“A teacher is a professional, one who must constantly seek to improve and to develop certain qualities or virtues which are not received but must be created. The capacity to renew ourselves every day is important.” Paolo Freire (1985) It … Continue reading →

Back when the internet was younger (c. 2010), I recall writing a short article for a now defunct site, Environmental Graffiti, about alternatives to carbon offsetting. I kind of forgot about it until just recently, when a similar thought re-emerged around the tokenization of so many things through the blockchain.

The flashback provided a number of interesting insights as I navigated back in history to find this article:

• Article titles have evolved really really fast: looking through this list I was kind of shocked at how unappealing most titles were.
• Engagement was WAY lower without social identities: I got the most votes on the site… with a grand total of 13 upvotes! And the stakes were high. This article led to a week long all expenses vacation to the Maldives. I came in second, since they tabulated Facebook likes manually and I had a only a couple of those. The winner had a whole 27 likes in total…
• Climatewise, we haven’t come a long way in terms of our conversation: That is striking… Yes, climate is a widespread issue, but still remains a second page story in most publications. This is our world we are talking about here people!

Anyhow, below is the article in full, unedited (I also realized I have become a a more adept writer over time). Maybe the root of the idea will manifest itself in the blockchains of today?

A Transfer of Trust: An Alternative to Carbon Offsetting for Travel and Tourism

Originally Posted Sept 10, 2010

Each time I go on vacation I feel a slight tinge of guilt when setting foot on an airplane. While I try my best by reducing my ecological footprint in most other facets in my life, I can not resist the urge to explore the corners of the world. I suppose that feeling is shared by others too, and so the carbon offsetting programmes were born.

Carbon offsetting is akin to spending money while saving for later. We add more carbon dioxide to the atmosphere each plane trip, but set aside land that will eventually reabsorb that CO2 back into the earth.

Setting aside land for natural processes is obviously an excellent part of a solution to global warming, but should not be the sole measure we take to combat it.

A more immediate problem is how to stop humanity from creating more pollution. With hundreds of millions of people rising to relative affluence to buy their first car, preventing these people from adding to our common quagmire seems like a fine way to reduce our environmental impact now.

A ‘Transfer of Trust’ (aka ToT) would be a measure where travellers could support environmentally friendly changes to the communities they visit. The money each guest brings into a community would go towards educating and supplying the locals with the means to live more ecologically sensitive lives. Just like the legal term, the Transfer of Trust would allow the traveller to entrust some of his ecological responsibility to the locals and their businesses.

The businesses subscribing to ToTs would have the responsibility of seeing the money which the travellers pay invested wisely into projects in the community. These projects would be managed cooperatively by the local business (eg a tourist resort) and an NGO, which would provide transparency and oversight.

ToTs would be a system which would allow the community, the business, and the guest to experience tangible change, and promote a globalized world of equals.

Many resorts that truly follow the creed of eco-tourism have such programmes in place, helping locals lead healthier and more environmentally aware lives. ToT’s could bolster these efforts, and promote the tenets of eco-tourism to more and more of the tourism sector.

The amount paid for a ToT would be evaluated akin to current carbon offset programmes. The farther you travelled, the greater the amount you would pay. Unlike carbon offsetting, the money would be used for local development.

In a connected globe, human to human interaction is vital, building bridges of empathy that cross the globe. Although travel may be part of the climate change problem, it is more part of a solution in building a unified shift in lifestyle to a sustainable means.

I’m going to start with a story and I promise I am going somewhere with it (eventually). A number of years ago I had two whip-smart ELL girls in my class. Both were clearly used to getting very high grades in their former schools and both were working very hard to learn English. And somewhere …

Continue reading "The Argument Against Swallowing An Educational Thesaurus"

Coil has created a Web Monetization WordPress plugin. In this post, I walk you through the steps in setting up the Coil Web Monetization WordPress plugin, including troubleshooting of some common set up issues.

The post Coil Web Monetization Plugin for WordPress – Set Up and Troubleshooting Issues appeared first on Erica Hargreave.

This summer we aim to hone in on the endless imagination and creativity of youth as we teach them animated storytelling in this online summer camp. Together we will enter the exciting world of interactive digital storytelling by creating animated books and stop motion videos.

The post Animated Storytelling Online Summer Camp! appeared first on Ahimsa Media.

Beware of a KYC Verification Phishing Scam impersonating MetaMask, that appears quite realistic. Note that MetaMask Accounts are not associated with email addresses, so MetaMask will NEVER email you. If you receive such an email, do not open it, report it, and delete it.

The post Beware of KYC Verification Phishing Scam Impersonating MetaMask appeared first on StoryToGo.

Part 3 of a series that includes Alternative Credentials, micro-credentials, stackable credentials, and digital badges, and Alternative Credential Stacking Depending on how alternative credentials are positioned, the strategies for developing these credentials depend on the level of stakeholders that need to get involved.  For example, a sector level strategy may involve engagement with provincial government, government agencies (e.g. ecampusOntario), industry, organisations and higher education institutions (HEI).     1. Establish guiding principles Central to the strategy is the need to adopt a set of guidelines or principles, and these tend to come in different flavours.  The Council of Chief State School Officers (CCSSO)  outline design, assessment, and implementation principles. The ecampusOntario microcertification principles and framework was co-developed by a “working group of employers and post-secondary representatives in Ontario to provide high-level guidance for micro certification pilots across the province”. The ICDE (2019) outlines 10 guidelines for the issuance of alternative digital credentials noting they may need adjustment if institutional and government governance structures are to be accounted for.  Therefore, there are varying approaches to the level at which guidelines are targeted as well as their focus and degree of collaboration.   2. Build on competency frameworks Central to the goal of better meeting skills gaps via alternative credentials in a HEI/industry/employer partnership is the importance of competency frameworks.  Competency frameworks provide a means to identify skills gaps and training needs and this practice, while not new, is an often-cited component of designing alternative credentials, in particular badged micro-credentials.    Qualifications authorities The New Zealand Qualifications Authority (NZQA) is often cited for its introduction of micro-credentials to its regulated training and education system. When NZQA approves a micro-credential, it is published on a micro-credential register. The process invites industry, community and employers to work with the HEI to develop micro-credentials. Europe has a European Qualifications Framework that “helps improve transparency, comparability and portability of people’s qualifications and makes it possible to compare qualifications from different countries and institutions”. A European project is underway to develop “mechanisms for the assessment and certification of learning outcomes achieved through OER” based on UNESCO and European Commission recommendations.  It outlines several challenges that are being addressed via a  recognition framework for micro-credentials,and a meta-data standard and credentials clearinghouse to help facilitate the operations of the framework.   3. Establish a high-level roadmap A recent Commonwealth of Learning report  (Rossiter and Tynan, 2019) outlines a roadmap for a micro-credential “ecosystem” that considers both organisational and technical infrastructure: Ensure you have a clear sense of the purpose and benefit to your key stakeholders.  Develop an engagement and communication plan to nurture a culture for innovation.  Assess institutional readiness to achieve your project goals against the components of the micro- credentialing ecosystem.  Create an overarching system architecture and framework, including: a credentials taxonomy (articulating the granularity of and relationship between the credentials); a “Skills and Capabilities Framework”; and quality principles and processes to design, develop and deliver micro-credential products.  Create and map the micro-credentialing journey, remembering that each stakeholder will have expectations about the user, customer and learner experiences.  Develop or modify the administrative systems, policies, business rules and processes to enable new credentialing models.  Design an issuance model and digital badge. Ensure effective governance and administration are in place for analytic and reporting purposes.  Assess the capability and capacity of the existing IT infrastructure and educational technology environment to support micro-credentialing and select the issuance platform.  Review and evaluate against all success factors.   At an institutional level, Ganzglass (2014) outlines at a high level three approaches that have been taken to develop alternative credentials in the US: Modularize existing applied associate degree and technical diploma programs.  Embed existing industry and professional certifications in career and technical programs.  Streamline and scale processes for awarding credit for learning represented by non-collegiate credentials.  In Canada, the recent ecampusOntario micro-credential pilots provide some indication of the process and strategy being adopted “on the ground” by various HEI. Source:  https://www.slideshare.net/LenaPatterson/microcertification-pilot-presentations-feb-2020-consolidated #69 Surprisingly, there is almost no discussion of the role of learning design or instructional design in the alternative credential space, but it is undoubtedly an area for learning designers to explore and develop competencies. This also may have institutional capacity implications and need to be part of a strategy, especially in the area of prior learning and assessment.   4. Communication and marketing Given the nomenclature confusion around alternative credentials and their recent emergence in HEI, communication and marketing around what they are and the pathways available to students are an important component of the strategy.  Leaser et al (2020) also underline that both the articulation and career pathway options need to be communicated in to past, current, and future recipients of alternative credentials.

Tajik Persian: Readings in History, Culture and Society seeks to help students develop reading proficiency in Tajik at advanced level through authentic texts written for native speakers and provides them glimpses into the history, culture and society of Tajikistan without losing its focus on cultural aspects of the country—an aspect that constitutes a core component […]

Mindmaps is a concept mapping app that is open-source, totally free and without advertisements. Moreover, the app allows you to build your concept map in your browser and save it in several formats. This is only one tool for creating mind maps or concept maps. To learn more about high tech, low tech and no […]