Digital Badges – What Are They?

Growing up most of us have received some type of award. We were usually handed some sort of paper with the accomplishment on it. Then after our moms would put it on the fridge for the world to see. However, these awards did not exemplify the skills, knowledge, or competencies we achieved on it. It was generalized and seen as a token of what we did, not what was done. How about if we could change this narrative and create something that shows our learning and progress. I give you the digital badge. 

Digital badges inspire new pathways to learn and connect learners to opportunities, resources, and one another while identifying and validating the rich array of people’s skills, knowledge, accomplishments, and competencies (Digital Badges, 2020). A digital badge is like an award you get one when you complete a task. However, this badge transients paper and allows the skills we accomplished to be identified, not the overall outcome. It highlights the learning and progress that has taken place by showing the specific outcomes that were needed in order to achieve the badge. A digital badge is a living visual of what was accomplished and can show employers, students, and others what you have learned, not what you have done. 

How can Teachers use Digital Badges 

Badges provide a unique opportunity for educators. It allows them to expand their professional knowledge in ways that are valuable to their growth. It highlights new competencies and is a living picture of their new skills. Badges are earned based on learning evidence rather than just seat time, this means that teachers can display the competencies that they have developed throughout their professional careers (School News, 2017). With such a technological push coming e-learning companies like Skyward and Hancock Learning have adapted models in trying to create the credential and valid badges for professional development. More so, teachers can use their own badges in class to help motivate students and control behavioral problems. By creating badges in your classroom you can help build an atmosphere that awards good work and behavior. This will help provide feedback to students and create something students can have pride in. 

The Problems With Badges 

Until badges are valid many employers may not see the merit. Although the traction of digital badges has gained momentum the credential needs to be both trustworthy (validated) and portable, it must mean the same thing across a band of issuers and audiences (Medium, 2015). For Badges to be successfully implemented at scale, it is essential that everyone in the ecosystem, students, parents, educators, employers, believes that they are meaningful credentials (Medium, 2015). In order to achieve recognition with badges the article, 3 Big Challenges to Scaling Digital Badges, sees that teachers and employers may create a graduate-level course around training for digital badges and micro-credentialing and seek third-party validators to endorse a badge (Medium, 2015). Overall, digital badges have their place with professional development and inside the classroom. Until digital badges gain more merit however, I feel as though they are a greeting teaching tool for creating a positive learning environment. 

Here are three examples of digital badges I have created, with the descriptions, that I hope to implement in my future classrooms.

Signing off,

Mr Gyles.

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Resources: 

Digital Badges. (2020). In Hastac. Retrieved May 21, 2020, from https://www.hastac.org/initiatives/digital-badges

Jennings, J. Roome, B. (2017). How digital badges are shaking up teacher PD. Retrieved from https://www.eschoolnews.com/2017/08/31/digital-badges-shaking-teacher-pd/2/

Geisel, N. (2015, November 3). 3 big challenges to scaling digital badges. Retrieved from https://medium.com/verses-education/3-big-challenges-to-scaling-digital-badges-411da2ee4bd