Interactive Educational Toys for Kids

How kids play is also changing, like many other things that have changed with technology. Qboo is an interactive educational tablet application for kids, with a bunch of smart plush toys. These plush toys can be used to lead kids to a magical world of farm animals revealing their secrets and whereabouts. Kreyonic

http://www.indiegogo.com/projects/qboo-smart-plush-toys-for-kids#description

Open Badges

Mozilla Open Badges is a the place to start reading about the open Badges concept.
http://openbadges.tumblr.com/post/61591982284/openbadgesmooc-session-2-badge-fundamentals

http://openbadges.tumblr.com/post/61591982284/openbadgesmooc-session-2-badge-fundamentals

All about Open Badges

A great article about open badges:

https://wiki.mozilla.org/images/5/59/OpenBadges-Working-Paper_012312.pdf

it explains what badges are, how to use them who uses them and how we can start creating and using them. Great staring point for Open Badges with Mozilla.

Mozilla Backpack information can be found at http://beta.openbadges.org/backpack/login
with credly https://credly.com/ that is a badge creation site.

The badge design/creation requires more thinking and planning: Carla shared the spread sheet with the steps:

Badge system design worksheet: 

Please make a copy of this document and then jump right in!

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0AnUOR-0CBMsTdE1hWnJnYXlNdnktVUlhWWdjVzFVR0E#gid=0

her ideas:

Questions to ask when building your badge system

• impact / change
• • what are the proposed or imagined social, professional, or personal impacts of the badge system 
  • how will it change or alter individual or group trajectories?

• commitment
• • what's the badge system owner's commitment to long term implementation
  •  is it fully funded, does it have enough financial support to remain viable, is the team strong enough to carry it through? where are the potential trouble spots?

• connectivity / correlation with other existing systems 
• • will this create connective tissue within the ecosystem or create a new branch of the ecosystem that others can build upon?

• flexibility of stakeholders / system to taking new approaches 
• can we try something new or are we recreating existing power structures?
• 
  

Badge Camp: http://bananigans.tumblr.com/

Make Waves: http://blog.makewav.es/2012/11/06/yourbadgelist/


Examples:
http://coursedata.blogs.lincoln.ac.uk/category/badges/

openbadges:

Badges: New Currency for Professional Credentials
Session 2: Badge Fundamentals
#openbadgesMOOC

On Monday, our second live session of the #openbadgesMOOC, New Currency for Professional Credentials was streamed on Blackboard Collaborate. Having discussed the concept of “openness” and the...

Badging

Open Badges for education and work environments has created a new buzz in the education industry. The course developers, designers educators are all thinking how they could leverage through the concept of "Badging".




Before we try to check how badges can be used, it is a good idea to learn what these badges mean and how they are related to teaching and learning.

Engaging students

Engaging student is one of the major topics that we discuss these days. We talk about flipped classrooms, active based learning, problem solving learning activities and project based learning.
http://www.creativity-project.net/ is a project that University of South Australia has begun with OLT funds as a project that is investigating design as a catalyst for engaging students in creative problem solving.

The project methodology, tools, and case studies can be found on the website. 

eportfolio for education

 I have been investigating on eportfolio for education for sometime now. Even though there are many tools available to use, it has been a challenging task to decide on a particular tool that will suit a large institution.

My recent findings are by connecting to experts from the area. Desire2Learn eportfolio has quite a number of interesting functions that is useful for educators. Also, Shane@ shanenuessler.blogspot.com.au talks about how they have used eportfolios at their University. He further provides suggestions and ideas how to leverage the functions of eportfolios.

Applying leadership Theories to Distance Education Leadership #Lead2013

Summary of my reading of the paper:

Applying Leadership Theories to Distance Education Leadership

by John Nworie, Kent State University

The purpose of this paper is to examine leadership theories that  could be beneficial to distance education leaders.

Transformational leaders are charismatic, motivational, intellectual, and considerate and often display the qualities of self-confidence, honesty, and integrity (Bass & Steidelmeier, 1998; Dixon, 1998).  

 

Transformational leadership have sought to 

  understand how leaders develop and sustain vision, 

  empower instead of manipulate followers, 

  perceive the importance of organizational contexts, and 

  create a cultural environment (Avolio and Bass, 1991; Bass, 1997; Schein, 1992).  

According to Portugal (2006) DE leaders must be transformational leaders and innovative visionaries with the ability to motivate, energize, inspire, and encourage followers.. 

The situational leadership theory proposes that effective leaders play the roles of leadership and management  

Situational leadership attributes are relevant to management of rapid environmental change that involves varied cadre of staff members.

Complexity leadership theory introduces a new dimension to how leadership is perceived as it shifts focus from the individual leader to the context, a shift which influences the performance of the leader and on outcomes.

This method encourages collaboration, flexibility, systems thinking, reflection, innovative solutions, and adaptability of organizational structures