Podcast Series: Innovations in Education

Explore the full series of eSchool News podcasts hosted by Kevin Hogan—created to keep you on the cutting edge of innovations in education.

6 things you need to know about digital badges

Today’s classrooms use a variety of learning approaches, some formal like lectures and some informal like watching videos. As a teacher, your learning is no different and your continuing professional development (PD) should provide you with credit for both informal and formal learning. You should get credit for online chats, reading articles, and watching videos because each of these experiences provides you with the knowledge to build your teaching practice.

So, what if I told you that you could show this informal learning to your administration, colleagues, and parents? Well, you can with a digital badge. Think of them like badges earned in scouting, demonstrating a unique skill or accomplishment. You can share digital badges on your LinkedIn profile, your website, and in your email signatures so that your learning is visible for others to see and acknowledge. The people who view your badge can also see the organization who awarded the badge and what you did to earn it.

Like all good students, I’ll bet you have questions. Let’s see if I can answer a few of them here.…Read More

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The New Librarian: I started a digital badging movement for my students

They said it was boring and it broke my heart. How could something I felt so passionate about be boring to my students? Creating citations is where it’s at! But still, my students labored through the inquiry process, looking forward to getting it over with.

I struggled with how to engage students in extremely important skills like finding, evaluating, and citing scholarly sources; weeding through J.U.N.K. to find gems; becoming global citizens; making informed actions; and exploring digital tools. Then in 2015, my teaching partner and I decided to go one step further with our learning management system. Instead of simply delivering content, we would front load the entire year’s work and allow students to choose what they wanted to work on and when. We also created a rubric for students to evaluate their own work and decide for themselves if they have mastered specific skills. Finally, we created paper and digital badges for students to earn to record their achievements.

We have had success over the last three years empowering our students to choose what they work on and decide if the work they did meets the standards agreed upon with the class. Students are motivated to ask questions, find answers, and share their learning with classmates, teachers, and the Colchester (CT) community.…Read More

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The school that connects STEM, badging, and life beyond the classroom

As educators, we know that science is not just a body of knowledge, but it is a process that enables people to answer questions through scientific inquiry.  Scientists conduct inquiries using a specific toolbox of skills and knowledge that the Next Generations Science Standards (NGSS) has spelled out for emerging scientists as so-called “science and engineering practices,” or practices that increase in complexity and sophistication across grade levels.

These are important skills for students to master, not least because of the growing demand for science and STEM professionals. Here in California, like other states nationwide, the STEM job market is rapidly growing but students are still graduating without the skills and knowledge needed to fill these high-paying jobs. In fact, the Bureau of Labor Statistics projects that California will have the largest STEM workforce in the country by 2022.

The question is, how do you ensure students are graduating with these skills in a way that sets them up for future college and career success?…Read More

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Three Ways Digital Badges are Used in Education

As schools progress to include online and on-campus courses and activities, digital badges are suited to meet the needs of emerging education models

gI_132393_MakingbadgesAs children, our accomplishments were recognized with trophies, plaques, a pat on the back or cloth badges sewn on to a Girl Scout or Boy Scout sash.

In high school and college, we received diplomas and began to fill up resumes and LinkedIn profiles with job qualifications and experience. But what if there was a way to help acknowledge educational experiences that happen outside of the classroom and recognize valuable skills such as leadership or collaboration?

To address this need, the trend of digital badges is rapidly catching on. But what will be its impact and potential on education?…Read More

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Digital badges could help measure 21st-century skills

TopCoder, an adviser for the MacArthur Foundation’s competition, currently has a badge system for its community members that validates skills and competencies.

How can schools accurately measure and categorize a student’s 21st-century skills? The MacArthur Foundation hopes to solve this problem with a new competition that calls on participants to create what is known as a “digital badge.”

Digital badges and the digital badge system would, advocates say, help define the skills and knowledge students pick up in an informal way, such as through internships, online courses, open courseware, competitions, and much more.

Mozilla, which is partnering with the MacArthur Foundation to announce the $2 million Digital Media and Learning Competition, said the badge system “will let you gather badges from any site on the internet, combining them into a story about what you know and what you’ve achieved. … This sort of badge collection may eventually become a central part of [one’s] online reputation, helping you get a job, find collaborators, and build prestige.”…Read More

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Drug test proposal inspires 8-day teacher strike in Illinois

Angered by a newly proposed random drug testing policy, the teachers union in the Illini Bluffs School District in the central Illinois town of Glasford, located 15 miles south of Peoria, has been on strike since Aug. 17, the Huffington Post reports. The strike has delayed the start of the district’s school year by eight days to date. The district, in response, has begun to interview temporary replacements for the striking teachers with the hopes of finally open their district’s schools’ doors, according to the Peoria Journal Star. The district said they have received some 70 resumes for the positions thus far…

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