Digital Badges

Description

By SAM KILB:

"HAVE a marketable skill, unappreciated and unverified? Or maybe your talents are outside the domain of college certification?

The “digital badge,” a pioneering idea with some impressive backing, aims to provide a platform for lifelong learners to present their story and achievements to employers.

The MacArthur Foundation has given this somewhat nebulous concept some momentum, recently announcing a $2 million competition to create and develop badges and a system for their use. A badge would formally recognize an ability — say, computer coding, arts and crafts, communication or leadership. Connie Yowell, director of education at MacArthur, offers this example: a 4-H Club leader who helps his young members earn merit badges might earn a badge himself.

Badges could be awarded by a community group, company or college, which would be responsible for assessing the skill, and then collected on an online résumé.

“Badges can help speed the shift from credentials that simply measure seat time to ones that more accurately measure competency,” said Secretary of Education Arne Duncan in announcing the government’s role in the initiative.

The Department of Veterans Affairs is awarding $25,000 to the badge prototype that best serves veterans. Veterans, Mr. Duncan noted, bring back employable skills that “can be overlooked in the civilian workforce, because they may not appear on traditional résumés and transcripts.”

All this could take some of the steam out of the collegiate monopoly on credentialing." (http://www.nytimes.com/2011/11/06/education/edlife/credentials-the-next-generation.html)