Do you remember your school days, when kids learned new skills and earned badges in scouting? Wouldn’t it be cool if there were a way to demonstrate the learning you get outside of school? The digital badging movement is in its infancy, and it’s working to do just that.
A badge, simply put, is a digital image that links directly to evidence. This evidence helps others understand the skills that the badge owner has gained from a particular experience. Anyone can issue a challenge, and when a learner meets that challenge, s/he gets a new digital badge to add to his or her collection.
Badges are collected in a single place, called backpacks. Once a badge is uploaded into a backpack, it can be displayed on social networking sites, professional portfolios, or blogs.
You can sign up for your own backpack here to start collecting! If you need help signing in, check out the directions on our Resources page.
To check out the badges designed for the OELMA 2012 Conference, visit our Badges page.
If you’d like to read about new knowledge session attendees took away from the conference, check out the What We’ve Learned page.