Digital Badges

Week Ten Discussions

Please use the forum to post your thoughts this week on Digital badges. Remember to access the readings first and any external content that may help you with the development of understanding. Please feel free to be as critical as you like.

I love digital badges!  Maybe it’s the Girl Scout in me or that I like the idea of badges but they are so fun!!  Mozilla Open Badges project has opened a door for digital recognition for completion of a task or skill (Ferdig and Pytash).  They show off your learning in a way.  They are great for teachers who seems don’t always get the credit for working on professional development or project.  What makes them great is they are individualized.  As part of our MOOC last semester we were able to earn five digital badges, each of us was able to create something that was individual to our grade our content area.  As a Kindergarten teacher my lessons were different than the Middle School or High School teachers but we able to earn the badge based on what would work for our students.  It’s a way to differentiate for teachers and their learning not just students learning.  It’s fun assessment tool as well, knowing that you were able to complete specific tasks to earn a badge also rewarding.  I also proudly printed out my badges for my students to see.  They thought it was so cool that I could earn all of these badges for being a teacher.  During indoor recess making badges also became some of my students thing to do!

The Randall, et al. article goes on explain the history of digital badges.  Digital badges are the modern day form of physical badges.  Similar to physical badges the Digital Backpack allows a person to display their badges to colleagues, potential employers, and other members of the community.  What is also great about badges is learners are able to complete the work at their own pace and earn badges along the way.  It also gives the learner ownership of their learning because they have earned them.  When earning badges with Mozilla different concepts award different badge and then form their own constellation.  How cool is that?  It’s like a learner’s own personal set of stars!  Of course the digital badging system hasn’t been perfected but it’s still new.  Overtime I’m hoping that digital badges will create a life of their own and maybe I can be known as a digital badge trailblazer!

Digital Badge Constellation