Going Back to School With Badges

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Communications Outreach Marketing Badge ImageIt’s that time. I know you know. Back to school.

It’s also time to give YALSAblog readers an update on the YALSA professional development badging project. A project that will give library staff working with teens a chance to continue their learning about working with teens successfully.

As many readers know, for about a year YALSA has been developing professional development that supports gaining skills and knowledge related to the association’s Competencies for Librarians Serving Youth and that results in learners earning badges. We’ve hit a few stumbling blocks along the way, but we are now on a good track for soft-launching the badges this fall. (Those of you who have volunteered to test the badges will definitely be contacted as a part of this soft-launch.)

While there have been some challenges as the badges developed, every time we take a look about what’s being built I get more and more excited about the opportunities that this project will provide library staff, and others, to learn about how to successfully work with teens. Some things to know about this upcoming form of YALSA professional development: Read More →

Connect, Create, Collaborate: Badges for Lifelong Learning

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A version of this post originally appeared on the YALS site on Tuesday, December 25.

Have you heard about YALSA’s badges project – a project funded by the MacArthur Foundation; Mozilla; and the Humanities, Arts, Sciences and Technology Advanced Collaboratory (HASTAC). The monies give YALSA the chance to develop a set of badges to help those working with teens in libraries gain skills and knowledge. The badges, which will launch in the spring, focus on the seven competencies covered in YALSA’s Competencies for Librarians Serving Youth.

You might wonder, what are badges and why should I care? We’ve got some answers for you in this podcast with me, Matthew Moffett – YALSA’s Podcast Manager, and association Board member Sarah Sogigian.


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Badges Meets Connect Create Collaborate

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In this five minute interview learn from YALSA President Jack Martin about YALSA’s Badges for Lifelong Learning project which gives library staff the opportunity to gain skills related to the association’s Competencies for Serving Youth in Libraries. The project is funded by HASTAC, Mozilla, and the MacArthur Foundation.

An interview with Jack Martin on Badges

The badges, which will launch in early winter 2013, support Jack’s presidential theme which is Connect, Create, Collaborate.

YALSA would like to learn more about your interest and knowledge of badges in learning. Let us know by taking a short survey. The association will be publishing articles and providing a variety of learning opportunities before the badge project launches. Stay tuned for all we have planned.

You can learn more about YALSA’s Badge project on the Digital Media and Learning (DML) site and on YALSA’s website. If you would like to learn more about badges in education check out this article from EdWeek.

YALSA Podcast #104: Badges for Lifelong Learning

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This episode’s guest is Erin Knight, Learning Director for the Mozilla Foundation. Erin walks us through all the ins and outs of Mozilla’s new education initiative Badges for Lifelong Learning, a developing system that will enable users to highlight and gain recognition for specialized learning and achievements outside the standard classroom or workplace.

Badges for Lifelong Learning

If’  you prefer, you may go to the’ YALSA Podcast Site, download the Mp3 file and listen to it on the Mp3 player of your choice. To avoid missing future episodes, add’ the feed to Itunes or any other rss feed tracker.

For more information on the program you can visit the project website openbadges.org. Please also check out the Digital Media and Learning Competition for proposals issued by a number of different organizations, including YALSA, for different ways of using the project.

Thanks for listening!