GLPS Professional Learning {Digital Learning Badges}

Last year our GLPS Tech & Media Team started issuing digital learning badges for participation in professional development involvement.  We used Credly as our service for issuing (free!) digital learning badges.  It was great to share accomplishments with teachers and is a different way for our teachers to display their professional involvement.

So What Does This Mean to You?

Well, this year the TLA Department and the Tech & Media Team are working together to issue digital badges for professional learning participation.  You can look forward to receiving some digital badges in your inbox soon for your participation in professional learning that was provided by the TLA Department or the Tech & Media Team.


I Received a Badge, Now What?

Credly is a service that allows you to reward people with "credits" for participation.  It is a free service and users do not necessarily need to have a Credly account to receive a badge.  Once a badge has been issued to a person, an email is automatically sent to the individual notifying them of their badge, as well as a picture of the badge.  If a user signs up for a Credly account, they then have the options to organize their badges and even embed a collection of badges on a website.

If you are a teacher that has received a digital learning badge - now what are your next steps?

1. You will receive an email from GLPS Tech & Media notifying you of your badge.  If you choose to do nothing with your badges, you are done at this point.  We recommend saving the email though in case you would like to reference it in the future.
2. If you would like to keep track of your badges, we recommend creating an account with Credly (the service we are using for issuing digital badges - it is free to create an account).
3. Once you have created an account, it is helpful if you create a "Category."  This will help you organize your badges and allow you to embed them on your website if you choose to do so.
4. To create a Category, under the Earned section on the My Credit page, click on Categories.  Click on the +Add Category button.
5. Select your badges and place them in a category you created.  Once you create your category and place badges in that category, you will see a button that looks like "< / >" that will provide you with some HTML code.
6. If you would like to show off your badges on your website, simply copy this code and paste it onto your website.
7. After this initial set-up, when you receive a new badge, simply accept the badge from the email (or log in to Credly) and select a category for it to be placed in, and your website will then automatically be updated with your new badge!  If you would like to see an example of how they would be displayed on your website, take a look at Sarah Wood's website to see.