Taking Steps Towards Digital Badges

As somewhat of a "conscientious objector" regarding the grading of students, I am very excited about badges. I loved earning them as a girl scout; the idea of having proven a set of skills or accomplishments appealed to me then and still does. When I first heard of digital badges, I knew I needed to find out more. I did some research and got advice from my Twitter PLN. I have settled on using ClassBadges at classbadges.com. ClassBadges is a free tool that allows teachers to design, describe and award badges to students.

While there are many icons provided, you can also upload your own images. I created some of my images and edited some from Creative Commons.

I am a huge fan of giving my students options. During my decades as a classroom teacher, I used Academic Choice, a Responsive Classroom component. As a new Technology Specialist, I have been rethinking and revising ways to provide meaningful choices in the computer lab. When students complete their daily assignment, they will be able to work towards badges. I am implementing this with students in grades 3-5.





I am starting out with 10 badges. I feel it will give students enough variety, while being manageable.


I created a Google document that gives students a description and the requirements for each badge.  I have also created a Symbaloo webmix for all the websites and shared documents they will need to access.


My next step is to create a screencast for each badge, introducing it and modeling some components. This way, students can jump right into the work without having to listen to me explain all the details of every badge. Each screencast will also be a link in the webmix which is color-coded.

Screencasting with screenr

I have been experimenting with creating screencasts for my students to use.  I have used screenr, which is free, to model a series of steps for my 4th graders who are creating Scratch projects.  They can watch and listen, pausing when needed to follow the instructions.  I have also used it with 5th grade students who have had to do their work in a different room.  The following screenshots are from my screencast showing them how to edit photos with Seashore.

As you record, you can choose what part of your screen to show.  So far I have stayed with full screen so that I can concentrate on my actions and words.

These are the directions:

The screencast can be a maximum of 5 minutes in length.  When finished, you can select how to share.

I copy and paste the url onto my Symbaloo webmix so that students have easy access.

When my students click on the tile, they see this window:

Quoting my students, using screenr is "easy peasy!"  My next step is to try screencasting with Snagit, which has more features.  (Post to follow!)

My latest favorite...Symbaloo

I now have six days under my belt as a "Technology Teacher." While there have been a few challenges, I really do love my job. One tool that has helped my students and me is Symbaloo.

Symbaloo EDU is a free Web 2.0 tool that allows users to create their own collection of websites.

I can search for tiles that have already been created. This is a great resource for educational websites. I can also create my own, which I have been doing almost daily! Two classes of Kindergarten students come into our lab each day. When I find an activity I want these young non-readers to access, I create a link they can recognize and click on.

Another feature that makes Symbaloo fantastic is the ease of making a webmix (a collection of tiles) the homepage of a browser. My first graders can already log on, launch Firefox, and navigate to a website. They can also close a tab with a single click to get back to our webmix. Symbaloo gives my non-readers the ability to easily get to the sites I have selected.