We know you do an amazing job encouraging your TXGU’ers to be active in their school and community. Obviously, it’s important for personal growth—in addition to looking rather fantastic on a college application. One way to recognize all of their accomplishments in and out of school might be digital badges. Schools in Pittsburgh have been employing these electronic medallions, and so far it’s going great. What really gave this program wings was getting buy-in from the entire community.

A coordinated effort among local service organizations, youth workforce agencies, and the city’s Learn and Earn program has led to network of options for students to earn badges. After a group of educators determined the criteria for the awarding the tokens, kids were free to start scoring them. These portable awards can be achieved for anything from moments of brilliance in the classroom to recognition at internships and basically everything in between. So save those peel-and-stick gold stars for something really special and consider going digital for everything else.