We at Carnegie Science Center in Pittsburgh, PA have dipped our toe in the waters of digital badging with a new partnership program. Carnegie Science Center has partnered with the Western Pennsylvania Writing Project (WPWP) as one of ten teams of a science center and a local Writing Project hub to develop a unique program that will combine formal and informal science and literacy learning. "Intersections: Building Informal Science Education and Literacy Partnerships" is a two-year National Science Foundation-funded program through the Association of Science-Technology Centers (ASTC) and the National Writing Project. CSC is partnering with the WPWP on a Digital Literacy workshop model for formal and informal educators and a parallel workshop experience for middle school and high school students. Now in the second year of this project, we just held our "Digital Video SmashJam Educator Workshop" on November 22 and will be offering two opportunities for students, a one-day workshop on January 10 and a two-day mini-camp on July 17 and 18. During these workshops, participants explore a fundamental scientific concept such as gravity, momentum, or friction. Next, they create a storyboard, develop a narrative and characters, and film and edit a video using iPads to create a mini movie in a genre of their choice. Educators are provided materials and strategies for them to replicate this project with their own students. Our Pittsburgh Intersections Team continues to work with colleagues from the other national sites developing our Intersections network and sharing our work more broadly. We recently presented a session about our work at the ASTC conference in Raleigh, NC, the PA Council of English Language Arts Teachers conference, and were featured on the monthly webinar series hosted by The Sprout Fund and Zulama about the use of digital media in education.
As part of this project last year, we also received a grant from The Sprout Fund to be one of the summer youth programs to pilot digital badges this past summer of 2014. As part of the Pittsburgh City of Learning, this pilot was intended to develop the beginning of a badging ecosystem for our region. We created badges in the three main areas identified in the badging community: knowledge, skills and dispositions. Our "Gravity Guru", "Momentum Maniac", and "Friction Fanatic" knowledge badges were focused on the scientific content of our workshop. Participants also acquired the skill badge "Storyboarding Superhero" and the disposition badge "Putting Yourself Out There" which recognized the ability for participants to introduce themselves and begin to develop the collaborative relationships for the workshop experience. We also developed an additional disposition badge, the "Keeping Your Cool" badge, when two of our youth workshop participants handled a very tough and unexpected situation with calm maturity. This is a perfect example of the potential badging holds to recognize not only content acquisition, but the demonstration of skills and dispositions so important to holistic learning.
I have found that being a part of the early adoption of the digital badging movement in our region has been very exciting and I am enthused by the potential this holds, especially for out of school learning experiences such as ours at CMP. I do have some concerns that the technology infrastructure has not quite matured to the point for widespread, systemic adoption. The provider side tools are in place to create and offer badges, but the recipient side still needs further development. The vision of participants having a "digital backpack" to collect and display their badges has not been fulfilled as of yet, but I do get the sense that figuring out the integration of the technology systems is a priority for The Sprout Fund. The Pittsburgh City of Learning website is the mechanism for distributing badges and making "learning pathways" in our region visible. The idea of creating and identifying pathways for connected learning experiences amongst schools, community organizations and learners is a central part of the Kids+Creativity Network and Remake Learning initiatives. Cathy Lewis Long and Khalif Ali (Digital Badging Program Manager at Sprout) invited our Intersections project and work with digital badges as a case study to be highlighted at the recent Pittsburgh Learning Pathways Summit held last Friday, which was quite an honor for our project team.
Digital badging is gaining a lot of attention and support, it is not just a gaming gimmick. It would be wonderful to have museums across the country be on the forefront of the digital badging movement!
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Alana Kulesa
Director, Strategic Education Initiatives
Carnegie Science Center
Pittsburgh PA
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Original Message:
Sent: 11-18-2014 03:03 PM
From: Cara Scharf
Subject: Digital Badging Examples in Museums
Hello all,
I'm wondering if anyone has examples of how their museum is using digital badging, either for educational purposes or for visitor engagement. Digital badging is something that we here at the Wagner (a historic science education institution and natural history museum in Philly) just recently learned about, but we are exploring whether it might be worth our time and resources. Here's an article about digital badging from Center for the Future of Museums, in case people aren't sure what it is: http://futureofmuseums.blogspot.com/2012/12/museums-and-digital-badging.html. The city of Chicago has also worked to create a city-wide digital badging program: http://nextcity.org/daily/entry/connected-learning-chicago-tests-digital-badges-to-track-education.
Best,
Cara
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Cara Scharf
Program and Communications Manager
Wagner Free Institute of Science
Philadelphia PA
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