[Bf-education] Blender Certification

Sat Apr 2 03:24:26 CEST 2011

Hello Educators and Trainers

I would like to offer a web based framework to manage the entries from which
the whole "body of teaching and certifying" would be made of.

In short the idea would be to divide any entries according to their TYPE; as
such all entries fall into one of the following;

-Lecture
-Exercise
-Test

Across all types, entries share a CONTENT KEY, which is hierarchical, so for
example a beginners test on array modifier usage written in English would
have the key English->beginner->test->meshes&modelling->modifiers->array.

Across all types, entries share a LEVEL , which is ordinal and can be any
group of subsets from beginner to expert (here i would like to note, only
the BF can grant a level of Instructor which would not apply to the body of
this project).

Participation would use the same philosophy of approval as development
commit rights.

Usage would remain open and free.

Entries can be composed of any variation of video, documents, text, blend
files and interactive forms.

A CERTIFICATION level thus becomes a BF RECOMMENDATION , which
is composed of grouping into the CERTIFICATION DESCRIPTION a series of
CONTENT KEYS to be completed successfully for a given LEVEL.

Also, there can be an infinite amount of entries sharing the same content
key, this means that examination material can be generated "randomly" and
still comply to the BF recommendation. Also, the learning experience can be
made quite ample by offering assorted entries of lectures with varying
angles and approaches for a given content key.

In practice this means that students will be able to either attend a full
course or simply show up for accreditation, just like British Cambridge
Certifications of English at all levels. the difference is that here the
emitter for the certificate is actually the institute, not the foundation,
however this very system could in itself be credit worthy for certificate
delivery to the self taught and something of a control authority.

What I mean by this is that taking the management system a little further,
in order to be awarded a certificate, a student must be registered in the
site and pass web based equivalents of the requested certification (in
multiple answer format, to keep it automated). This covers both the BF,
helping ensure that no institute charges and certifies for mediocre
understanding, and the student, since approved students get listed in an
openly available database, which recruiters in turn would consult (of
course, it must be made clear to recruiters that listings display
"availability" and are in no case indicative of proficiency nor guarantee of
actual knowledge).

The work load of such a system would ideally be distributed as such:

80% System: admin & deliver content / register,grade,list students / admin
commit user rights.

19% Community: oversee content compliance / grant commit privileges /
complain about missing features or bugs in the system.

1% BF : general overseer / certification description generator.

The usage would grant institutions and trainers the ability to generate,
manage and share their own material in a way that fits the BF intended body
of knowledge, students would be accredited by online test results as well as
institutions / educators on their online profiles.

The overall intent of this would be to give to the community a cohesive
structure for building assorted accreditations which would be defacto BF
approved standards for measuring student proficiency in the field.

I can code and host this custom made "certs cms", if you are willing to
evaluate it, and back it up officially, if the results please the BF.

I hope I can entice you to comment and argue about this so that we grow some
momentum towards building a solution that can solve the educators need for
coherence and the BF need for minimalistic involvement.

Regards,

Carlos Santana.

On Fri, Apr 1, 2011 at 6:48 PM, laurent <laurent at tdm.info> wrote:

>  Hi,
>
> Thanks for your encouraging answer, Ton.
>
> I agree with Douglas that we may not necessary need the training material.
> The headings/table of contents are likely to be sufficient as they can give
> us a clue about what is the priority and core learning.
> From that we can then build a list of topics and Objectives.
> As an example, LPIC certification is quite well structured:
> http://www.lpi.org/eng/certification/the_lpic_program/lpic_1/exam_101_detailed_objectives
>
> Well... now we can probably start something...
>
> On a practical note, I am not sure what is the best way to exchange ideas
> and communicate about that. The mailing list is not appropriate for
> exchanging files.
> Does the BF wants to host that or we need to find somewhere else ? We have
> space on our servers if necessary.
>
> I am not a Blender instructor and will miss probably a lot of key skills in
> Blender, however I have experience in Teaching and professional
> certification. Douglas, are you interested in starting something ?  Anyone
> else interested ?
>
>
> On 30/03/11 11:41, Ton Roosendaal wrote:
>
> Hi all,
>
> Currently the Blender Foundation doesn't really exist as an
> organization, it's actually just a legal vehicle to ensure we have our
> IP safe (code, domains, brand, docs, content) and to manage donations.
>
> The main target of BF is to keep blender.org alive, to facilitate all
> projects there (from docs to code). The BF doesn't officially meddle
> with code, designs, or content really... for that the groups of
> volunteers work in freedom, they organize themselves via the channels
> facilitated by BF.
>
> That's what I prefer to keep; BF should be as minimalistic as
> possible, and stick to facilitation. When needed BF can set a couple
> of steps as a catalyst, and withdraw when it goes well.
>
> In my discussion with Laurent I've understood that we can treat the
> Certification issue differently:
>
> --> Providing a standardized set of training material and tests
>
> This will keep the pure act of certification itself indepedently, but
> it will help trainers, teachers, schools, institutes, governments etc.
> to introduce Blender in their programs.
>
> I think that's an interesting approach to investigate, matching the
> "facilitation" strategy of BF as well.
>
> -Ton-
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
> Ton Roosendaal  Blender Foundation   ton at blender.org    www.blender.org
> Blender Institute   Entrepotdok 57A  1018AD Amsterdam   The Netherlands
>
> On 23 Mar, 2011, at 19:20, laurent wrote:
>
>
>  I agree with you Douglas.
>
> Whatever we do, there is something I was thinking from the start: I am
> UK based and the central organisation for all qualification is QCF/
> Ofqual.
> I have some contacts that have been through the process of getting a
> certification through the official body for England and Wales.
> What it means when it is done, is that awarding bodies can integrate
> the
> certification in their qualification (GCSE, A level...).
> It means that the certification is opened to Secondary Education
> through
> University.
> It then makes it easier for School/Colleges/Universities to justify
> the
> choice of support for their courses (and choice of software).
> LPIC, CompTIA, Cisco have done it and it is great to be able to
> deliver
> a qualification + certification to students as it equips them better.
>
> But that can be the long term view...
>
> What about the short term, is it possible to create a board or
> something
> "official" related to Blender Foundation ?
> I exchanged emails with Ton Roosendaal last week-end, and although he
> was on the same positions as Jason concerning the implications of the
> Blender Foundation, my impression is that he was not against the
> principle of a "board" of volunteer going toward a project like this.
> What would be your thoughts on that, Jason ?
>
>
>
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> --
>
> Laurent David
> Technology Manager
>
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