Anyway - I had listened to both the intro video (week 0?) as well at the Downes & Siemens chat (Week 1 & 2) and I had jotted down a few things that piqued my interest...but of course I left them in the office. I guess I'll be blogging about those next week.  The freshest thing in my mind is the chat about xAPI and the LRS (Learning Records Store). In all honesty this went a little over my head. I think I need to read a little more about the xAPI and this whole ecosystem, but the LRS is described as enabling "modern tracking of a wide variety of learning experiences, which might include capturing real world activities, actions completed in mobile apps or even job performance. Data from these experiences is stored in the LRS and can be shared with other systems that offer advanced reporting or support adaptive learning experiences"

This got me thinking about the onus (read: hassle) of tracking down your learning experiences as a learner. I also credit a tweet I read this morning about credentialing, by Donna Lanclos, that really connects well with this. As a learner I don't really care about tracking my own learning experiences. I participate in a learning experience, be it a workshop, a webinar, a course of study, doing research on a paper to be published or presented, or even sustained interaction in a common topic across my PLN.  I enter the learner experience because there is something I want to learn. It can be a simple thing (e.g., how to  unscrew the case to my PC tower to install more RAM), or something more complicated (e.g., getting prepared for a social media strategy for your organization). Few people enter a learning experience just to get a credential†. However, it's the credential that opens doors, be they doors to a promotion, to a new job, or even an opportunity to be part of an exciting new project. So, it seems necessary that we, as learners and professionals, document all this in a way.  The problem is that it's a hassle. There are two big issues here:
(1) What to track (i.e., what's relevant)
(2) Where to track it?

Both issues, very predictably, are answered with "it depends".  What to track depends on the context. You can track everything, but not everything tracked is used in all potential instances where credentialing information is needed. For example, most common things tracked are your college degrees.  This is fairly easy to track because most of us have a small countable number of them (1-3 I'd estimate). However this doesn't necessarily show growth and increasing expertise as a professional.  So we delve deeper.  Just taking myself as an example here are some learning opportunities that I have been part of over the past few years (some offer certificates or badges, some do not):  MOOCs, week-long workshops, day long workshops, conferences, professional development webinars, self-paced elearning, required workshops on campus (e.g., campus compliance, purchasing, etc.), masters and doctoral degree programs, virtually connecting sessions, and so on. Each format is different.  Some have assessments, some do not. Some are mandatory, some are not. They all contribute to my knowledge of my field.

Tracking is another issue.  Where do I track things?  There are many places.  I have a resume - which is out of date, and I can't even find the word document any longer... I have a CV in Word format which I created this year for work purposes, there is LinkedIn, there is ORCID, and there are document repository networks like Mendeley, ResearchGate, Academia.edu, Scribd, and SlideShare; in addition to places where you can help folks with their questions, like Quora for instance. There is goodreads to track what you read. There are places to also track your digital badges, like the Open Badge backpack. I had once actually joined a free service, whose name escapes me at the moment, that was so granular that it could track articles you read - you tagged them with specifics (e.g., elearning, instructional design, online learning), and the service would add 'credit' to your profile for those things★.

So as to not belabor the point, over the years I've come across a variety of learning situations where I've had learning experiences.  Some with a nice shiny certificate at the end, others with just warm fuzzy feelings of accomplishment. How do we automate this multiple-in, multiple-out process so that we can actually track things with more precision, but also have the ability to spit out as many customizable reports as we can for credentialing purposes?  I don't know about you, but I find myself not having enough time to document everything, and I certainly don't keep things like CVs, resumes, and my LinkedIn profile updated frequently.  I think this will be one key challenge in eLearning 3.0.

Thoughts?



Marginalia:
† well, it's my hypothesis that most people enter a learning experience for the learning and not just the certificate/diploma/badge that comes at the end. I do know that there are people like that around, but I think they are not the majority.
★ Tracking every Chronicle and IHE article I read got tired pretty quick - I read too many articles in a day to really make manual input a feasible thing. I  dis-enrolled from that social service within a few days ;-)