Trip to Mozilla HQ London for Open Badges

Hi all!

Yesterday, we went to Mozilla in London along with some DLs from John Henry Newman Catholic Collage (there were other schools when we got there though) to help design a scheme called Open Badges.

At Ickenham Train Station waiting to get the train to Mozilla London HQ

It was an early start for us; we had to get into school for around 7:00am! After a 2-3 hour journey, we arrived and were welcomed by some of the staff that worked there.

The first activity we did was called “Strong Wind Blows” which was essentially a brain storming activity where we had to give ideas for badges. It was a bit like musical chairs, but without the music – the person without a chair had to give an idea.

Then we had a small break, after which we went into groups and expanded on these ideas – name, what it looks like, who could award it etc. Some of the ideas were screen capture/other forms of digital tutorials, teaching teachers and doing presentations in front of large groups of people.

Testing Mozilla software

After lunch, we continued building up our ideas, and had a think about what motivation people would have to get the badge. Also, we discussed how would people feel about having a digital/online badge instead of a physical one that you could wear – what do you think?

Finally, some of the groups, presented their badge and we got a chance to ask questions about it. A group of primary school DLs presented their badges – I couldn’t have stood and presented in front of all those people when I was 7!

Megan being interviewed about Open Badges #DLBadges

Heading home after a great day - thanks to JHNCC for taking us in the minibus!

Around 4:00pm, we set off on the journey home and arrived back about 6:30pm. It was a fantastic day and we all had great fun – thanks to everyone that was involved!
By Will D

Logo design poll has finished

Thanks for voting on our logo poll - it is now closed.

Well done Megan!

I've made a new post on my blog about some of my DL work and fun Apps people can check out in their free time. Just click on 'Daisy' in the 'Individual DL Blogs' box on the left.

-Daisy

Arden Digital Leaders Logo

Hello all visitors to this page...

Before Christmas we had a vote for which logo to use and it was a draw between Will and Megan's designs.

Please vote on the new poll (on the right hand side) of this page before Thursday 17th January to help us choose which one to use.

You can see the designs by scrolling to the original vote post and looking for Will and Megan's logos.

Student Digital Leaders Badgeathon

We are going to a badgeathon on 17th January 2013 in London

http://lanyrd.com/2013/student-digital-leaders-badgeathon-south/

We will be learning about this digital reward system and will be getting the chance to design 'badges' for the scheme http://openbadges.org/en-US/

Quadblogging... going global!

Getting a global audience...
This blog is going to be part of Quadblogging http://quadblogging.net/
Schools sign up to work in a team to look at each others blogs and add comments/feedback.

We are leading the group and have been put in a quad with three schools in America.

Each week for January, February and March all students will look and feedback on the blog from the timetabled school.
Here is the timetable and we will be the first blog that the other three schools will look at.

Week beginning:

14/1/13 - Arden, UK

21/1/13 - Chimacum Middle School, USA

28/1/13 - Luella Middle School, USA

4/2/13 - Williston Central School, USA

11/2/13 - Arden, UK

18/2/13 - Chimacum Middle School, USA

25/2/13 - Luella Middle School, USA

4/3/13 - Williston Central School, USA

11/3/13 - Arden, UK

18/3/13 - Chimacum Middle School, USA

25/3/13 - Luella Middle School, USA & Williston Central School, USA

What are we going to be doing as DLs?

2013 is going to be a very busy year for us as Mrs Allton has explained there will be lots of opportunities to explore new technology and software.
We will be able to help other Arden students and also train the teachers.

We are currently putting a mind map together of the things we would like to look at before the end of Year 9 and we will load this onto our blog 'Plan for 2012-13' page soon.

As there is only one more Thursday meeting before the Christmas Holidays we have been told we are going to look at an app called Socrative. We also are going to have an online chat with Digital Leaders in Yorkshire about how we can use Edmodo

Mrs Allton has been talking to teachers from Finham Park School and John Henry Newman and we are going to meet up and work with their Digital Leaders in the new year. There is also a national Digital Leaders blog that we have been asked to contribute too.

Lots to do...Some of our DLs have been assigned a task. These are:

Main blog: Daisy & Will
Twitter: Jonah
Socrative (iPad app): Jonah & Ben
Word Clouds: Jack & Megan
Visio, Popplet & other mind mapping tools: Matt, Will & Sophia
Edmodo: Lochie & Sophie
VLE: Sophie

If you have any other ideas for us please post a comment and don't forget to vote for our logo!