Digital Natives: Teens, Tweens, & Digital Media: Badges in Action: Global Kids, Girl Scouts Develop New Badge Systems for Learning

Global Kids and a local Girl Scouts council provide examples of how badges might be used to credentialize learning, while Doug Belshaw notes the future of badges is still unknown—and that’s OK.

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Filed by Christine C.

Doug Belshaw, an educator and academic in the UK, is enthusiastic about the potential of badges to demonstrate students’ knowledge, skills and understanding. Last year, he wrote about the Open Badges infrastructure that Mozilla has developed along with growing support for badges from various education corners.

In a new post at DMLcentral, Belshaw provides examples of how badges can be used in practice. He includes graphics demonstrating how Chicago’s Digital Youth Network, in partnership with Doblin, looked at how to apply Mozilla’s Open Badges infrastructure “to credentialize journeys that their learners had already undertaken.”

There are still many unknowns about where Open Badges could end up, and that, writes Belshaw, is a good thing:

If Open Badges were an initiative being forced through by a government department or even, in fact, a for-profit organization, the fruitful discussion and debate we have witnessed so far would all be for naught. There would be a goal, an end point to work towards that marked the end of the project which would be implemented no matter what. As far as I understand it, that’s not the approach that the MacArthur Foundation, HASTAC, and Mozilla (the main backers of Open Badges) are taking here.

Instead, we have an Open Source technical framework upon which an emergent ecosystem is developing. Requirements from both formal and informal learning are being considered; money has been provided to both research and implement badge frameworks; high-profile names are being recruited to back the system to drive adoption. And all of this is voluntary. There is no big stick with which people are being beaten.

Along the lines of badge exploration, Global Kids is developing a new badge system for New York City and Chicago members of the Hive Learning Network, a group of civic and cultural institutions that encourage young people to explore their interests in virtual and physical spaces.

Up to 28 Hive member organizations will pilot badge programs to see how they fit with their own organizational needs and for the broader Hive network, according to a release.

The first series of badges will mark global citizenship and civic participation. Global Kids will use the badge system in its own after-school programming, offering a model for how badges can be integrated by a youth-serving organization. Its own youth leaders will benefit from the following:

* Assessment, both formative and summative, to provide meaningful feedback about their participation in our programs and qualified certifications that can be shared with those in the workforce and at universities;
* Deeper engagement with Global Kids’ programs, through games-based techniques and an online social network;
* Scaffolded learning, supporting them to find their own path through Global Kids’ programs;
* Enhanced lifelong learning skills by developing their ability to value what they learn at Global Kids, give name to it, and connect it with their formal and informal learning; and
* A more democratic learning experience, in which they get to take part in their own assessment process and shape the system itself.

Global Kids began developing its first badge system four years ago. It was later taken to scale within the New York Public Library, adapted for use within a K-6 school in New Orleans and an Atlanta middle school, and is currently in development for additional schools. Support for that project, and the latest badge system, is provided by the MacArthur Foundation.

Meanwhile, the Girl Scouts, long known for awarding badges based on skills development and learning, is encouraging its members to learn how to develop an app to create a virtual badge.

The Girl Scouts of Greater Chicago and Northwest Indiana were among the winners in the 2012 Digital Media & Learning Competition. Their initiative, “My Girl Scout Sash is an App,” encourages girls, volunteers, educators, and community leaders to learn how to build a mobile app based on “The Girl’s Guide to Girl Scouting,” the handbook that introduces members to the Girl Scout experience by level (from Daisy on up to Ambassador).

One of the aims of “My Girl Scout Sash is an App” is to encourage a more lasting interest in science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) programs.

“Girls tend to drop out of these non-traditional studies as early as third or fourth grade, and it’s our responsibility to let them see how STEM skills can help in any aspect of their lives,” Maria Wynne, CEO of the Girl Scouts of Greater Chicago and Northwest Indiana, told the Chicago Sun Times.