Girl and boy scouts are motivated by badges, why not school students? 

So what is a digital badge, and how can it be used to motivate a student and engage them in learning experiences? Also, what are the simple steps required to create digital badges, and how do you connect these to learning activities?

What Are Digital Badges? 

Digital badges are digital credentials that are ubiquitously recognized to represent the mastery of specific competencies, skills, programs, etc. Badges can be based on individual skill sets, or a combination of skills. 

How Can I Motivate Students with Digital Badges? 

There are many uses for badges within teaching and learning. Of the uses of digital badges, motivating students is an excellent option. 

Many times, students do not see the value of what they are learning as the concepts can be too abstract or not directly connected to their current worldview and lived experiences. For example, while understanding how to calculate percentages as a child may seem pointless, it comes in as a useful skill as an adult when calculating sales prices when shopping and balancing personal finances and spending. Unfortunately, it may be difficult to convince students of the importance of learning something for the future. 

The good news is that knowing of the potential to earn a digital badge, or a series of badges at the end of the learning experience, can be very motivating. Not only will students have the digital badge to share with their family, they will also have a credential that can be added to a portfolio, which can be used when applying to colleges or even their resumes for employment. 

Turn earning digital badges into a friendly competition. This could be a monthly, quarterly, or yearly competition, or based on certain units. Similar to gaming in which students earn points or access to higher levels of the games based on their play, earning digital badges can offer similar motivation. 

What Are Examples of Connecting Digital Badges to Learning Activities and Assignments? 

Connecting the earning of digital badges to multiple competency areas is a great way to motivate students to engage in learning activities, beyond just a one-off experience. 

For example, in science, there are many different content areas. You could create a science digital badge that students can earn after successfully completing four science lessons:

1. Environmental Science Lesson Using Wakelet - Competencies for students to master toward earning a science digital badge includes being able to: 

• Locate online content related to course-learning goals 
• Digitally storing content in a robust online repository 
• Storing shared content and resources within an online repository 

2. Anatomy and Physiology Using Google Jamboard - Competencies for students to master toward earning a science digital badge includes being able to: 

• Identify major human body parts 
• Describe the functions of different human body organs 

3. Weather Lesson Using WeVideo - Competencies for students to master toward earning a science digital badge includes being able to: 

• Define meteorological vocabulary words 
• Analyze weather patterns 
• Accurately report weather forecasting hypotheses 

4. Biodiversity Using Canva - Competencies for students to master toward earning a science digital badge includes being able to: 

• Describe the components of biodiversity, including ecosystem, genetic, and species 
• Create a multimedia presentation that demonstrates a robust understanding of the types of biodiversity 

How Do I Create Badges? 

Many different options are available for creating badges. One free option is  Accredible Badge Builder. 

What is nice about Accredible is the ability to import images to be used for the badge icon. You can design the badge as you see fit, changing the color, text size, and style. 

The steps to create a badge are very simple:

1. Go to Accredible Badge Builder. 
2. Click “Badge Designer” in the upper left-hand corner. 
3. Choose the background shape that will be the overall shape of your badge. Dozens of options are available from which to choose.
4. Click “Text” to add text to the badge. This would be the name of the badge, for example “Science Expert.” 
5. Click “Images” to upload any background images. 
6. Click “Icons” to add graphics that associate with the badge. 
7. Click “Ribbons” to add ribbons to the badge. 
8. Download your badge as either a SVG or PNG file. 

You can skip any of the steps 5-7 if you do not want to include any images, icons, and/or ribbons. Email the digital badges to students and let them share with their families. They can also be included in their portfolios, and badges also can be printed and put in a frame!

As you try new things to engage your students in the learning process this school year, try using digital badges. You may be surprised with how it motivates and engages them.

• There’s a Badge For That
• Classroom Engagement: 4 Tips From Students for Teachers

6 years after creating our first makerspace, it only makes sense to publish a post that focuses on 6 steps for creating a makerspace. 

Step 1:  Create a personal philosophy for what making means.

6 years later, I have learned that what makerspaces are should be deeply personal to those who create them.  With many still too hung up on what to buy for their spaces, even more paramount to that is taking the time to uncover exactly what making means to you is a key first step in creating a makerspace.  Doing so, will help guide all of your makerspace decisions, including what to buy, if anything at all. 

Step 2:  Plan and create a library makerspace that is grounded in research and evidence-based practices. 

Something I am most proud of, is that my first book, Worlds of Making, is focused solely on the research and best-practices for planning and creating makerspaces.  This does not discount the expertise of individual educators, but rather means integrating individual expertise with the best available evidence from systematic research.  The conscientious use of evidence in making decisions about the learning environments we are trying to create a key to creating spaces that will have the greatest impact on our students, not only for now, but also into the future.  The evidence and research by themselves, do not make all of our makerspace decisions, but they help lay a strong foundation and support us through the process of planning and creating a makerspace. 

Step 3:  Design a library makerspace (both physical and digital) that supports making principles and engenders constructivist learning theories.

My second book, The Kickstart Guide to Making GREAT Makerspaces, identifies key making principles, including the 7 attributes of a ‘GREAT’ makerspace. As anyone who has read my books knows, I define a makerspace as a unique learning environment that encourages tinkering, play, andopen-ended exploration for all. With this in mind, it is important to remember that what we are really trying to create is a unique learning environment.  Unique learning environments require unique pedagogical approaches, and in the case of makerspaces, they engender constructivist learning theories, as outlined in my first book.  It is critical to identify ways a makerspace can support constructivist learning theories and how constructivist learning theories can drive our makerspace designs. 

Step 4:  Propose a range of strategies for assessment of skills in a makerspace, including digital badging.

Makerspaces, as unique learning environments, afford us to the opportunity to seek out unique assessment methods.  In a maker environment, it is important to find ways to acknowledge the granular skills students gain as well as ‘soft skills’- things such as teamwork and communication skills.  We have an opportunity to not only assess in the traditional sense, but to give students credit for skills they gain, allowing them to stack skills and grow and refine them over time. 

Step 5:  Propose ways to unleash student creativity with innovative tools and maker project ideas. 

I firmly believe that one of the most significant roles we have as maker educators is to provide the conditions to inspire our students to want to make and create, as opposed to always forcing them to make. I always say that I feel like the wizard behind the curatin in the Wizard of Oz, working hard to unleash creativity and to keep our space fresh, meaningful, relevant and inspiring to our school community. 

Step 6:  Evaluate various models for making and creating, including the design thinking process.

Providing models to guide our students through the process of making and creating has distinct benefits, and there certainly are many of them out there, including the design thinking process.  Some students may identify with one over the other.  Our ultimate goal should be to support our students to ultimately take ownership of their making, and uncover their own process for making and creating.

With these 6 steps in mind, I am happy to announce a new course that I have created  called “Makerspaces in the School Library“.  This course takes a deeper dive into these 6 steps and more!

Cross posted at worlds-of-learning.com

Laura Fleming has been a classroom teacher and media specialist in grades K-8 and currently is a Library Media Specialist for grades 9-12. She is a well known writer, speaker and consultant on next-generation teaching methods and tools, and the author of the best-selling Worlds of Learning: Best Practices for Establishing a Makerspace for Your School

College and career readiness was popularized in 2009 under the Obama administration's Race-to-the-Top initiative and it is what fuels the Common Core Standards. College and career readiness is the directive under which most government schools have been operating since then. 

The problem is that honoring, respecting, and preparing our nation for college and career readiness leaves two thirds of our nation's adults (according to the most recent census bureau statistics) as outcasts. Unworthy. Disrespected. Less than.

Most of the generation of parents who raised us and the parents of our students did not graduate college. The college and career readiness mantra is a constant reminder that they have failed in some way even if they did not feel like failures before.

Not only that, but the college degree today has become devalued. Data from the Federal Reserve Bank of New York shows that the underemployment rate for recent college grads was 43.5 percent. A report issued  by the Pew Research Center found that only 46 percent of employed Millennials believe their education was very useful in preparing them for a job or career.

The dependence on college clearly is not keeping up with workforce demands.

At this year's World Maker Faire Ed Forum in New York City speaker Sarah Boisvert author of “The New Collar Workforce" explained to the attendees that educators embracing the "College for All" mindset are neglecting the majority of the population for whom college graduation is not a reality. That doesn't mean given up on students. It means recognizing it is okay if college graduation is not a goal. It doesn't need to be. 

That's because today's workforce has many positions available that don't require a traditional college degree. Instead these are skills students can learn in fab labs, maker spaces, and tinker studios. Maker educator Kevin Jarrett, gives them a more familiar name: Digital shop class. There students make things that matter using tools like laser engravers, 3D printers, robotics, and more. These are relevant vocational skills that can prepare students for what some are calling "new collar jobs." These are jobs operating and maintaining machine tools that look a lot different than the blue collar jobs of the past. Instead they have a new set of required skills. Knowing how to operate the machines commonly found in the digital shop class is key for success.  

In her work with the Fab Lab Hub, Sarah Boisvert is using a different strategy than college to prepare students for the new collar workforce. She is developing a digital badge micro-certification program that provides new collar job training. To do this she and her team spoke with 200 large, medium, and small employers in the industry. These employers said they need people with hands-on experience in making things and knowledge of how to repair faulty equipment. The exact activity that happens in these digital shop classes. 

Digital Badges for New Collar Jobs Include:

• Design for 3D Printing
• Introduction to CAD Design
• Fundamentals of SLA 3D Printing
• Troubleshooting FDM 3D Printers
• Laser Safety in Manufacturing
• Master Badges as 3D Printing Operator or Laser Service Technician are a stack of Digital Badges that certify a higher level of skill.

Digital Badges were developed by a collaboration between IBM and Mozilla. They are a secure platform to recognize achievement.

Boisvert, along with Dale Daughtery who created the World Maker Faire suggested that this college obsession was one of the factors that led to our current president being elected into office. He understood that there was a large segment of the population for whom college is not the holy grail.  He saw these people. He spoke to them. He respected them and told them they were important too. Even if they had not graduated college and even if the old factory jobs were gone, there would be new opportunities available.

Possibly influencing Trump is IBM CEO Ginni Rometty who when he was running for office, advised President-Elect Donald Trump of the importance of this new collar workforce. Her letter expressed what she shared in her opinion column for USA Today which urged politicians and business leaders to not think in terms of white collar or blue collar jobs, but to broadly consider these future unfilled positions as “new collar” jobs.

Rometty stresses the importance of looking beyond the four-year degree and instead looking to whether a potential employee has “relevant skills, often obtained through vocational training.” She explains that there is a current talent shortage in the tech industry. IBM alone plans to hire 25,000 new employees in the course of four years and that’s just one company. Code.org says we have 570,926 jobs nationwide and only 49,291 qualified workers.

A New Educational Model – Pathways in Tech Early College High School

Preparation of the workforce for these new collar jobs, many of which don’t require a four-year degree, is crucial. While the Micro credential certification Boisvert’s Fab Lab Hut is putting in place is one path, IBM has designed a new educational model that many other companies have embraced. It is six-year public high school that combine a relevant traditional curriculum with necessary skills from community colleges, mentoring and real-world job experience. The first of these schools – called Pathways in Technology Early College High School, or P-TECH has achieved graduation rates and successful job placement that rival elite private schools. 35% of students from the first class graduate one to two years ahead of schedule with both high school diplomas and two-year college degrees. 

Your Turn

How are you or your school preparing students for the new collar workforce? In what ways do you ensure all your students have opportunities to develop hands on experience? What type of new learning spaces are being embraced by your school are district? What conversations are you having with students and families about some of the new paths to success that are now available to them? 

Lisa Nielsen (@InnovativeEdu) has worked as a public-school educator and administrator since 1997. She is a prolific writer best known for her award-winning blog, The Innovative Educator. Nielsen is the author of several booksand her writing has been featured in media outlets such as The New York Times,The Wall Street Journal, Tech&Learning, and T.H.E. Journal.   

The annual IMS Digital Credentials Summit brings together leaders from educational institutions, non-traditional learning organizations, government agencies, and technology suppliers to advance a digital credentials ecosystem that aims to transform the way students and lifelong learners present their knowledge and skills to future employers.

[DIY Professional Learning]

K12 educators and other interested parties are invited to share exemplary work on innovative uses of digital badges and learner records leveraging open standards for formal, informal, and employer-based learning at the IMS Global Digital Credentials Summit.

The deadline to submit a proposal is Friday, October 19.

Credly

Great how-to content, flexible features boost digital badge tool

Pros: Super-simple features and excellent how-to info make it easy to get started.

Cons: The site feels geared more toward higher ed and employers, which might feel daunting to some teachers.

Bottom Line: A useful tool for issuing digital badges.

[Nonprofit Will Award Digital Credentials to Recognize Tech Skills of Educators]

Read more.

By Common Sense Education

App of the Day picks are selected from the top edtech tools reviewed by Common Sense Education, which helps educators find the best ed-tech tools, learn best practices for teaching with tech, and equip students with the skills they need to use technology safely and responsibly.