Badge Submission Guidelines

To ensure your badges get approved, please follow the guidelines listed below.

1. A good rule of thumb: would you approve this if your students submitted the evidence? If the answer is yes, you are more than likely good to go. If the answer is no, then we probably won't be able to approve it for you. Please ensure all submissions are free from offensive or discriminatory language or content. Remember, your resources are being reviewed by our team from diverse backgrounds.  
    
2. Make sure you are the creator of the tool/resource/presentation. You are welcome and encouraged to collaborate with colleagues on developing your classroom resources, but please make sure you are the actual creator of the resource you are submitting for evidence on a badge.
    
3. Your tool/resource/presentation should be created within the current school year. For example, if you created a Kahoot! game two years ago, you will need to create and use a new game in Kahoot! during the current school year in order to earn the Kahoot! badge and points.
    
4. We cannot accept any expired certifications or award points for certifications/presentations earned more than one year ago. For example, if you previously earned your Google Educator Certification, and it has since expired, we cannot accept it as evidence (this would also be older than a year). You would need to get re-certified to earn the associated badge. Additionally, if you earned a certification that is still current, but you initially earned it over one year ago, we will not be able to award points. If your certification does not expire (example, Apple Teacher), but you earned it over one year ago, we will not be able to award points in Edge•U, but you will receive the badge to acknowledge your accomplishment. Lastly, any level of presentation (state, district, national) must be presented within the current school year to be awarded points.
    
5. To the best of your ability, please submit an actual instructional resource that you have (or plan to) use in an educational setting. The goal of your work in Edge•U is to impact student learning, not to just check off a box. 
    
   • If you are in a supporting position and do not have your own classroom, please include that information when submitting your badge, as well as a few sentences on how the tool will support classroom teachers and students, and how you will use what you have learned in your own role.
     
     
   • If you are a classroom teacher, but the task we are asking of you doesn't exactly fit with how you would use the tool/strategy with your unique students, please do what you think is best for your students and provide us with the context of why you adapted the task and how it impacted your students in the submission box.
      
   • If it is the summer, and there are no students to use the tool with, please create an instructional resource that you plan to use with students during the school year and include a few sentences about when and how you plan to use the tool with your evidence submission. For example, if you are completing a discussion board badge over the summer, please prepare a genuine discussion board that you can use with students during the school year OR utilize the tool with other staff members for the intended "use it" section practice and implementation; this practice with colleagues will give you a student's view of the process.
      
6. Each badge needs to have a unique evidence submission. For example, if completing the Google Forms and then the Google Forms Quiz badge, you will need to submit two separate Forms for your evidence, not the same quiz Form for both badges. This ensures that the points/hours we give are as accurate as possible since it accounts for time you spend creating an instructional resource. *Please note that ALL evidence should be submitted in English.*
    
7. When asked, please include a screenshot (see Screenshot Specialist badge), not a picture of the computer screen.
    
• You can attach image files for screenshots (.jpg and .png files) in addition to PDFs and Word document files when you submit your evidence.
• The submission box cannot be empty. Please add your name or "submission attached" in the box.
• Use the buttons below the Submission box to attach your files - you cannot copy/paste into the Submission box.
• If we ask for a screenshot or photo that would include students faces or names, please feel free to edit the photo to add an emoji over or blur out students faces and names. 
• Prior to the 2021-2022 school year, users added screenshots to a Google Doc and submitted the link to the Google Doc. If you prefer to submit your evidence this way, please feel free to do so. Just make sure your permissions are set so "anyone with the link can view" or shared directly with edgeu@forward-edge.net prior to submitting. 
  
  
8. AI is a tool to support your expertise and creativity, not a replacement for your unique insights and instructional efforts. AI can be valuable for giving you ideas, enhancing accuracy, checking content, improving overall quality, and especially for helping you differentiate instruction for students. However, it should not be used to create or write the primary source of evidence you submit. In particular, AI cannot reflect on experiences, and therefore, we will not accept any badge reflection evidence that has been written by AI. We encourage you to think about how AI can support your teaching, and cite the use of AI with your evidence submission when it is used (check out our AI badges to help you get started).