Pre-conference webinar for Badge Summit in Colorado

Don Presant of Learning Agents delivered an “Open Recognition 101” webinar ahead of Badge Summit 2023 to prepare the ground for an inaugural Open Recognition track at that high profile conference, which is now partnered with the ePIC conference in Europe, an annual event hosted by the Open Recognition Alliance.

In his presentation, Don returned to a common theme: a call to “open up” the recognition of lifelong and lifewide learning with Open Badges, a flexible technology that can do much more than certify the delivery of ConEd courses as micro-credential certificates. Beyond micro-credentials, we still have a need for Mozilla’s original vision: flexible ways to recognize lifewide learning and achievement to make a difference in people’s lives. That includes informal learning and recognition.

Don quoted prominent community member Doug Belshaw’s definition of Open Recognition:
the awareness and appreciation of talents, skills and aspirations in ways that go beyond credentialing. This includes recognising the rights of individuals, communities, and territories to apply their own labels and definitions. Their frameworks may be emergent and/or implicit.

The presentation concluded with a rundown of sessions in the Open Recognition track over the three days (July 24-26) of Badge Summit, reproduced below.

Don and other members of the international Open Recognition community look forward to welcoming Badge Summit’s organizer Noah Geisel as guest speaker to ePIC 2023 in Vienna December 6-8 and then returning to Badge Summit in Boulder for another round of “opening up recognition”in 2024.

Open Recognition 101 presentation deck

(See webinar recording below.)