The National Forum has provided a suite of Digital Badges. This suite of open-access professional development programmes has been developed by collaborating teams of academics across the sector, offered as non-accredited professional development opportunities for all who teach in Irish higher education.
Few instructors in higher education have completed a formal teaching program and therefore, rely on informal professional development opportunities to enhance their teaching practice. Micro-credentialing in the form of digital badges is one way in which instructors can document their non-credit learning and accomplishments. (Dyjur and Lindstrom 2017)
Digital Badges for Library Staff who Teach
A good way to look at digital badges is to view them as collectible digital tokens that you can accumulate as you go through your professional development.
The National Forum has produced badges or programmes that offers participants the possibility to earn Digital Badges for their efforts and these badges then serve as a valid indicator of accomplishment, skill, quality, or interest in your own professional development as a library staff member who teaches.
The L2L project encourages library staff who teach to explore the wide range of Digital Badges and to choose which courses suit your own particular needs.
We also recommend the starter pack designed specifically for library staff who teach as a way in to your badge Journey.
The National Forum’s digital badge system is a set of open access resources that provides a “suite of open-access professional development programmes an “..offered as non-accredited professional development opportunities for all who teach in Irish higher education.”
Also the L2L project has produced a specific “parcel” of content that may be a useful lead into your digital badge journey.
L2L specific starter pack is Available here
Whilst you go through the badges, you may feel the need to collect you digital badges into your own digital repository.
Many people sign up for their own Linked in account to put their badges into, Others may populate their own Facebook account or their online websites or blogs with their digital achievements.
- One highly recommended way of platforming your Digital Badges is to create your own e-Portfolio
Some of the digital badges specifically ask you to reflect upon and write a piece for your e-Portfolio, so perhaps a good place to begin your journey is by looking at the e-Portfolio