Maine State of Learning (MSOL) is a new statewide effort supporting year-round learning and life-long skill building to ensure growth, empowerment, and success for all Maine citizens including underrepresented and at-risk populations.
Maine State of Learning launched on Thursday, June 25, during Maine Startup and Create Week.
MSOL was initiated by Badge Labs and is fueled by public and private partnerships around the state. MSOL promotes learning opportunities for people of all ages, recognizes learning accomplishments through digital badges, and connects learning to statewide proficiencies, career-pathways, and personal goals.
The initiative has been designed to help individuals create paths to success and economic mobility, to help businesses develop a well-prepared workforce for our critical industries, and to help all Mainers celebrate a culture of lifelong learning throughout the state.
MSOL Founding Partners of are Badge Labs, Breakwater Learning, Educate Maine, Gulf of Maine Research Institute, and the Maine Afterschool Network. A cohort of Maine-based learning providers will be participating in a summer pilot, including Baxter Academy, The Telling Room, Maine 4-H, Skowhegan ASP, and a dozen more.
For more information, visit the Maine State of Learning website.
Educate Maine is a business-led education advocacy organization that champions college and career readiness and increased educational attainment for people across Maine.
Along with our partners in business, education, government, and workforce development, we support programs that help Maine people gain the competencies they need to thrive and succeed at home, at school, at work, and in civic life.
We all gain those competencies through learning experiences in all kinds of places: in classrooms and on campuses; in libraries, offices and labs; in after school programs and at summer camps; in the fields, the woods, and on the water, anywhere, anytime throughout our lives.
This Maine State of Learning initiative and the open digital badges standard help us capture those learning achievements and share them with our teachers and coaches; with our colleges and employers; and each other.
A culture of lifelong learning powers our economy, and digital badges are a new currency for that learning.
For all of these reasons, Educate Maine not only endorsed the Maine State of Learning initiative, but we signed on as a Founding Partner, investing our own resources to help it succeed.
We are pleased to be in the company of these founding partners, as well as the learning providers who are participating this summer and beyond.
A statewide effort supporting learning and skill-building to ensure growth, empowerment and success for all Maine residents officially launched at the Gulf of Maine Research Institute during Maine Startup & Create Week.
The Maine State of Learning (MSOL) is a project fueled by public and private partnerships across the state to provide more learning opportunities to Maine residents of all ages; recognize that learning through digital badges; and connect it to statewide proficiency standards, career pathways and personal goals.
The University of Maine is a founding partner of the initiative along with Breakwater Learning, Maine Afterschool Network, Badge Labs, Gulf of Maine Research Institute and Educate Maine.
MSOL also includes a cohort of learning providers including the University of Maine Cooperative Extension’s 4-H youth development program. Participants can earn three digital badges in the UMaine 4-H STEM Ambassador program.
“The University of Maine is excited to be a founding partner of Maine State of Learning,” said Jeffrey Hecker, executive vice president for academic affairs and provost at the University of Maine. “This initiative clearly fits with the land grant mission and vision of UMaine. Connecting learning opportunities, both inside and outside the classroom setting, will provide students multiple pathways for skill development, knowledge acquisition, and continued civic engagement. UMaine is committed to fostering lifelong learning opportunities for all citizens of Maine and beyond.”
PORTLAND, Maine – A new statewide effort to promote year-long learning and life-long skill building officially launched Thursday. It’s called the “Maine State of Learning,” an initiative emphasizing so-called competency learning, which focuses on what a student knows rather than how well they test.
Educate Maine Program Director Jay Collier says the effort will allow learners to collect “digital badges” at a number of locations around the state, including after school programs and camps. The badges are designed to serve as verifiable records of learning.
