Attending conferences is great and it certainly engages and enthuses me but does it make a difference to what happens back at school? This question has been high in my mind all week at EduTech and I am determined that the learning from the conference will have an impact back at school.

As the key themes of the conference for me were assessment and coding, it makes sense that these are the areas on which I focus. 

Positive assessment for learning has been a big part of my reading this year and has led me to think a lot about the concept of digital badges. Digital badges are popular in gaming and in higher education where these micro credentials  can be awarded to students when they have demonstrated certain skills or met certain criteria. I have a notion that these badges could be used in a primary school to help give children, teacher and parents a clear idea of next steps through specific criteria.  This fits in well with the seven precepts for effective formative assessment as identified by the Assessment Reform Group in the UK:

1. It is embedded in a view of teaching and learning of which it is an essential part;
2. It involves sharing learning goals with pupils;
3. It aims to help pupils to know and to recognise the standards they are aiming for;
4. It involves pupils in self-assessment;

5. It provides feedback which leads to pupils recognising their next steps and how to take them;
6. It is underpinned by confidence that every student can improve;
7. It involves both teacher and pupils reviewing and reflecting on assessment data (Broadfoot et al., 1999, p. 7).

I have been looking for a way to test the concept of badges with children and it makes sense to use coding as an ideal opportunity for this.

So I have designed a set of coding badges that integrate with the student's online portfolio. I have used the Open Badge platform created by the Mozilla Foundation. The children in code club will be able to access these badges through their account log on and upload evidence to show how they have met each criteria. 

Built into this is the opportunity for:

• Peer attestation
  
• Parent attestation 
  
• Teacher attestation
  
• Self assessment 
  
• Evidence collection

Once these badges have been tested by the code club I will be putting the students to work following the model posited by Eric Mazur in his masterclass on June 4th. 

Our code club will be split into 6 teams and charged with working alongside students in Year 4 and 5 to teach them coding basics and to help them to achieve the badges themselves. The benefits of this will be huge for the code club students but also for the other students and the teachers. Each team will be required to reflect along the way and produce a report that includes their assessment of how well the team worked. 

What a great way to provide a genuine and authentic learning experience for the sorts of skills that today's employers are desperate to see.