Digital Badges

BloomBoard Adds Greater Badge Cohesion in Microcredential Platform

• By Dian Schaffhauser
• 11/01/18

An education technology company that works with schools and districts to implement digital badging for professional development has revamped its service to help users make more sense of the progress of their training. BloomBoard, a microcredential company for educators, has redesigned its PD platform in three primary ways:

• The site now includes a career pathway map to help teachers and school leaders align their advancement opportunities with specific competencies;
• A new discovery experience helps educators browse and pin credentials that interest them in addressing the skills they want to work on; and
• The service now organizes credentials around instructional standards and pedagogical topic.

Educators earn microcredentials by proving they've learned specific skills and applied it in their classroom practices. Under the new BloomBoard structure, these individual competencies can be assembled into cohesive groups, the company explained in a statement, "that equate to important distinctions in an educator's career," such as those used to qualify for raises and career advancements.

"The most important driver of student growth and learning is educators, and it's imperative that we provide them with professional learning opportunities that are both personalized to their individual needs and allow them to earn opportunities for advancement by measurably improving their classroom practice," said CEO, Sanford Kenyon.

Among BloomBoard's clients are the Washington state's Professional Educator Standards Board, the Louisiana Department of Education, and Harmony Public Schools in Texas, all of which are using the service to address professional learning among staff. In Washington state, for example, the organization contracted with BloomBoard "to pilot badging opportunities related to culturally competent professional practice and computer science." Last year, Louisiana contracted with BloomBoard to use the company's credentialing frameworks to recognize groups of individuals who have gone through the training and proved their expertise as "mentor teachers" and "content leaders." And the Texas school system earlier this year introduced a "personalized learning pathway" initiative for teachers that will allow them "to steer their own professional learning in a flexible manner," according to Project Director, Burak Yilmaz.