(upbeat music) - [Narrator] Kids love earning badges to show they've done something new, taken a risk or learned a valuable skill.

Many parents remember proudly displaying badges on their scout uniforms, but what does it mean to get a badge in the 21st century?

On this episode of IQ Smart Parent, we'll introduce you to digital badges and find out how this innovative new tool is inspiring children to learn new skills.

(audience clapping) - Hello, I'm Darieth Chisolm and welcome to IQ Smart Parent.

Does your child go straight to the screen after school or even on the weekends?

Do you wish they could spend this time learning a new hobby or even trying out a future career?

A new concept called digital badging might be just the right solution.

Over the next half hour, we'll find out what this is and how kids and young adults can learn all kinds of new skills while earning a digital badge.

So what is a digital badge?

Let's find out.

(upbeat music) - [Narrator] Learning today happens anywhere and everywhere.

It happens in the classroom, on the job, in the community and online, we can no longer think of learning in one way.

Today's social and economic challenges require learning that engages students, keeps pace with technological change, teaches 21st century skills and provides meaningful assessments of our learning.

How do we recognize and value the way we learn today?

What if we used badges?

What is a badge?

A badge is an online representation of a skill or achievement you've earned.

They've been used in gaming and online spaces to motivate behavior, recognize achievement and to establish credibility.

What if we used badges for learning?

Badges could be created and issued by anyone, schools, online spaces, cultural and civic institutions, community and professional organizations to represent a limitless set of skills, achievements and knowledge.

Badges could be earned by anyone completing programs or projects or demonstrating specific knowledge, skills, and abilities.

Badges could be shared on websites or blogs, social media profiles, online portfolios and resumes, leading to real opportunities like connecting with potential collaborators, earning school credit, or getting a job.

But in order to give badges wide credibility and acceptance, a robust badge cost system needs to be developed.

Much work has already been done in critical areas.

Mozilla's OpenBadges infrastructure provides the software and open technical standard for everyone to earn, issue and display badges across various contexts.

A growing community of badge experts has developed various models of badge systems for anyone to use and to adapt.

Significant research has been done to provide a base of evidence about the potential of badges.

A campaign is underway enlisting employers, colleges, and universities, urban school districts, and after school programs to expand demand for and supply of badging opportunities.

The promise is to ensure that badges give everyone recognition for the learning that happens anywhere and lets them share it in the places that matter.

So what do badges mean for learning?

Badges recognize learning is a lifelong pursuit.

For you, badges let us see that learning goes beyond classrooms.

Skills like creativity and collaboration and passionate interests become as visible as subjects like math and science.

Badges show our learning is more than a collection of test scores and grades, but as learning pathways, rich with detail and information.

This empowers students to guide their own learning, teachers to better engage students and colleges to expand their admissions process.

Badges continue into adulthood.

Recognizing the learning that happens in various jobs and in personal and professional development opportunities Badges capture knowledge, skills, and accomplishments, not found on resumes.

This helps workers transfer learning across different industries and employers find the unique talents on skill sets in demand.

Badges cultivate critical values needed in learning today.

They make learning more open, democratic and transparent.

They cultivate deeper and connected learning where learning happens through sharing.

They make learning more adaptable to change and open to innovation, openness, sharing, innovation.

These are the values needed in learning today.

- Our thanks to the MacArthur foundation for that video.

And now I would like for you to meet our first guest.

An-me Chung is the senior director at the Mozilla Foundation.

And as someone who has spent her career making sure that children have valuable learning experiences, both inside and outside of the school.

Welcome to the show.

So glad you're here with us today.

- Thank you for having me.

Now, of course, Mozilla is certainly referred to and commonly known associated with a web browser, but there's this great foundation side that you spearhead and have been involved with.

Tell us about the work you're doing with the foundation.

- Great, so the Mozilla Foundation is actually a non-profit private charity as is the corporation as well.

And so, our whole goal and our whole vision for what Mozilla can bring is to create a web literate world where the tools and the resources we develop, help people become adapt to the digital age that we work in.

And our investments are building those tools with community members all over the world that allow them to use digital literacy media in a way that brings us to a whole different level.

So I think that's one of the most important pieces of what Mozilla does.

And the digital badges is one of the tools that we have been prototyping and working on.

- It is fascinating, and to see that children have the opportunity to learn and expand on learning this way is certainly quite interesting.

And if we think about digital badging, perhaps we can liken it to earning a girl scout or a boy scout badge.

Most of us grew up doing that.

And so this gives us the opportunity to really connect with that.

But long-term what are some of the initiatives or things that we'll likely see happening throughout websites and as this continues to evolve?

- All right, so I think one of the basic things about badges is that Mozilla and McMurray Arthur actually partnered on this initiative early on because they wanted to figure out a way of capturing those skills and achievements and those opportunities that aren't being captured by traditional means, and that it had the opportunity to really capture so much of the learning that kids are doing those out of school times.

Kids are usually only in school about 20% of the time, but in the other 80% of the time, they're doing so many more things and how to capture that.

So the idea was to develop badges, to be able to do that.

And what we found out very quickly was not only was there interest in young people capturing those skills based on their interests.

But that the adults were interested in because the adults also wanted to capture their interests, particularly if they were mid-career or they're earning, learning and do things on their own without taking courses.

- So, we've got kids using this, adults obviously, teachers, parents, people in the community, but who recognizes them?

- Okay, so that's one of the beauties of badges.

So one of the things that is the difference between say a scouting badge and what we call a digital badge is that digital badges allow for evidence to be behind the badge and that they're transferable and shareable across the digital space.

So if you peel open that beautiful cover that usually on them, that really attracts people to the badges.

What you see is that also whole set of criteria and evidence that allows someone who's looking at the badges as a user, say, that person has that set of skills.

Or I know that person comes with a whole set of things that I did not know that they had the capacity of.

For kids who are earning these badges, oftentimes these badges allowed them to explore things they might not have otherwise.

So there's this pathway that can be created where kids can be motivated by learning something that may interest them.

So they may be interested in becoming a rock star for example, and when they start exploring that space, they realize that they're actually a lot of other careers involved in being a rockstar from being the engineer, to being the set producer, et cetera.

And it just unlocks all these opportunities and careers that actually are more realistic than possible than they may have thought otherwise.

- And that's interesting because we can go from technology to becoming a rockstar, to learning sciences and really being able to apply this, utilizing this badge network and platform.

- Absolutely, and that's one of the beauties of it.

- Another beauty, and that I certainly see as we become this global community, that it really allows cities to connect, communities across the country and even the world to connect.

And most recently through this summer of learning, you were able to partner with cities like Chicago, Pittsburgh, Dallas, it's really opening up the framework.

- So last summer, Chicago, the mayor of Chicago, Rahm Emanuel said, "I wanna find a way to galvanize the many, many initiatives that are happening in our summer programming and figure out how to keep kids from that summer drop-off that people talk about a lot in terms of schooling.

And partnered with the MacArthur Foundation and with Mozilla to create and pilot a set of badges in that community.

And they got over a hundred organizations within the city of Chicago that were providing, programs from the museums to the libraries, to other cultural institutions and after school programs.

And created a whole set of what they called Steam Badges.

And kids could earn these Steam Badges.

My son earned one, he took a hip hop class that he'd never taken before.

And he got to earn a badge because he participated and could demonstrate that he actually could do hip hop.

And it was the beginning of a very powerful way of getting kids in Chicago to participate in these activities, earn badges, and allow them to see that there were other potential opportunities beyond that too, as well.

They could get accepted as credit.

They possibly could use them to get into colleges too, as well.

But I think one of the benefits of it too, was it allowed kids who were in certain parts of Chicago, especially kids who may not have moved out of the area to explore opportunities in other parts of the city too, as well.

And so that was another aspect of the City of Chicago badges, which now have gone from summer of learning to city of learning and has transferred to other cities too, as well.

- Really great information An-me.

Thank you so much.

We are gonna ask you to stay around as we find out how digital badging took off in one of the major pilot cities, that's coming up next on IQ Smart Parent.

(upbeat music) Welcome back.

Joining me now are Cathy Lewis Long and Khalif Ali of the Sprout Fund.

A nonprofit organization, focused on kids, creativity, and community engagement.

Cathy is the Executive Director.

Khalif is the Program Manager for Digital Badging.

And the two of you have certainly been big proponents of digital badging here in Pittsburgh.

So tell us how the Sprout Fund got involved with digital badging.

- So the Sprout Fund as a nonprofit is focused on supporting innovative ideas that are having a positive impact in the community.

And a big focus of our work is learning innovation.

So we thought about taking the tools, the technology, and the social innovation to really put it to work for how youth are learning today in the digital age.

So when we think about the challenges for learning, there's so much learning that's happening outside of school, that's happening within the community that might not be captured in a grade.

So while you, even if you're a young person that is on a great path with great grades, what if you're studying in the library?

What if you are taking a robotics course in an out-of-school program, how can we capture that learning?

So our involvement with digital badges was to support the efforts of all of the learning experiences that are happening in Pittsburgh, and be able to capture those with badges.

- Khalif, give us some idea of some of the badges that are currently being earned here in Pittsburgh.

- Sure, so, first of all, let me just say, I had an honor of working with 19 phenomenal organizations for our summer badging pilot.

Organizations like Assemble, the Hill District Consensus Group, Tech Shop, just to name a few.

But we asked each of those organizations to build three types of badges.

A knowledge badge, which is really about the information that you obtained as a result of your participation in organization.

A skill badge, which is about the enhanced capacity to do something.

And a disposition badge, which is about a shift in habits of mind and behavior as a result of your participation in the program.

And what these three badge types do is ensure that learning takes place in any space.

- So each of those organizations had the opportunity to offer those three to each of the children that were a part of it.

- Yes.

- Okay, great.

And what was the response from the kids?

- It was great.

And it's really, it's a tribute to the introduction of digital badges by the organizations.

Organizations had, well they created one page fact sheets that listed the badges and the criteria that was needed to earn those badges.

And so, you had students who would use it as a checklist.

They would check off the tasks that they had to perform.

And then they would go to the program and just say, hey, I have done these, I want either my badge, or I wanna move to the next level to earn another badge.

- Where there some that were much more interesting than others or those that maybe kids found that they naturally gravitated to?

- I think one that's interesting is when organizations actually create badges based on observation of their participants.

There was a badge called Putting Yourself Out There, which is attributed to soft skills.

And it was a group of students, a group of participants who were faced with a barrier that they had to overcome because of some broken machinery, but they showed poise, they showed confidence and they showed a willingness to collaborate in order to accomplish the task.

So, Putting Yourself Out There was one of my favorite badges.

- I like the name of that, that's interesting.

Yeah, I may.

It certainly with the badges that are being earned in the Chicago area, what are the responses to some of the kids there, and maybe some of the things that they're gravitating to?

- Well, I think the responses of the kids were overwhelmingly positive because they saw that as part of the pathway and that there was value in earning badges that would lead them to credit or to potentially getting into colleges as well.

But I think one of the benefits of badges and from a national level, and Mozilla certainly is focused on it on a global level is that we are content agnostic in terms of the badges, but except for web literacy.

So our big push is developing web literacy badges, but I think one of the most robust badges that I've seen has been put up by the Smithsonian Institute.

So the Smithsonian Institute has what they called quest, and they have developed quests for various topic areas anywhere from culture to marine biology, to art.

And their Research, Environmental Science Division actually created environmental badge.

And what was very powerful about is, is that they had their experts come in from various places and hold online courses for teachers and their students where they can learn things about, what was happening in their water system.

So the invasions of species and what happens if it, and the impact on what's happening locally.

So imagine what happened in Lake Erie would not be much of an issue if there were more young people who were actually testing the waters, which is what a lot of the kids went out and did, they actually had to provide evidence that they tested the water, and then they were able to move up in terms of the quest.

So there might be two or three levels of the quest before the Smithsonian Institute will offer a badge for that, that are then validated by teachers of the year, which is incredibly powerful.

Because the kids are interested in getting the badges and claiming them if they know it's gonna be valued and seen by someone else.

- This is fascinating because when you think about it, we truly are opening up the classroom, but we're really exposing kids to the opportunity to wanna go after it, to learn, to be able to proudly display these badges.

I would think from the standpoint of a family or having the opportunity as a parent to get involved with your children, earning badges, that has to be exciting as well.

And I know that Cathy, with your son, having the opportunity to talk more with him about earning badges, what's been the response in your household?

- Well, so badges are so motivational.

So, when I think about Matthew's interests, and I think about what excites him, you can start with one learning experience.

Maybe it's a game online, or Minecraft is something that he's really excited about, and then you can continue that and level up.

So I think the motivational factor, and he is nine, he likes the sort of gratification or the reward aspect of it.

But I think as parents, we don't see it.

And as educators and practitioners, we don't see it as a reward, but I do think there's a little bit of that gamification aspect of earning badges that is still motivational.

So for us, it's been a great exploration between different learning institutions, getting involved in maker spaces and museum exhibits and online activities.

And the badge can really begin to curate that pathway of interest.

So, he's really early in his journey as are we in the community, but I think that it captures that imagination.

It's that spark.

And as a parent, you love to see that curiosity and you love to think, where can we go with this?

And a badge really offers that opportunity to begin to think about what's next in that learning journey and to make it personal.

- And to be able to display these as well.

I mean, this is not just the old fashioned badge that we had for girl scouts or boy scout, and you could only share it when you had it on, this gives you the opportunity to display it to the world and let people see your profile on the internet.

- And so as a parent, that's incredibly important.

It's something that we need to think about because when our young learners are ready to go to college, are ready to go into the workforce, they're the classic CV or resume is not how young people are or will be representing themselves.

So it's very important to understand, what is the sort of transparency and the openness of a badge, the importance of artifacts and evidence of that learning and our current assessment framework of a grade or a standardized test is very opaque.

My B might not be the same as your B, but if we both got a coding badge, you can click into that badge and verify it, understand what were the skills, the knowledge, the disposition, and then see evidence of that learning.

That is a really powerful way to express skills and to really match those skills both with higher education and ultimately into the workforce.

- And does it give the person who's looking at that the opportunity to explore more so they can say, yes, I understand the time and the energy that went into earning this badge.

- Absolutely, absolutely.

And so, it gives a broader picture of, and there are also personal.

I can choose in my backpack which badges to show.

So if I'm applying for one job versus another job, I might represent or curate or stack my badges in a very particular way.

So, whether it's a soft skill badge or a hard skill badge, it allows me to create the narrative, the picture of who I am and how I want to represent myself as opposed to our current assessment system, which is just your transcript or your test results.

Which a lot of kids don't do, might be brilliant coders or paleontologist or whatever they're doing at the science center on the weekend.

They can't represent that in their current scorecard.

And so it's really just a new framework for that.

- And it really does open up this opportunity for global expansion and social connection.

And so, as we talk about social connection, I'd love to turn to some questions that we've received from parents over social media.

We would like of course, to include them in this conversation.

So here's our first question.

Shouldn't we encourage kids to learn just for fun and the satisfaction of learning?

Is it really necessary to give them some reward or a prize?

- Right, so we don't necessarily look at badges as rewards.

They're really symbols that indicate hard work that was accomplished doing something that they enjoy.

These summer programs weren't mandatory.

People weren't, these children, these kids chose to join these programs.

And as a result, they were able to have a sense of accomplishment because they received something that acknowledged a particular skill and competency that they were able to acquire.

- And when we think about it, yeah, we've had all of this time where kids have learned in the classroom and felt as though they've gotten the stamp of approval with a grade.

So this just helps to expose them and open up even more.

- So.

- I think it has actually a great value of connection because I think that's what the beauty of badges is.

It's not getting badges for the sake of getting badges, but it's actually helping people, young people be able to demonstrate and illustrate the things that they're good at.

And it's a way of connecting them across different fields.

And a lot of the companies and organizations that I've been talking to are really excited about these badges, because it will allow them to see this granularity in this detail about a soft skill or hard skill of a young person that they may not have been able to pick up otherwise.

- And we know that young people live within a community context.

We all do.

And so, and learning, isn't the job of one institution.

It doesn't stop at three o'clock, there's incredible learning that's happening throughout the community.

So when we think about badging as an opportunity to harness all of those assets and to get the community at large contributing to that journey and to that learning pathway, to excite that imagination of a young person, and then be able to carry it forward, it's a very powerful way to think about how to really motivate our children to learning is cool.

And how can you go further and faster with that work?

- Let's take another Facebook question now, who determines the criteria for earning a badge?

We talked a little bit about that earlier, but let's dive deep into that.

- Right, so we looked at this as an opportunity for community involvement.

So we've been able to convene through our working group process, local subject matter experts, teachers, program managers, and other professionals who would help us to develop a criteria for issuing badges from a particular field.

So this is a work in progress, but this is definitely something that's coming about with a good amount of community involvement.

- But what's exciting about it is if you think about sharing and getting consensus and agreement around the skills and the competencies and the dispositions, and you think about children learn very differently.

So Khalif's child may learn better in school and mine may learn better at the boys and girls club, but if they can share that these are the skills that were learned for that badge.

And these are the shared rubrics of assessment.

Then all of a sudden the learning that currently is happening in an out of school setting that is not able to be captured, can be captured in a badge.

- All right, I'm gonna give you all this opportunity.

It's going to be quick, but because this is so fascinating, share with me very quickly.

If you had the opportunity to earn a badge, what would it be?

And you do have the opportunity, but what badge would you choose?

- Yeah, so, I mean if I had to think about the way my life is today, I would say I would want the super scheduler badge, but for my family, right?

Because I spend so much time and I can probably maneuver more Gmail calendars than most people can.

I think in the future, when I think about the kinds of skills that I would like to get in terms of having been an artist, I would like to earn some badges in those areas that sort of represents the things that I really am interested in doing.

- Wonderful.

- So when I think about it, grades did not reflect well in math or geography.

And when I learn alongside my child and I'm following along the learning and math and I'd like to take the track for the math and geography badges, I think I would do better in badges than I did in grades.

- And Khalif, you get to tell us in one word, what's your badge?

- Hypnotize badge, to help people see the benefits in potential digital badges.

- I love that, that's great.

- He wins.

- Yeah, he does, that's the most interesting.

Digital badging, of course, it's a great way for kids to use technology and 21st century media to explore new passions and interests.

It's also a way for them to document their accomplishments online by connecting what they learn in school to real-world projects and skills, kids begin to develop clear pathways to their unique futures.

As parents, we can help guide them on their own path by finding supportive social systems, technology, and organizations that reinforce learning in this digital age.

For more information, and to continue the conversation, visit our website at www.iqsmartparent.org and visit our Facebook, Twitter, and Pinterest pages for parent tips and much more.

And you can tell us about your digital badge story.

Thanks so much for joining us.

We'll see you next time.

(audience clapping) - [Narrator] IQ smart parent is made possible in part by Shady Side Academy and with generous support from the McCune Foundation, and the Grable Foundation.