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https://www.iste.org/explore/articleDetail?articleid=320

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Digital Badges and the 21st Century Resume

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Digital Badges and the 21st Century Resume

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Chart students’ growth with digital badges

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Chart students’ growth with digital badges

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Remember turning in your grades at the end of the school year? Did Zack's B in geometry tell you enough about his mastery of the Pythagorean theorem or the area of a rectangle? What about Grace's state test scores? Did they fully represent who she was as a critical thinker and creative problem solver? Did Quincy's reading scores leave you explaining to parents and administrators that he is actually making outstanding progress? Sara has shown exceptional leadership among her peers this year, but how could you acknowledge that? Were you left with the feeling that those marks on a report card didn't adequately represent your students and what they could do? You're not alone.

K-12 educators, particularly at the secondary level, are considering these questions and asking if today's scoring metrics are able to provide a robust picture of who our students are and what they can do. Do those scores represent what you are teaching? What skills and dispositions do your students gain outside the classroom that go unmeasured or unnoticed? What knowledge, positive learning behaviors, or habits of the mind or heart would you like to measure, acknowledge and validate but cannot within current frameworks?

Educators are hopeful that a flexible assessment model called digital badging is a way to bridge these gaps and describe student attributes that are currently left unacknowledged.
What is digital badging?
Today, we learn everywhere: in formal classrooms and informal basement workshops; in less-structured environments, such as makerspaces and libraries; and in more-structured contexts, such as religious institutions and dojos. We know that future success rests not only on our students' content knowledge, but also on their behaviors and mindsets. Our graduates need to draw from the skills they develop in multiple arenas, yet the skills they learn in one space are rarely acknowledged or valued in others. If Mia learns how to program a robot at a makerspace, there is no mechanism for sharing that accomplishment with her computer programming teacher in middle school so that he can provide her with challenging work instead of repeating what she already knows.

Digital badging recognizes learning and growth wherever it happens and helps people connect their accomplishments across institution types. In bringing together students' accomplishments ("stars") in various learning spaces, we can better see their full range of potential ("constellations").

In many ways, digital badges resemble Scouting's merit badges: They symbolize levels of achievement, honor, status or recognition. Badges take different forms according to their context. When used in social media, badges may simply mean, "I was present." In online gaming, badges may indicate a specific game level or an earned tool or privilege. For educators, however, digital badges acknowledge that an earner has demonstrated declarative knowledge or skill in a content area as well as intellectual, social or behavioral growth.

Unlike a Scouting badge, which is permanently affixed to a sash or vest, a digital badge exists in cyberspace. Badges earned from multiple institutions can be ported to a central virtual gateway and from there embedded in social media profiles, blogs and electronic portfolios. This gateway, named a "badging backpack" by Mozilla, serves as a new kind of resume or portfolio.

Individuals can filter, shuffle, sort, hide or display badges in various configurations to appeal to a variety of audiences and for a variety of purposes. Current teachers - as well as future employers, university admissions officers, community organizations and bosses - are able to view this backpack to get a deeper and more granular understanding of who the individual is as well as the "hard" and "soft" skills and dispositions he has demonstrated.

Digital badges have the potential to be the effective and flexible tools teachers have long sought to guide, recognize, assess and spur learning. And they can recognize the soft skills not captured by standardized tests, such as critical or innovative thinking, teamwork or effective communication.
Badges unpacked
Digital badges are created in online badging systems. These systems will host the information for a badge while making it easy for you to define a badge and for users to accept one. In its most basic form, the badging process is relatively simple: Educators enter criteria into the system and attach a badge image. Some platforms will allow you to enter class data as well. Once you review students' work, you can issue the badges.

One advantage of the badge-definition process is its flexibility. You can also attach evidence of an accomplishment (similar to an e-portfolio), align with standards, share with other teachers or students, or attach rubrics.

As you create your badges, it's important to consider that, just like celestial objects, the badges are the most useful, or shine the brightest, when they are part of a larger system. Designing badges to work together in context to measure and acknowledge related sets of skills is usually a better practice than designing badges that measure isolated skills.

There are many free systems to choose from. Badg.us is an open source platform, and For All Badges is free for individual teachers.

We recommend using a badging system built on Mozilla's Open Badge Infrastructure (OBI). The OBI is a framework for organizing badge data that allows your students to easily move their earned badges from your system into others, particularly into Mozilla's free individual "backpacks." Badges' interoperability reduces the historic disconnect between institutions because badging credentials from multiple sites can appear in students' backpacks as long as they are issued by an OBI-compliant badging system.

But what information goes into creating a digital badge? To start, a digital badge is an image. Depending on the badging platform you use, you may pick from the system's prepopulated collection of graphics, import a Creative Commons image, use an online badge-design tool like one the Chicago Summer of Learning Badge Studio, or design your own.

Behind the image is metadata, a collection of information that travels with it. This metadata - and don't worry, the badging system will prompt you for the information you need and then "bake" it all together - includes:

Learning objectives. When the student earns the badge, what will it symbolize in terms of what the student has learned and can now do? In other words, when third parties look at this badge, what can they deduce about the student's skills and abilities? To maximize accountability, a learning objective might be a Common Core State Standard or a single skill excerpted from a larger standard.

Performance task/required evidence of learning. What specific task or outcome did the student have to complete to earn the badge? Was the evidence of learning hosted online, where a viewer can see it? Or did the mentor or teacher observe evidence? Apply the Goldilocks Principle: You want a task that's "just right" in scope and difficulty. A project that is too long may have too many parts and make it difficult for someone to point to the specific skills developed. One that is too difficult or impossible to attain without significant adult intervention will discourage learners from trying. On the flip side, a project that is too simple, such as an assignment to bring in a current events article, will generate a flood of submissions without developing a specific skill and may lead students to view badges as a competition, not a learning activity. In some cases, students may not view your badges as something of value and may not be motivated to engage in the process.

Levels-related badges. Just like video games, where unlocking a level gives you access to new tools or privileges, badges can serve as prerequisites or gateways to other, more complex badges. Some badges, when bundled together, could culminate in a kind of "metabadge."

Digital badging in action
What might digital badging look like in your classroom? Let's consider an example from the English language arts portion of the Common Core State Standards:

W.9-10.7 Gather relevant information from multiple authoritative print and digital sources, using advanced searches effectively; assess the usefulness of each source in answering the research question; integrate information into the text selectively to maintain the flow of ideas, avoiding plagiarism and following a standard format for citation.

This standard bundles together several implicit skills, including searching, determination of authority, resource utility, note-taking, synthesis, idea flow, original scholarship and citation. This is too broad for a single badge, as a student skilled in most but not all areas would go unbadged, reducing motivation. Therefore, let's narrow the focus to citation.

At the beginning of a learning challenge, the badge:

Helps students become aware of what to monitor in their learning. By providing guidelines or a learning path, the badge lets students know, for example, that a bibliography, indirect quotes and direct quotes are three places where citation matters.

Motivates learners. It helps students set goals and envision success. This is the trickiest step of badging. Students are conditioned to think in "do the work, get a prize" mode. Meaningful badges should be a stretch that students can achieve.

Beware of "gold star syndrome," where the learner's goal shifts from acquiring skills to acquiring a large quantity of badges. Try to focus criteria on qualitative characteristics rather than quantity - for example, "Identifies rigorous sources" instead of "Uses five sources."

Aligns with best practices in learning and teaching. Badging begins with the end in mind. Rather than merely doing a series of activities, the instructor thinks about the end goal, then works backward to envision assessment and learning activities.

Badging outcomes
What might earning a badge signify for a student after the challenge has been met? There are a myriad of possibilities. Because the badge can be displayed publicly, others can see the student's accomplishment. The badge might:

Exempt a student from a future task. For example, the student might be able to bypass an intermediate "bibliography check" in the future.

Signal readiness for parallel or more complex tasks. If one badge shows that the student understands MLA formatting, perhaps in a future project, she can tackle APA style.

Serve as a "star" in a larger "constellation" of skills. Perhaps the citation badge gets combined with a note-taking badge, a search badge and a synthesis badge, which can be exchanged for a "research skills" or "Writing" metabadge.

Unlock privileges. Students can earn the opportunity to use special equipment, processes or permissions. Her badge might give her the chance, for example, to circulate the room and help others.

Signal to future admissions officers. The badge could indicate the caliber of college readiness for a student. Combined with other badges, it could help her place out of initial coursework.

Signal to future employers. If the student seeks a summer job at the local online newspaper, her citation badge, combined with a badge for interviewing skills, another for summarization and a third for completing tasks on time, could form a constellation indicating her potential as a well-prepared intern reporter.

Educators share a commitment to creating well-rounded, curious students and a concern that assessment metrics provide only a partial snapshot of a student's skills and dispositions. Digital badging may offer learners a flexible, inclusive ecosystem that connects formal and informal learning, skills and dispositions, and competencies and abilities.

Our conversations about digital badging have compelled us to re-evaluate the content, context and assessment of learning. As we have worked through badging projects, we have asked ourselves: How do we define evidence of learning? Is skill development a yes-or-no proposition?

Do we badge developing skills or just those that have been mastered? How do we know that learning has stuck? And how do we use badging to promote intrinsic motivation, not merely relabeling extrinsic sticker charts as badging? Whether you ultimately adopt badging or not, these are critical conversations for critical times, and badging offers us a fresh opportunity to articulate who we want our graduates to be and how we help them get there.
Kristin Fontichiaro is a clinical assistant professor at the University of Michigan School of Information and faculty coordinator of the Michigan Makers projects on makerspaces and badging. Contact her at font@umich.edu. Angela Elkordy is an assistant professor of learning sciences at the National College of Education, National Louis University, Chicago. She is an advocate, developer, researcher and consultant for the use of digital badges in K112 learning contexts, for students and teachers. Contact her at aelkordy@nl.edu .

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Chart students' growth with digital badges

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Remember turning in your grades at the end of the school year? Did Zack's B in geometry tell you enough about his mastery of the Pythagorean theorem or the area of a rectangle? What about Grace's state test scores? Did they fully represent who she was as a critical thinker and creative problem solver?

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https://www.fi.ncsu.edu/wp-content/uploads/2016/02/microcredentials.pdf

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Development and Implementation of Digital Badges for Learning Science, Technologly, Engineering and Math (STEM) Practices in Secondary Contexts: A Pedagogical Approach with Empirical Evidence

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Development and Implementation of Digital Badges for Learning Science, Technologly, Engineering and Math (STEM) Practices in Secondary Contexts: A Pedagogical Approach with Empirical Evidence

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Abstract

Designed purposefully, digital badge learning trajectories and criteria can be flexible tools for scaffolding, measuring and communicating the acquisition of knowledge, skills or competencies. This flexibility permits a myriad of possibilities-and pitfalls-for teaching, learning and assessment in K-12 and professional learning contexts. One of the most often discussed attributes of digital badges, is the ability of badges to "motivate" learners. However, the research base to support this claim is in its infancy; there is little empirical evidence. A content-agnostic, skills-based digital badge intervention was designed to demonstrate mastery learning in select, age-appropriate, Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS). The design was informed by theories of learning (Vygotsky. Thought and language. Cambridge, MA: M.I.T. Press, 1967; Bandura and McClelland. Social learning theory, 1977, http://sjsu.edu/counselored/docs/EdCo.248.Social_Learning_Theory.pdf ; Wenger Communities of practice: Learning, meaning, and identity. Cambridge; New York, NY: Cambridge University Press, 2000) and the Connected, Learning Model, (Ito et al. Connected learning: An agenda for research and design. Irvine, CA: Digital Media and Learning Research Hub, 2013), as well as theories of learner engagement and motivation (Fredericks et al. J Educ Res 74(1), 59-109, 2004; Malone and Lepper. Apt Learn Instruct 3(1987), 223-253, 1987). The impact of socio-economic challenges or linguistically and culturally diverse populations is considered. The pedagogical approach was informed by best practices in teaching and assessment. Substantial supporting materials were also developed including training materials and implementation documentation. Among the findings were statistically significant increases in measures of motivation including self-efficacy, self-regulation and perceived competence. In addition, both students and teachers found the badges were motivating for learning, with teachers reporting enhanced learning products and student engagement. Results from factorial analysis suggest that digital badges present a hybrid motivational construct which consists of aspects of both performance and learning goal orientations. Suggestions for future research include additional study on the design principles for standards-based digital badges and research to understand the theoretical basis and best practices in using digital badges for motivating students.

Keywords

Informal and formal learning contexts NGSS Motivation Assessment Student engagement Scientific practices

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References

1. Creswell, J. W., & Clark, V. L. P. (2007). Designing and conducting mixed methods research.

2. Democratic Staff of the House Committee on Science, Space, and Technology. (n.d.). America COMPETES reauthorization Act of 2014: Supporting science and innovation to strengthen American competitiveness in the 21st century global economy.

3. Fishman, B. J., Deterding, S., Vattel, L., Higgen, T., Schenke, K., Sheldon, L., ... & Aguilar, S. (2013). Beyond badges & points: Gameful assessment systems for engagement in formal education. University of Wisconsin, Madison.

4. Gibson, D., Ostashewski, N., Flintoff, K., Grant, S., & Knight, E. (2013). Digital badges in education. Education and Information Technologies, 20, 1-8. doi: 10.1007/s10639-013-9291-7 .

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Development and Implementation of Digital Badges for Learning Science, Technologly, Engineering and Math (STEM) Practices in Secondary Contexts: A Pedagogical Approach with Empirical Evidence

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Designed purposefully, digital badge learning trajectories and criteria can be flexible tools for scaffolding, measuring and communicating the acquisition of knowledge, skills or competencies. This flexibility permits a myriad of possibilities-and pitfalls-for teaching, learning and assessment in K-12 and professional learning contexts.

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Frequently asked questions about badging

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Frequently asked questions about badging

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Below are some FAQs about micro-credentials that may provide you with some insight.

1. What are micro-credentials?

2. What are the type of micro-credentials that I can earn?

3. Why are micro-credentials valuable?

4. So I earn a micro-credential - what do I do with it?

5. How do people earn micro-credentials?

6. How is a micro-credential different from a certificate?

7. Will I still get professional development points or continuing education credits?

8. Do micro-credentials cost money?

9. What can I do with the micro-credentials I earn?

What are micro-credentials?

Micro-credentials (also known as Digital micro-credentials) are digital representations of educational achievements. Just like pins and medals earned for skills training, micro-credentials represent the completion of requirements set by the organization issuing the credentials.

The credentials that teachers earn at the beginning of their careers are often referred to as certification, which are awarded in a particular area of instruction. Micro-credentials are awarded for smaller, bite size learning or mastery of skill awarded for the demonstration of very specific competencies. What comes with a micro-credential is not a certificate or a diploma, but a badge. Think Boy Scout or Girl Scout Merit Badges-learn or demonstrate a skill, earn a merit badge. But rather than requiring cloth and a needle to apply, these new badges are purely digital.

What are the type of micro-credentials that I can earn?

Participants can earn micro-credentials for , Cerebral Visual Impairment: The Basics, CVI: The Basics, Transition Planning, and more.

Check out the Micro-credentials page for a complete list of currently available micro-credentials.

Why are micro-credentials valuable?

Metadata is embedded in the micro-credential and therefore has the potential for becoming part of an online record of achievements. By simply hovering over the micro-credential with a mouse, the specific information (description and competencies) about that micro-credential can be viewed. The micro-credentials provide information regarding who issued the micro-credentials as well as the competencies that were attained in order to get them. Teachers can "collect" the micro-credentials in a virtual portfolio (see Mozilla Backpack for more information).

In other words, a micro-credential not only represents mastery of skill, but can also be a tool that shows colleagues, employers and potential employers how mastery was achieved. In addition, micro-credentials can be used to build identity and reputation within learning communities and create pathways for continued learning.

So I earn a micro-credential - what do I do with it?

Since the micro-credentials are digital, they can easily be shared on social media, displayed on online resume's, posted to your Linkedin account or as part of your email signature. And YOU will be among the first of your fellow teachers to be doing this!

How do people earn micro-credentials?

Learners can earn micro-credentials in a number of ways through online educational and training offerings. Perkins eLearning's micro-credentials are earned by completing specific course material and demonstrating mastery through assigned projects and activities.

How is a micro-credential different from a certificate?

Certificates are signed documentation that a participant has completed the requirements of a Perkins Professional Development offering. They are official documents from Perkins School for the Blind, but do not indicate the criteria that were required for that certificate.

Because digital micro-credentials contain data embedded within them, the micro-credential image itself is just the surface! Within the micro-credential, one can access the name and date of the course where the micro-credential was earned, and the detailed criteria required to earn it. The name of the participant and the program (Perkins eLearning) is also included, making the micro-credential specific to the individual who earns it.

Will I still get professional development points or continuing education credits?

Yes, you will still receive documentation for earning credits or PDPs. Micro-credentials are a way of displaying the details of your professional skills and competencies.

Do micro-credentials cost money?

The Perkins eLearning micro-credential program is built in to the online professional development offering. Earning a micro-credential for a particular class or set of classes does not represent an additional cost beyond regular registration fees.

What can I do with the micro-credentials I earn?

Perkins eLearning participants may collect their micro-credentials in a digital Backpack, where micro-credentials earned through other programs can also be stored. The Backpack is managed outside of Perkins eLearning, and can only be managed and displayed by you!

Include a link to your Backpack in online profiles and digital resumes/CVs to give a powerful graphic representation of the specialized knowledge you have gained. As you earn more micro-credentials, you can group them in ways that are meaningful to your audience, whether that is by the organization that awarded them, or the subject matter they have in common.

Your micro-credentials, like other Honors and Awards tell others about your professional interests and experiences, and provide an in-depth look into the skills and knowledge you bring to your practice.

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Micro-credentials (also known as Badges): Frequently Asked Questions

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Below are some FAQs about micro-credentials that may provide you with some insight. What are micro-credentials? What are the type of micro-credentials that I can earn? Why are micro-credentials valuable? So I earn a micro-credential - what do I do with it? How do people earn micro-credentials?

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”What’s in it for me?” A Look into First-Year Students’ Perceptions of a DigitalBadge System

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”What’s in it for me?” A Look into First-Year Students’ Perceptions of a DigitalBadge System

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3 Amigos

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The Commoditization of the Bachelor's Degree

In August 2017, The Chronicle of Higher Education released a forty-five-page expose, "The Future of the Degree". The publication pulls together points made in countless journals and media and commentary over the past several years. Most notable is that the four-year college degree, which in a bygone era served as the litmus test for employers, has lost its shine.

Once a rare commodity, since the GI Bill in 1944, the "degree" has become a matter of entitlement, and a foundational expectation for most high school graduates. The college degree, once the irrefutable gold standard of the manufacturing sector, long a place for middle-skilled high school graduates, has since disappeared off-shore. This was juxtaposed with the compelling statistics that showed that the lifetime earnings of college graduates vastly outpaced that of high school graduates.

The bachelor's degree is now a virtual commodity. As such, the laws of economics must prevail to drive down its value as a differentiator. According to an analysis by Burning Glass Technologies, degrees are now to be found among the qualifications of workers in jobs that rarely demanded such a level of education. Clerks, service workers and assistants are now almost "required" to be degreed.

Impact on Employers

Companies, complaining loudly that they are unable to divine what they need to know to avoid bad hires from the "degree", have resorted to tactics of their own to find the flashing lights that will identify the right candidates. Some have worked to research and identify specific institutions that reliably turn out graduates with "grit," which is quite apart from factors like grades, majors, and transcripts.

There is an ongoing quest to locate better metrics for highlighting the most desirable candidates. Not surprisingly, employers look to the colleges to isolate the transferable skills that will have a common currency.

The Answer: Micro-Credentials and Badging?

So, why are micro-credentials, most notably badges, worthy of serious consideration now? Simply, they provide clear, digestible information about what the learner knows and has done (and therefore should be able to continue to do) in language and classifications that are portable and easy to consume and trust.

Open Badges issued by learning institutions are especially valuable because they carry encrypted information about what the learner had to demonstrate to earn the badge as well as the context for the badge itself. It is also the important job of the institutions and organizations to frame and certify badges. Without that, there would be no value.

Potential Issues with Micro-Credentialing and Badging

Despite the hope that credentialing and badging will solve the challenges that employers face in their attempts to identify the best candidates, there are some potential concerns:
1. The Fear of Reductionist Thinking
It's no surprise that most colleges, even in the face of massive retention issues that fuel billions of dollars of remediation, are hesitant about the new badge culture. They fear it will become an exercise in reductionist thinking about the meaning of the traditional academy which has tended to stress the holistic nature of a liberal education. It seems difficult to avoid laying the college degree alongside a list of known attributes of successful employees to reveal apparent correlations. Without badging, such a correlation is nearly impossible and employers could make the claim that higher education is failing to be transparent.
2. Experiential Learning IS the Proof of Concept for Education - Will it Get Lost, Even with Badging?
When students make judicious use of skills and knowledge to address unpredictable problems for which there is no single right answer, they are collecting data for others about how they will make out if left to their own devices in an ill-defined situation. This process has a time-tested scaffold: The Rigor Relevance Framework® .

This schema has served to drive professional development and curriculum design for several decades. Many questions arise:

Can the academy adapt to teach less content to allow for more time to apply new learning?

Can it adopt new assessment practices that call for a higher level of trans-disciplinary application?

Will badges be used to represent the higher value of real-world applications of classroom learning?

If not, the opportunity to enhance learning, engage students and to drive learners to see how they can use their learning will be lost.
3. Will More Just Become Less?
Another worry is that, even with micro-credentials, a steady progression to the mundane and eventually to entropy will be the inevitable result - something that some critics argue happened to the degree itself.

For example, a badge that attests to "Critical Thinking" lacks situational specificity. On its own, it fails to underwrite a sense of rarity and rigor. A student can learn structures for making comparative decisions and how to employ them to solve a problem. This does not mean that the student, given an unfamiliar, authentic situation can make an effective comparison between unknown options and make a recommendation for action.

This involves the effective collection of information for each option, breakout of what is known into comparable criteria (assuring parallel information is noted for each), judgement about the impact of what is known, weighting of the criterion and then a mathematical calculation to suggest the most promising choice. This must then be judged against the basic principles, goals, and ethics of the organization seeking to make the decision to arrive at a final compelling argument for action.

This is the stuff of the real-world. Badges could attest to this level of thinking and provide evidence of competence.

The question is... will institutions risk adding a distinction, a higher badge designation, wherein the learner must also apply the knowledge and skill in a real-world situation, successfully reflect on that experience in a way that proves she knows she is thinking and acting differently, and can link this experience to others? Unless competency is examined via reflective practice, formally taught and practiced, there is no reliable evidence of the habit of mind that employers seek.

Micro-Credentials and Badging Can Allow Educators to Clearly Communicate Their Students' Competence

Micro-credentials run the genuine risk of becoming just another a system of low-order rewards for modest tests and assignments. They could easily just aggregate to become a less-than-transparent diploma with more frequently-awarded parts, which will only make things worse. We would be right back where we started!

Issues notwithstanding, it is clear that micro-credentials can be innovatively structured and applied given the stimulus of the open source work of IMS Global and Open Badge initiatives. We are indeed entering a hopeful era wherein there will be the tools to earnestly rethink how educators and their organizations communicate that their students are competent.

At Chalk & Wire, our experience leads us to be optimistic and believe that verified digital badging will be the solution needed to successfully chronicle students' skills development and allow employers to understand and trust their academic and soft skills achievements. By leveraging the power of Open Badges, we have developed MyMantl to allow educational institutions and other organizations to create their own badging programs, allowing them to illuminate and document competencies and desirable skills that employers seek, over and above a "degree". Find out more about MyMantl.

In order to break the cycle of commoditized degrees, educational institutions need to bravely take on the challenge of verifying and documenting student learning in a way that allows employers to seek and find the candidates they need. The call to action is simple: Audaces fortuna iuvat - Fortune favors the bold.

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Future of Higher Education: Micro-Credentials & Badging - Part 1

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In August 2017, The Chronicle of Higher Education released a forty-five-page expose, "The Future of the Degree". The publication pulls together points made in countless journals and media and commentary over the past several years. Most notable is that the four-year college degree, which in a bygone era served as the litmus test for employers, has lost its shine.

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https://www.usnews.com/education/online-education/articles/2016-01-22/what-employers-think-of-badges-nanodegrees-from-online-programs

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https://www.onlineschoolscenter.com/micro-credentials/

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Digital Badging Is Helping Students Prove What They've Learned In-And Outside-SchoolBy Waters, John K.

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Digital Badging Is Helping Students Prove What They've Learned In-And Outside-SchoolBy Waters, John K.

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MARCH WAS A BIG MONTH in the world of digital badging. The MacArthur Foundation showcased winners of its showcased winners of its Badges for Lifelong Learning competition at the Digital Media and Learning Conference in Chicago--one year after awarding those winners $2 million worth of development grants. The city of Chicago itself announced that badging would be a key component of its Summer of Learning program, which is being called the largest citywide learning campaign in the country. And after 18 months of development and testing, the Mozilla Foundation, maker of the Firefox web browser, unveiled version 1.0 of its Open Badges infrastructure (OBI) specification.

These developments signal the fast approach of a tipping point for digital badging in K-12 education. According to Sheryl Grant, director of social networking for the Digital Media and Learning Competition, "I think it's fair to say that most of the discussion and on-the-ground building of badge systems so far has been about K-12. We're seeing a substantial use of badging at the K-12 level, partly because many of the developers of badging platforms and systems are focused on that level, but also because K-12 educators have proved to be open to badging."

Grant works for the Humanities, Arts, Science, and Technology Advanced Collaboratory, better known as HASTAC (pronounced "haystack"), which administered the most recent MacArthur competition, the first to focus on digital badges. Cosponsored by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and the Mozilla Foundation, the competition drew nearly a hundred competitors. A long list of organizations committed to providing resources for the development of badge-related content, including Intel, Microsoft, NASA, the US Department of Veterans Affairs, and the 4-H Council, among others.

Why are all these organizations using their considerable weight to promote the development of digital badges? "People are very excited about the possibility of opening up new pathways for learning, of making it possible for students coming out of high schools--but not necessarily going to college--to show competence," says Alexander Halavais, associate professor in Arizona State University's School of Social and Behavioral Sciences. "The college career path is a very narrow one, and it's expensive. Everyone shouldn't have to go down the same road, and digital badges have the potential to provide a system for giving credit for doing valuable, marketable things outside of school."

That idea seems central to the support digital badges are receiving from the Obama administration. US Secretary of Education Arne Duncan called badging "a game-changing strategy," and offered a $25,000 prize for the best badge concept serving veterans seeking skilled jobs.

"Badges can help engage students in learning, and broaden the avenues for learners of all ages to acquire and demonstrate--as well as document and display--their skills," Duncan said when the MacArthur competition was announced.

What's a Digital Badge, Anyway?

These are still relatively early days in the evolution of the digital badge, and Grant admits that the recent storm of activity might have increased, albeit temporarily, the level of confusion about what it is we're talking about when we talk about "badging." On its Summer of Learning website, the city of Chicago defines a digital badge as "a validated Indicator of accomplishment, skill, quality, or interest that can be earned in any learning environment." That's a good definition as far as it goes, but what it (and many others) leaves out is the essential technology that makes such a validation possible.

Grant suggests that the best way to think of a digital badge is as a computer icon combined with metadata. A badge is an interactive image posted on a web page and connected to a rich source of information. "It's a direct link to criteria, evidence, issuer information, time of issue, even an expiration date," Grant says. ...

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With New Programs and Standards Emerging, Digital Badging Is Helping Students Prove What They've Learned In-And Outside-School

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MARCH WAS A BIG MONTH in the world of digital badging. The MacArthur Foundation showcased winners of its showcased winners of its Badges for Lifelong Learning competition at the Digital Media and Learning Conference in Chicago--one year after awarding those winners $2 million worth of development grants.

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http://www.ala.org/tools/future/trends/badging

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https://edtechtimes.com/2018/04/04/digital-badges-for-visible-skills-credlys-founder-ceo-shares-his-vision-for-giving-credit-where-its-due/

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The Textbook perspective

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Badging | Educators | MyLab IT | Pearson

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A digital badge is an online representation of a skill or achievement earned, and is designed to motivate behavior, recognize achievement, and establish credibility. Badges capture knowledge, skills, and accomplishments that help transfer learning across different industries and help employers find the unique talent and skills most in demand.

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Submissions are reviewed by expert educators, ensuring that achieving a micro-credential represents a meaningful early step on a rising educator's path to accomplished teaching. Educators Rising is working with colleges, scholarship committees, employers, and other evaluators to recognize and value micro-credential achievement.

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http://www.edudemic.com/guides/the-teachers-guide-to-badges-in-education/

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http://www.edudemic.com/guides/the-teachers-guide-to-badges-in-education/

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Who doesn't want to model after NASA??

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NASA.gov brings you the latest images, videos and news from America's space agency. Get the latest updates on NASA missions, watch NASA TV live, and learn about our quest to reveal the unknown and benefit all humankind.

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http://digitalpromise.org/initiative/educator-micro-credentials/