Instagram, Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn help billions of people every day stay connected with who and what matters to them. It is difficult to imagine a world without social media, from finding long lost friends, keeping in touch with family and sharing the best (and worst) of times with each other, social media has changed the way we connect forever. Young people today need to know the importance of building, maintaining and utilising professional as well as personal online networks to unlock new opportunities.
Digital badges are personal records of skills and achievements that can be shared online and are used by organisations globally, to recognise and verify the skills and achievements of an individual. Earning a Digital badge allows people to showcase what they can do within their online profiles, helping them to stand out from the crowd.
Here are our top 5 reasons why it’s important to share skills online - and how Digital badges can help.
- Badges are data-rich and shareable
A Digital badge is an image file containing information about the skill or achievement it represents and the organisation who has verified and issued it - in this case LifeSkills. They can be added to social media accounts like Facebook, blogs and emails or included on digital CV’s to provide verified skills records, building trust in capabilities and potential. Much more versatile that a paper certificate.
- Build a portable skills portfolio
There are lots of opportunities, from volunteering to online learning, for young people to develop skills that will help them in education and employment. Digital badges verify and recognise these skills, helping them to develop portfolios they can build on within their educational and professional life that will travel with them, wherever they go.
- Understand what makes you brilliant
It can be difficult for young people to understand the key strengths and unique skills that make them brilliant. Digital badges provide a valuable tool to help them reflect and effectively communicate their skills when it matters most.
- Stand out from the crowd
In an increasingly competitive workplace ensuring young people can communicate their skills online as well as in person is essential. Digital badges are the globally recognised standard for communicating skills digitally and more than 3000 organisations worldwide are already using them to recognise formal qualifications, professional training, volunteering and much more.1
- Online sharing is easy
The great thing about online sharing is that, unlike physically sending a certificate once, digital badges are shared to profiles where lots more people can see them - without any extra work. A recent article stated that LinkedIn profiles with Open Badges on them had up to six times more views, making people more discoverable in job searches.2
1 https://openbadges.org
2 Open Badges: Reimagining the Credential Space with Significant, Unintended Benefits’ Training Industry Magazine
