 15:52 GMT by T : An earlier version of this story misstated the name of the MacArthur Foundation, which has now been corrected.
on your permanent record.
Polling some CPS parents and employees, none I contacted have yet to hear of this initiative.
It's great when senior management - erm, politicians - tout something to the press without any attempt at buy-in from the stakeholders. That usually means that something won't be very good for people who have to do the work but allows "leadership" to present metrics that they are succeeding.
Thank goodness billionaires never have any alternative motive.
Thank fuck i don't have to go to school nowadays.
I went to a 'boys comprehensive' school in the late 60's till the mid 70's I would describe all but one of my teachers as thick as shit and some were fairly violent as well. half the teachers would be locked up these days due to the way we were treated. I left at 15 with no grades could hardly write but was a very good reader
maths useles. Was told i would get nowere in life! mind you i was probably making more money as a mechanic after school already than most of the teachers!
not much later i passed my mot testers exam, this meant i had to write reports, within a month i could write quite well and and fast enough.
10 years later i got a job repairing computer equipment ( already did as a hobby ) with 6 months i was the goto guy for hard problems.
As my health got worse i started doing systems programing in C++ and loved it all without any exam papers.
Nowadays kids are spied on from birth schools even think they control outside school hours i could NOT ever do it.
But you need to be sure that you are measuring the right things. Teaching to the test is not necessarily the best approach. Hopefully this will work out better than some of our professional certs for predicting job performance, but I doubt it. What is the problem that they are trying to solve, other than employers are lazy and don't want to look at resumes and transcripts?
Before you scoff at the idea that a child's future could depend on his or her Digital Badge collection, consider that the supporters helping government make it happen include the McCormick Foundation, Gates Foundation, and Mozilla, and a number of business and education partners have made public pledges committing to help accelerate the spread and scale of digital badges for learning. Digital badge-based employment has also earned a thumbs-up from the White House.
Except that you listed exactly those reasons why one should not only scoff at this idea, but maybe also be worried about it.
Firstly, it's a huge privacy breach. Secondly, it sounds like a privatisation of the school system. School is supposed to shape good humans and grow a decent generation. It's not a corporate-driven training ground.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/...
Better Learning Through Expensive Software
Michael Beyer
12/29/2014
Recently, a kerfuffle erupted over the Mayor of Chicago Rahm Emanuel's appointed school board member, Deborah Quazzo. First the Sun Times detailed how several companies she invests in profit from business with CPS. Then, in a separate piece the Sun Times editorial board suggested she should step down because she invested in companies that do millions of dollars of business with the Board and with individual schools. Quazzo insists she has done nothing wrong and followed all ethical guidelines, and the Sun Times editorial board agrees, but nonetheless suggests she should step down.
For me, the real story is with the types of companies Quazzo invests in, along with the types of companies attracted to the educational investment conference she hosts in Arizona every year. Nearly every company presenting at the conference sells software or digital platforms. "Edtech" has been the rage for years now, and it's only getting hotter.
On a surface level this makes sense. We live in a digital age, and most people in education have heard the claims of our students being "digital natives", having grown up submerged and surrounded in technology. The claim is that because today's children have access to technology they learn differently. I have yet to find any scientific evidence proving this, and I've read enough to throw cold water on the claim.
teachers have "so much to do" and "not enough time to teach", which is why they should put our students on their digital platform, where they can get assistance from a live teacher online.
I was perplexed: What's wrong with the flesh-and-blood teacher in front of them? And who is this person that will communicate directly with our children? What are their credentials? Are they working in a call-center in a "right-to-work" state?
The real problem with all of these companies is that they claim they are revolutionizing education. They're not. Many sell nothing more than test-prep software. Their products show "gains" on the ACT and NWEA MAP because their product mimics the test format. The learning gains don't necessarily transfer to the real world, or last much longer than the end of the school year. Parents might wonder why teachers agree to use the test-prep software, but the fact so much is riding on high-stakes tests, even the most ethical and dedicated educator will make compromises.
Sounds like this: https://www.kickstarter.com/pr...
The MacArthur Foundation, not McCormick, is the nonprofit listed on the Chicago City of Learning page, and is the foundation that teamed up with Gates and on The Badges for Lifelong Learning and Mozilla on The Badge Alliance. The Presidents of both the MacArthur and McCormick Foundations are on the Thrive Chicago Leadership Council (the McCormick Foundation is the one listed as a "contributor"). Sorry for the confusion!
Sounds like an ad for the McCormick Foundation more than anything else. After all, the summary makes a point of stating twice that the McCormick Foundation is helping fund this Big Brother initiative.
Hell, IMO if TAILS were serious they would roll a hardened Gentoo distro (or OpenBSD) without so many packages and without so many odd additions, including:
1) The 'Whisperback' package /usr/local/sbin and removing all traces of debugging scripts - go ahead and read both files on TAILS and question why a distro such as TAILS needs these.
2) Not shipping with 'autotest_remote_shell.py' and 'do_not_ever_run_me' in
Don't suggest liberte linux, development has stalled since it's first version a long time ago. Don't suggest the OpenBSD Anonymous Tor CD, it's outdated and won't connect to the Tor network.
The one thing I hate about social networking, especially when used in a corporate setting, is the ridiculous use of badges.
There is nothing more annoying than a tool which is touted as something which will make it easier to do our jobs which wants to give us badges for participating.
In the end the platform becomes utterly useless, but somehow it's trying to reward you/motivate you to keep using it to get some stupid fscking badge.
I predict this will lead to privacy issues for the kids, and provide zero net benefit in education, because there is no evidence or research that this improves anything.
I will be very glad when this overly-hyped "social media" starts to wind down. It doesn't add anything of value in a lot of contexts, but somehow the marketing wankers have all latched onto it as the wave of the future.
Get get off my damned lawn.
Lost at C:>. Found at C.
EMPLOYER: "If you're qualified, then where are your digital badges?" KID: "Digital Badges? We ain't got no digital badges. We don't need no digital badges. I don't have to show you any stinkin' digital badges!" EMPLOYER: "Next!"
Well, I guess if it works in one context....
http://armorgames.com/play/289...
-Styopa
Kids shouldn't go to school anymore. It's evil.
Millenials and their "new" inventions. Back in my day we wore our merit badges on a SASH!
Assuming the program is fully implemented, it will last only as long as it takes the white and Asian kids (not due to color of skin but various socio-economic factors affecting involvement of parents) to dominate the badge acquisition game. Then the program will be terminated as merely highlighting the racial inequalities of opportunity, etc.
It is partially based on the Scout badges concept. Like those, I think that the biggest impact will be in providing a way to showcase skills rather than academic achievements. This means that they are likely to have more value for those who aren't the academic high-flyers, but who have a great set of skills, interests and achievements that they want to make people aware of.
In some ways, the badges are an alternative to paper certificates (or sew-on patches) but, being digital, have some significant advantages such as being easily shareable, verifiable and have links to evidence for earning them. Raising awareness of the potential among the general public and employers will be key to whether they take off or die on the vine.
Full disclosure: I've done a bit of research into the use of digital badges in universities. For anyone interested in reading a bit more, freely accessible versions of my papers should be available from https://scholar.google.co.uk/c...
Living in and getting schooled in Chicago is burden enough. Don't let's label kids with an actual "Don't Hire Me" stamp for all time.
The system needs some "Alternate activity badges". It may be harder for certain groups to get badges in:
crack cooking
street hustling
picking up smokes/liquor at the store for the parents
Or maybe rustic badges:
outhouse use
planting a garden
selling homegrown produce
"Hey, let's put tags on all the kids and make them think it's normal for government officials to know where they are at all times! What could possibly go wrong?"
-jcr
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
You have gone one day without being bullied: Level up!
No one ever got a education from technology. In 10 years millions of dollars will have been spent, it will never have worked right and will be dropped.
stop putting computers in class rooms, stop having digital pads. Stop using websites to teach.
PLEASE tell me this is called CTOS!
For the uninitiated, this was exactly how the Game "watchdogs" did things...in chicago.
http://watchdogs.wikia.com/wik...