The European Council and Commission recommend development of innovative tools for identification, documentation and validation of not formal and informal learning.This project wants to promote the use of Mozilla open badges in adult education organizations. A badge is a small piece of metal, plastic, cloth, etc., used as a symbol or indicator of an accomplishment, skill, quality or interest. A Mozilla open badge is a file of the shape of an icon or medal issued to prove skills and/or achievements of people. The file contains metadata such as the name of the issuer, the criteria it was issued under, evidence verifying the credential and expiry date. Mozilla open badges is free software and an open technical standard any organization can use to create, issue and verify digital badges. Adult education organizations can use open badges to recognize formal and informal learning or achievements (for example developing basic and transversal skills, attending all the lessons of a course, solving quizzes and exercises, volunteering to support peers). Adult learners can use open badges to show easily their own competencies, as open badges can be shared on social media and websites. This project will develop two Guides on use of MOBs (one addressed to adult education organizations and the other one to adult learners), 100 MOBs to be used by adult education organizations, videos to show how create MOBs and share them on social media, a catalogue of good practices in adult education.The project is mainly addressed to adult learners, adult educators and adult education organizations. The consortium is composed by adult education organizations based in FR, SE, DE, SI, ES.Approximately 9.000 people and organizations will be informed about the project, and 100 adult education organizations, 350 educators and 1.000 adult learners will be directly involved in it. Long term benefits will be availability of a tool to motivate adult learners to learn and to share their learning with educators and peers.
5 adult education and training organisations have joined in the Open Badges for Adult Education project to develop the concept of open badges in their environment and to test it with adults who are far from employment and belong to groups at risk of exclusion. 100 badges were initially created to promote attitudes and behaviours sought by employers and key competences for lifelong learning. As a result of the project, more than 90 trainers from 50 different organizations assigned more than 600 badges to more than 300 adults. Guides have been produced to show the interest of badges: valorising skills acquired through informal learning, maintaining motivation throughout a learning path, building confidence and self-esteem, digital acculturation, empowerment regarding one's abilities, easier presentation during a job interview, etc. Tutorials are available for the practical aspects: How to create a badge? How to manage your badges?... The different experiences of creating and assigning badges with their integration into training systems and the feedback from the various stakeholders are described in a collection of practices. They are available to give ideas to education stakeholders who want to be informed and better understand the various possibilities before engaging. All results are available in the five languages of the partnership, German, Spanish, French, Slovenian, Swedish and English at www.open-badges.eu.