A digital badge is a validated indicator of accomplishment, skill, quality or interest that can be earned in many learning environments. The world is changing fast and, today more than ever, traditional modes of assessment fail to capture the learning that happens everywhere and at every age. Digital badges are a powerful new tool for identifying and validating the rich array of peoples’ skills, knowledge, accomplishments and competencies. Digital badges inspire new pathways to learning and connect learners to opportunities, resources, and one another.
The Badges for Lifelong Learning Competition is supported by the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, with additional support from the Gates Foundation and in partnership with Mozilla. The Competition is administered by co-located HASTAC teams based at the University of California Humanities Research Institute and John Hope Franklin Humanities Institute at Duke University.
Michael Olneck, professor of educational policy studies and sociology at University of Wisconsin-Madison, shared his paper Insurgent Credentials: A Challenge to Established Institutions of Higher Education with us last year, and has written a new paper titled Insurgent Credentials II: What Is Sociologically Significant About Digital Badges?
It's not easy to write about badges -- they touch on so many social norms that we take for granted, and that means unpacking assumptions about things like assessment, credentials, and accreditation -- but Paul Fain knocked it out of the park with his latest article about the UC-Davis Sustainable Agriculture and Food Systems Badge System in Insider Higher Ed:
HASTAC helped organize this series of conversations about digital badges on ConnectedLearning.tv.
Today, more than ever, traditional modes of assessment fail to capture the learning that happens everywhere and at every age. Digital badges are a powerful new tool for identifying and validating the rich array of peoples’ skills, knowledge, accomplishments and competencies. Join us throughout the month for a series of webinars and Twitter chats on why a wide range of learners are turning to digital badges as pathways to new academic and economic opportunities.
How are we using badges to enable a complex, robust ecology of learning to support more just and equitable social futures?
Digital Media and Learning Research Competition on Badging and Badge Systems applicants were asked to submit proposals for empirical and theoretical research that support and inform the design, development, and deployment of digital badges and badge systems across a diverse range of learning content, institutions, and approaches, including the Gates Foundation supported Project Mastery Sites, as well as research focused on the efficacy of Teacher
At the 2013 Digital Media and Learning Conference, Connie Yowell and Cathy Davidson particpated in a panel reflecting on badges for lifelong learning and the fourth Digital Media and Learning Competition. Below you can see a video of both of their remarks, and we have also included the presentation from Cathy's talk.