I’ve been doing some research into other professional development programs in STEM education, and I noticed that a lot of them offer images that some librarians sport proudly on their sites, like this school librarian I came across. (Scroll down and you’ll see ~20 badges along the right.)
We are not yet sure what is possible, but I’m wondering:
Do any of you all collect badges like this on your personal web pages? (If so, please link!)
More generally, what needs do you have to show evidence of participation in our PD offerings, if any at all?
Is participating and learning with PLIX and this community enough, without getting a formal “certificate” or “badge” that says you did it?
Would it be easier to encourage your colleagues at other libraries to join if we had something more formal in place to offer them? (again, we’re not yet sure what is possible)
If you do like recognition of some kind, have you seen it done well elsewhere (in a non-PLIX PD program)?
Library Education Units (LEUs) seem to vary from state to state in the U.S.
For my current position, I am required to earn 50 LEUs every five years in order to recertify my public librarian certification in the state of Indiana. And of those 50 LEUs, 20 must be TLEUs or “technology related.” Basically 1 hour or any workshop lasting more than 30 minutes will count as 1 LEU. However, that workshop provider must be approved by my state in order for me to get the LEU to count towards my public librarian certification. If the workshop provider is not already pre-approved by my state, then I would need to request LEU approval for the workshop from my state library’s certification program director. To seek LEU approval from my state for attending a PLIX workshop, I would need a certificate of participation issued by PLIX that includes the following info:
-Workshop provider (PLIX)
-Workshop Title
-Name of attendee (Mr. Dave)
-Total hours or time length of workshop
-Date or date of workshop completion
Here is an example of a certificate of completion I received at a local library conference back in the day:
To be honest, the badges are totally new to me. I think they are a great way to quickly summarize and showcase achievements, skills, and ongoing professional development. They are perfect for a librarian’s (or anyone’s) portfolio website.
In Georgia we get continuing education credits for conferences, workshops, and webinars we attend. Like Dave I am require to get a certain number of credit hours for my Librarian certification, 10 credits every two years. We were also getting badges from the Georgia State Public Library Service, for certain online classes we took, but I think they did away with them because people just didn’t have time to keep up tracking how many badges they got and what the badges were for. I myself would rather get continuing education credits then a badge. While a badge does give me bragging rights upon completion of my work and is nice. The continuing education credit helps me to renew my certification every two years
Thanks! It may not have to be an either/or! We may be able to have certificate and a badge.
It’s good to know that we should begin with the simplest of all: documentation that you can use to submit to your state continuing education accreditation administrators, whoever that may be and whatever the process is in your state.
In Maryland, for public library Librarian or Library Associate certification, we have to complete at least 90 hours of approved continuing education every 5 years (within that 5-year window). In order to count, the activity must be at least 1 hour long and time is awarded for full half hour increments (minus breaks) beyond that.
