Concentric Sky is pleased to announce the launch of Badgr Pathways. With Pathways, badges from any Open Badges compliant platform can be stacked together in alignment with competency frameworks. Learners have an easy-to-understand map view of where they are in a curriculum. And just like they can share badges, learners can share their Pathway progress – including the steps that they have not yet completed. This allows a learner to share the directionality of their journey, not simply the credentials they already have.
Pathways features an integration with our BadgeRank service, allowing badges from the major badging platforms of the world to be searched within a single interface and added to a Pathway. Badges can be inspected and evaluated on criteria such as the skills they are tagged with or the badge’s alignment to a framework such as NGSSor the Georgia Standards for K-12 Mathematics.
Learners can see where they are in a learning pathway, as well as what they need to do next. More importantly, learners can see all Pathways upon which their credentials fall – answering one of the most fundamental questions in the digital credential space: Why would a learner want one? Now we have a meaningful answer: To see what new opportunities it unlocks for them.
Because Badgr Pathways is based on our proposed new Open Pathways standard, Pathways can be stacked across organizations allowing the creation of data-driven bridges between the programs offered by education institutions, employers, and organizations that provide alternative credentials. Open Pathways allows us to reimagine the learning pathway as an open, portable data object – just like badges themselves.
Here’s an example Pathway in action (notes below):
https://pathways.badgr.io/public/pathway/5ad8eee4c9494851f4893554
Things to note in this example:
- We’re stacking badges from 10 different Issuing organizations across 3 badging platforms (Badgr, Credly, Acclaim).
- The core curriculum portion of the Pathway is aligned to the California CTE Model Curriculum Standards for Biotechnology.
- This pathway demonstrates how you can combine standards-aligned academic curriculum with alternative credentials from external organizations.
- The Biotech Lab Assistant Certificate can be earned via a badge from a local high school program, illustrating cross-institutional program stacking.
Stacking credentials is no longer just a naming convention – and sharing badges to a social network is no longer the end of their usefulness. With Pathways, we can move beyond discussing static snapshots of learning and begin guiding learners to achieve better outcomes – no matter where their lifelong learning journeys may take them.
If you’d like to give Pathways a test drive, head over to Badgr and set up a free account. Create an Issuer and click Manage Pathways to get started.
The American Consortium for Equity in Education, publisher of the "Equity & Access" journal, celebrates and connects the educators, associations, community partners and industry leaders who are working to solve problems and create a more equitable environment for historically underserved pre K-12 students throughout the United States.
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American Consortium for Equity in Educationhttps://www.ace-ed.org/author/admin/
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American Consortium for Equity in Educationhttps://www.ace-ed.org/author/admin/
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American Consortium for Equity in Educationhttps://www.ace-ed.org/author/admin/
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American Consortium for Equity in Educationhttps://www.ace-ed.org/author/admin/
