techJOYnT Gives Students In STEM Fields The Recognition They Deserve Using Open Badges
Oklahoma City, OK (PRWEB) July 10, 2014 -- techJOYnT Academy is revolutionizing the way students learn the subjects of Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) by offerings kids recognition for their achievements through Mozilla Open Badges. Through a system of badges, students in STEM classes become scouts who can gain greater recognition with the amount of projects they complete.
From an early age, students receive recognition for a handful of activities whether it is for participation or excellence. Shelves and walls are lined with trophies, plaques, medals, ribbons, etc. from Little League, Karate, making the Honor Roll, or winning the Spelling Bee. Rarely, however, do students receive recognition for their achievements in STEM fields. Today, there is a major deficit in the amount of students willing to pursue STEM careers due to lack of incentive, and this framework must change to create positive change for the future of our students.
Open Badges are a new online standard to recognize and verify learning or other achievements. Badges make it easy to get acknowledged for the things someone learns, and they include a shared standard for recognizing skills and achievements and helps make them count toward job opportunities and lifelong learning. They are the digital versions of the badges that Scouts receive for their hard work. Additionally, employers, organizations and schools can explore the data behind every badge issued using Mozilla Open Badges to verify individuals’ skills and competencies.
The STEM “Eagle Scout” can then take his or her badges anywhere in their digital backpack and potentially receive college credit for what they have already accomplished - Arizona State University and Texas A&M already provide this kind of program.
Harvard's Business Review, in 2012, named Open Badges one of the top 4 innovations to watch, saying "Badges - not digital diplomas - seem to be the best and likeliest bet on accreditation’s future."
Furthermore, techJOYnT's Director of Operations Wes Warner describes the utility of badges, saying "Open Badges helps bring STEM education in line with students' social environments of today," explaining that kids can unlock achievements by playing video games or doing community service, and now they can do the same by learning to program a robot or design a computer game.
The approach to STEM, whether it is education, involvement, or advertising, is fundamentally flawed, but students should not be deterred from these fields. A system of recognition can change all that, paving the way for the innovators and entrepreneurs of tomorrow. For more information, follow techJOYnT on Facebook and Twitter.
Ratul Esrar, techJOYnT, http://www.techjoynt.com, +1 (405) 509-5306, [email protected]
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