New Initiative Badge the UK Connects Talent to Potential Employers Using Mozilla Open Badges.
(PRWEB) July 04, 2013 -- Produced by DigitalMe with support from Nominet Trust, Badge the UK is aimed at young people in particular. Today learning happens everywhere and the skills learned outside of the formal curriculum are just as important to employers as qualifications. Use of digital badges will help teachers, employers and social enterprises to badge their learning programs and provide an easy way for any teacher to award the badges they create nationwide.
The badges will highlight the achievement of a range of skills that young people develop through real-life learning projects, after-school clubs and outside experiences, all of which are important to employers in today’s digital world, but aren’t recognized by traditional qualifications.
Through a partnership with Makewaves, every young person will be provided with an Open Badge portfolio page to help them share their achievements with employers and colleges. A ‘badge store’ will be created to host badges along with a leader board and badge ratings.
Badge the UK partners, be they employers, colleges, universities or charities will all be able to launch their badges to a network over close to 10,000 teachers and directly to young people. A badge design toolkit will be provided to help organizations design badges which match their skills needs.
Because the project is built upon an open source standard any organization will be able to build a solution themselves to issue or display their own badges.
Sharing these competencies online will help young people to demonstrate their skills and increase their employability profile and life chances. The initiative will also allow employers to quickly identify learners who can solve complex and novel problems through teamwork, creativity and the use of digital technology.
Tim Riches, CEO of DigitalMe, says, “We were very excited when Mozilla launched their Open Badges in 2011, because we saw such clear potential in adapting the badges to help bridge the gap between traditional qualifications and valuable work and life skills that young people obtain beyond the classroom. We spent the last two years developing Badge the UK, and are grateful for the support form Nominet Trust that made it possible.”
Erin Knight, Senior Director of Learning, Mozilla, says, “we could not be more pleased that Mozilla Open Badges are being adapted for such a valuable and relevant cause. Badge the UK will enable young people in the UK to demonstrate their skills online and employers to have a way of finding out and understanding those skills easily. We are very proud that DigitalMe have chosen Mozilla Open Badges for their project.”
Badge The UK will be launched at the Mozilla HQ in London on Thursday 4 July, when more announcements will be made.
For more information please visit:
http://www.digitalme.co.uk/badgetheuk
http://www.digitalme.co.uk/badgetheuklaunch
Twitter: #badgetheuk @BadgeTheUK
Tim Riches twitter @triches
Notes to editors
Pictures
Badge The UK co-design day pictures from Mozilla offices uk
http://www.flickr.com/photos/68346577@N02/sets/72157632547596165/
About Badge the UK
Today learning happens everywhere and the skills learned outside of the formal curriculum are just as important to employers as qualifications. Badge the UK is a new project which will enable learners to demonstrate all their achievements using digital badges.
Funded by Nominet Trust, over the next two years we will be helping teachers, employers and social enterprises to badge their learning programs and provide an easy way for any teacher to award the badges they create nationwide.
http://www.digitalme.co.uk/badgetheuk/
About DigitalMe
DigitalMe help young people gain skills and confidence through new technology. We co-design new ways to develop, assess and reward the competencies learners need to thrive in work and life.
Our open programs are free for any educator. They feature real-life learning, motivating challenges and fun!
http://www.digitalme.co.uk
About Mozilla Open Badges
Open Badges is a new online standard to recognize and verify learning
• Mozilla Open Badges are not proprietary — they use free software and an open technical standard. That means that any organization can create, issue and verify digital badges, and any user can earn, manage and display these badges all across the web.
• Open Badges help knit your skills together. Badges can build upon each other, joining together to tell the full story of your skills and achievement.
• With Open Badges, every badge is full of information. Each one has important data built in that links back to the issuer, the criteria it was issued under and evidence verifying the credential — features unique to Open Badges.
• Open Badges let you take your badges everywhere. Users now have an easy and comprehensive way to collect their badges in a single backpack, and display their skills and achievements on social networking profiles, job sites, their websites and more.
• Individuals can earn badges from multiple sources, both online and offline. Then manage and share them using the Open Badges backpack. Right now we’re launching with the Mozilla Backpack, and other organizations will be able to use Open Badges to make their own backpacks later this year.
About Erin Knight, Senior Director of Learning, Mozilla
Erin currently spearheads the learning work at Mozilla, which includes developing learning content and experiences for webmaking, as well as supporting broader learning across the web through the Open Badges work. She was one of the progenitors of the Open Badges movement and wrote the initial paper on badges that laid the foundation for badges as an alternative system of accreditation and credentialing.
Previously, Erin served as the Research Director at the Center for Next Generation Teaching and Learning, a non-profit at UC Berkeley committed to researching and promoting technology and practices for student-centered learning. Her career to date has been balanced between the education technology industry and academia. She now brings these experiences, perspectives and passion to the open education and software world.
Erin on Twitter: @eknight
Erin’s Blog: http://erinknight.com/
About Makewaves
Makewaves is a social learning environment that provides social media for education. It enables schools to create and safely share videos, podcasts and blogs. With a free Makewaves website you can easily start school blogging, join national campaigns and develop digital literacy skills.
Since 2003 Makewaves has been providing safe social networking for schools through our award winning school blogging network. We work with schools, local authorities, charities and government departments to publish internet radio, school podcasts, videos and blogs from pupils around the world.
Over 50,000 pupils use Makewaves regularly to broadcast their school podcasts and videos to friends and family via the safe social network. With 130,000+ blogs and videos stories already online Makewaves is the place to hear what young people are saying. Join now to get your pupils voices heard.
Sally Molineaux, DigitalMe, http://www.digitalme.co.uk, +447980859606, [email protected]
Share this article