A grassroots movement has led to Student Digital Leadership initiatives operating in a number of UK schools, both at primary and secondary level. Until now there has been no mechanism to provide transferable recognition for the skills and achievements that students acquire in these roles. Mozilla's Open Badges technology offers an opportunity for addressing this, whereby students are able to collect badges for the roles they take on and display them on selected websites - for example, social networking profiles, job sites, online CVs and more ..
The session will describe how the SDL initiative is operating in schools, including the roles that students typically take on, and the design and development of the badging framework that helps define each badge/role.
2. Student Digital Leaders
• Passion to help their school shape vision
and strategy around the use of technology
• Eagerness to promote their school and
their SDL activities – expanding network
• Eagerness to research new technologies
and train their teachers and peers
• SDL roles ensure appropriate
and engaging technology use
3.
4. Benefits
Sch Embeds most effective technology across school life
Sch Maximises the impact of the ICT budget
Stu
Stu
Stu
Stu
Develops leadership and specialist skills
Develops other 21st Century skills …
Flexibility & credibility in the jobs market
Important! Helps students bring ‘fun’ into learning!
Nat Co-construct curriculums to engage all students
in relevant and enjoyable learning
Nat Work alongside teachers to lessen
effects of new demands on their workloads
Nat Help narrow the gap between policy makers
and those designing/delivering
the curriculum
5. Planning
• What issues might SDLs help to address/overcome?
• Whole school initiative or piloted by certain classes?
• How will you choose students for the roles?
• What qualities will your SDLs need to demonstrate?
• What year groups might you approach first?
• How long will SDLs serve?
• How do you ensure continuity?
• Who in school will oversee
SDLs & champion widely?
6. Initial training & Group ID
• Listening and speaking
– Active and sympathetic
• Asking for help
– For themselves, others
• Communication skills
– Peers, teachers, community
• Sharing and showcasing
– SDLs continually moving foward
• Using and applying
– Getting the most from tech for learning
• Reviewing and feedback
7. Joining a growing network
• SSAT promotes at every given opportunity
– Importance of student voice/impact in 21C learning where
students are encourage to co-construct schemes of work
– Redesigning Schooling – encouraging school leaders &
classroom practitioners & student to shape education futures
• Extended outwards with help of social media
– #dlchat on Twitter, every Thursday evening at 9pm
• See www.digitalleadernetwork.co.uk where our first
pioneer teachers are sharing ideas & resources
• Join http://makewav.es/digitalleaders ...
8. SDL Accreditation
• Remember those roles? Badges recognise achievement
• Digital badges can be displayed online!
• Mozilla Open Badges take the concept further
• Badge the UK,
DigitalMe, Makewaves,
Mozilla and SSAT
working with teachers,
students & partner
organisations on an
accreditation scheme
for SDLs
9. Mozilla Open Badges
• Top global brands have come together
to support a new way to recognise
development of 21C skills
• Visual representations of learning,
achievements, skills, interests & competencies
• They can represent hard and soft skills,
peer assessment and stackable lifelong learning
“Over 70% of employers want employability skills to
become a top education priority.” The CBI
10. Mozilla Open Badges cont’d
• Free open global technical
standard for recognising
achievement
• Transferrable: badges from
different sources are
collated in one ‘backpack’
• Badges can be displayed on
social networking profiles,
job sites, websites …
• Badges are information-rich
with details of achievement,
criteria, evidence, issuer
11. Badges are info rich!
Metadata ‘baked’ into the
badge permanently:
description, criteria, evidence
Value of badges in the rigour of
how they are earned …
Growing number of employers,
colleges and universities
endorsing badges = new
opportunities for young people
Doug Belshaw is Web Literacy Lead at the Mozilla Foundation;
he offers a great explanation of Open Badges http://is.gd/PJMqRp
12. What do students think?
“If it’s going to be beneficial for getting a
job, then someone could look at your
profile and see that you’ve done all these
wonderful things .. “
13. Makewav.es badges
• Students are now contributing to the
digital leaders network on Makewav.es
http://makewav.es/digitalleaders
• First three national SDL badges are
now available to earn .. more on the way!
• Makewav.es offers technology for
teachers to design their own badges
• U-13s cannot earn Mozilla Open Badges
but Makewav.es has conversion technology
• Other platforms and plugins offer badging
technology elsewhere
14. Badges for teachers too!
• Badges have disruptive potential in the world of
accreditation … not just for students but for teachers
undergoing professional development too!
• SSAT Speed Learning attendees
& presenters are claiming badges
to accredit their professional
development at these events
around the country
Good afternoon everyone – I’m GlynBarritt and the Learning Technologies Manager at SSAT … Student leadership and student voice have been at the heart of SSAT’s work for many years. In the early 2000s, we began important work with David Hargreaves on the nine gateways to personalising learning, the Deeps and the redesign of school systems and curriculums …and found that one of the most successful entry points into effecting change and transformation lay in the area of student voice, and the opportunities offered to students to share the leadership and redesign of learning with their teachers.And so Student Digital Leadership fits nicely into the SSAT’s suite of activities and programmes designed to keep student voice at the forefront of change. But what is it really?
Students with a passion to help their school shape vision and strategy around the use of technologyTheytake on or develop leadership roles which provide advice and guidance as to the effectiveness of technology. This entails a good deal of research, experimentation, evaluation and feedback. And they make sure that fellow students and their teachers have the skills to use those technologies effectively.They will represent the school whenever appropriate, giving presentations or perhaps using social media platforms like Makewaves, for promoting student-driven activities at their school – so uploading images, audio, video and writing blogs – to illustrate their achievements and to share them more widely.
SDL initiatives operate with very different models from school to school and obviously, SDL roles in a secondary school might differ widely from those in a primary school but these are just examples of the sorts of roles that students take on. Or they could take on much more general leadership of technology and share the responsibilities. There are no hard and fast rules!! It’s whatever is suitable for your school. You can start very small and expand the scheme to meet requirements. Roles can be multipurpose or have a specific focusBut it is important to say that this initiative must have whole school buy-in and that the technical expertise, advice and training is respected and embraced by all .. teachers and fellow students! But expectations placed on students must be realistic, especially when they first take on the role!
Benefits: SchoolUsing native skills, SDLs can ensure their peers and teachers can use technology effectively Saves the school money in terms of training staff to use specific applications when the students can probably master these in minutes!Saves the school money in terms of buying in or acquiring technical expertise.Saves the school money in terms of designing promotional materials, photographing and video-ing events and children etcSo at the very least, there’s a maximising of the impact of the technology budget. StudentsIncreases their self-esteem … more about the application process laterHelps develop leadership and specialist skills in students – like being able to listen to colleagues, feedback and justify opinions diplomatically, identify skill sets in others or needs for professional development etcDevelops life skills – skills that will enable students to deal with unexpected situations … and those that attract them to an employer in the global workspaceBringsfun into learning!NationWe’ve heard many students in international debates call for more involvement in educational policy making to try and bridge the gap between politicians and teachers who are very often, having to deliver policies and curriculums that are deeply unpopular.Students wanted more of a voice in co-constructing their own learning … being trusted by teachers to give sound and informed opinions on curriculums to engage all learners, including those who previously, have been turned off learning.
So to get started, you do need to plan, plan, plan … So firstly, why run an SDL initiative in your school? What issues will it help to overcome? What roles might your SDLs fill?Will you operate this across the whole school or will you pilot the initiative with certain classes? How will you choose students for the roles (in a secondary set up, it is perhaps more relevant to hold an application system and interview!) But will you choose the most able student … or those showing disengagement perhaps? But what personal qualities might your would-be SDLs need to demonstrate?How long will your SDLs serve? Will you give them longevity in the role or will you change around?Continuity: how will you ensure that younger students get to learn the roles? Peer mentoring scheme for example?What incentives might you offer?Who in school will champion the SDL activity and ensure that parents and the local community knows of their achievements?
Certainly any initial training ought to ensure that the students know what .. How to be a good and sympathetic, active listenerHow to ask for help when they need it or help on another’s behalfHow to communicate effectively with each other, their peers and teachers … then outward in the communityHow they share achievements with each other, so that that the group is continually learning and moving forwardHow to apply their knowledge and their learning .. How to review and feedback to interested partiesSDLs need to identify as a group and agree targets & action plansSDLs should decide how they will communicate with each other & when to hold meetingsWould be good to post SDL meetings/activities where everyone can read them
It’s a good time to be joining the SDL network – if you email Glyn Barritt, I’ll send you some free resources to get you started and links to see how the initiative is operating in other schools. Her email is shown at the end of the presentation.Lots of opportunities to present at conferences and events, locally, nationally – if you were at BETT recently, you may have seen the wonderful activities involving SDLs on the Stone Computers stand – media and coding etc.There is a wonderful collaborative blog started by a group of passionate teachers which gives start up guidance and support – www.digitalleadernetwork.co.ukAnd a chat stream to follow on Twitter using a search on the hashtag #dlchatAnd we’re encouraging our teachers and students to join the Digital Leader network on Makewaves where students can take ownership of their school’s space by uploading news stories, video, photos, audio etc to illustrate their achievements.
Remember those roles?Badges will recognise achievement – and we should never underestimate how people of all ages like badges! But here we are talking about digital badges which can be displayed online … and indeed, some teachers are already offering their students online badges to collect for local tasks in schools … badges that have been designed using favourite graphics packagesWhat we’re talking about here is a lifelong online portfolioof badges which not only reflect students’ extra-curricular achievements, skills and interests, but which they can display in their web spaces to provide evidence of skills development for further education and employment. Mozilla Open Badges provides such a scheme and SSAT is fortunate to be working with DigitalMe, Badge the UK, Mozilla and Makewaves … also teachers, their students and other partner organisations to offer this scheme to the SDL network.
So Mozilla Open Badges offers a free, open and global standard to accredit student achievement and has the support of a large number of high profile companies and organisations all believingOpen Badges provides a very appropriate way of recognising achievement, skills, interests and competencies – skills that contribute to lifelong learning and employment prospects.We’ve heard recently about youth unemployment across Europe and the mismatch between the skills that students leave education with & employer need. The quote is from the CBI – 70% employers want employability skills to become a top education priority.
So how do they work? Right at the top of the chain are theissuers of badges – organisations like SSAT, DigitalMe, universities and other organisations … they design the look of the badge and decide what it is for … in fact, all badges are made information rich in this way. They would then make them available on a platform equipped with the Mozilla open standard technology (like the Makewaves platform). Badges are collected by earners in a ‘backpack’ which can be displayed in their web spaces and shown at an appropriate interview. The backpack is a user management interface where the earner can import and delete badges, set privacy controls. Whether they’re issued by one organization or many, badges can build upon each other and be stacked to tell the full story of your skills and achievements.
So if you could look inside the badge at the metadata baked into the badge permanently, you’d see the following … Name of the badgeIssuerDate it was issuedDescriptionCriteria for earningEvidence requiredIf you Google Doug Belshaw and Mozilla, you will arrive at a great explanation of Open Badges … far more information than I can offer here
So, there is a growing Digital Leader network on the Makewav.es platform, lead by Chris Sharples, a teacher at Lady Lumley’s School in Yorkshire and someone who has run a very successful Student Digital Leader initiative in his school and across schools in North Yorkshire for some time. Students can take ownership of their space on the platform by blogging and uploading photos, videos and audiocasts of their work in school …Makewaves currently offers three badges that provide a national standard for Student Digital Leaders … there are more on the way and indeed, a series of Missions which guide students through activities leading to Open Badges accreditation. The design of the badges are incorporating ideas from students across the scheme, both primary and secondary. Whilst other platforms offer badging technology, Makewaves has the ability to convert digital badges for the U13s to Open Badges when the children reach this age. (Current US regulations prevent U13s from earning Open Badges)
I’ll just take the opportunity to say that Open Badges can also be designed to reflect teacher professional development. SSAT offers attendees and presenters at Speed Learning events the opportunity to claim an Open Badge to accredit their professional development.
Please do email Glyn Barritt at SSAT if you’d like more information about getting a SDL initiative started in your school … she is currently holding a database of teacher names and uses this network to ensure that teachers are the first to hear news of the scheme, and of opportunities to raise the profile of SDLs in their schools. And she tweets as @ssat, @ictregister, @sdigileaders and @glynbarritt on Twitter!SSAT also operates a Student Leadership Accreditation scheme – if you wish to know more about this, visit the SSAT website – http://www.ssatuk.co.uk/students