Sponsored by:

Join 300 Digital Badge leaders, practitioners and enthusiasts at the 2016 Badge Summit in Aurora, Colorado. The Badge Summit will offer attendees electronic poster sessions, two keynotes and concurrent sessions along four curated strands:

• K-12 Implementation | Curated by Noah Geisel, Sarah Thomas and Shelly Terrell (#BadgeChatK12)

• Higher Ed and Teacher Professional Development Badging | Curated by Dan Hickey, James Willis (University of Indiana) and Mike Macklin (Colorado State University Online)

• Hot Topics in Badges and Micro-credentials | Curated by Nate Otto (Badge Alliance) and Don Presant (Learning Agents, Canada)

• Industry Badging and Micro-credentials | Curated by Lisa Tenorio, Salesforce and Terry Z. Martin, SemanticPress

Keynotes:

Dr. Nichole Pinkard, DePaul University

Nichole Pinkard is an Associate Professor in the College of Computing and Digital Media at DePaul University in Chicago. She is the founder of Digital Youth Network, co-founder of Inquirium LLC and Remix Learning, home of iRemix, a social learning platform that connects youth’s learning opportunities in school, home, and beyond.

In collaboration with the Chicago Public Library, Dr. Pinkard helped found YOUmedia, a public learning space that immerses high school students in a context of traditional media — books — to make and produce new media artifacts like music, games, videos, and virtual worlds.

Dr. Pinkard is the recipient of a 2014 Northwestern Alumni Award, a 2010 Common Sense Media Award for Outstanding Commitment to Creativity and Youth, and the 2004 the Jan Hawkins Award for Early Career Contributions to Humanistic Research and Scholarship in Learning Technologies, an NSF Early CAREER Fellowship, and a grant from the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation for research on how digital media affects literacy. She serves on the Advisory Board of the Joan Ganz Cooney Center and Institute of Play. She holds a B.S. in Computer Science from Stanford University, an M.S. in Computer Science and a Ph.D. in Learning Sciences from Northwestern University. [Biography originally posted on the Digital Youth Network site]

Dr. Doug Belshaw, Dynamic Skillset

Dr. Doug Belshaw is an Open Educational Thinkerer who specialises in digital skills/literacies, alternative credentialing, and helping companies work more openly. A former teacher and senior leader in schools, Doug also has experience in Higher Education with Jisc in the UK. From 2012 to 2015 he worked on an international basis for the Mozilla Foundation, first on the Open Badges team, and then as Web Literacy Lead. He is now an independent consultant, coaching individuals and helping organisations such as City & Guilds make sense of the 21st century education technology landscape.

Electronic Poster Sessions

The 8am-10am time will feature a continental breakfast, networking with exhibitors and other attendees and time to learn and share with Electronic Poster Presenters. If you have Digital Badge work, models, studies, or exemplars, please consider sharing with your colleagues! To submit a session or inquire for more information, please send an email (with Electronic Poster in the Subject line) to kmriebau@aurorak12.org. For submissions, please include a link to your presentation or (if your presentation is not yet created) a brief description of what you plan to share.

Lunch

A boxed lunch is included with all registrations. If you have dietary restrictions (allergies, vegetarian, etc.), please send an email (with Badge Summit Lunch in the subject line) to kmriebau@aurorak12.org and we will make sure to take care of your needs.

Concurrent Sessions

Once finalized, the full Badge Summit program will be emailed to registrants as well as shared at badge.aurorak12.org/badgesummit. In the meantime, we are excited to share that our speakers include Terry Z. Martin, who helped design Google’s internal training program and Badge system and Lisa Tenorio, who designed Trailhead, the online training and credentialing platform for Salesforce developers that has issued over 350,000 Badges in its first year. We will also be joined by Nate Otto, Executive Director of the Badge Alliance for a deep dive on the current state and future of the Open Badge Infrastructure and Shelly Terrell and Sarah Thomas, leaders of the weekly #BadgeChatK12 Twitter chat will have a session about the emerging Badge PLN community. The Aurora Public Schools Digital Badge Leadership Team will have a panel sharing their experience in implementing a K-12 Badge System at scale and APS students will offer student voice during a panel discussion on their experiences with their school district’s Digital Badge System.

Galvanizing Announcements

The keynote stage will also serve as a platform for launching several high impact announcements from the Digital Badge community. It would ruin the surprise (and violate a bunch of NDAs!) to overshare in this space but rest assured that some really exciting announcements are going to be shared for the first time with this audience.

Exhibitors and Sponsors

The 2016 Badge Summit has room for up to 8 exhibitors, all of whom will be located in the main foyer of the facility, right in the heart of our gathering. For information about exhibiting and/or sponsoring, please send an email (with Badge Summit Sponsor in the subject line) to noah@verseseducation.com.

Exhibitors:

FAQs

What are my transport/parking options getting to the event?

There will be a RTD light rail/bus option by the time the summit takes place. More details to come once the new line is finished (approx March 2016).

Uber X from Denver International Airport to the APS PLCC costs approx $20-$26.

Of course, there are rental cars at the airport.

Where can I contact the organizer with any questions?

Please contact Kevin M. Riebau via email at kmriebau@aps.k12.co.us (please use "Badge Summit" in your subject for quicker responses)

Is my registration/ticket transferrable?

You may transfer your ticket to a colleague, no problemo!

Can I update my registration information?

Sure!

Do I have to bring my printed ticket to the event?

Not necessary, we'll have phones and tablets with Eventbrite for you to gain admittance.