News Article

Digital Badges for Teacher PD

Thursday, June 30, 2016

Dr. James Diamond and Pilar Gonzalez, of EDC's Center for Children and Technology, have co-authored the chapter "Digital Badges for Professional Development: Teachers' Perceptions of the Value of a New Credentialing Currency" in the just-published Foundation of Digital Badges and Micro-Credentials from Springer International Publishing.

In the chapter, Diamond and Gonzalez present findings from a one-year study of an online teacher professional development (PD) program and accompanying digital badging system, and give a frank appraisal of both the pros and cons of the credentialing system. Teachers valued the competency-based approach to PD and saw value in the badges as credentials, but none received any formal recognition by their school or district. Without external recognition, they felt that most other teachers would not want to make the significant time commitment required to earn the badges. Diamond and Gonzalez discuss the implications of these findings for the design of functional badging systems.

The abstract of the article and information on purchasing Foundation of Digital Badges and Micro-Credentials can be found here

 Graphic