Show me your badges

Paul Treadwell @ptreadwell

November 2012

Im no boy scout.

WHAT ARE BADGES?

badges = visual representations of a skill or achievement

 Badges offer an alternative method to validate and accredit knowledge gained in non traditional contexts Badges can have granularity
Rewarding incremental skills growth with mini badges Cumulative badges can aggregate (and represent) major learning achievements and objectives

Badges represent knowledge gains that are certifiable

Each badge carries data about the learning Each badge carries information about the issuer

Why should we care?

Increasingly, badges are appearing on the web to indicate (or validate) achievements

Some represent fun or social achievements

But there is a move to use badges to represent milestones and achievements across a broad spectrum of learning environments

Badges for Lifelong Learning Competition

Community Organizations: 4-H

 Interest in badges is growing The diversity of badge issuers is increasing Without an open specification, and standard, evaluating badges becomes problematic
Think of it in terms of operating systems a windows app may not run on a mac How can I, as an evaluator, be sure that your badges are consistent in evaluation and value?
Validity Credibility Reliability

Trust, standards and openness

Establishing a valid infrastructure for badges

MOZILLA OPEN BADGE INITIATIVE

Open to scrutiny open badges

an open specification and APIs that provide any organization the basic building blocks they need to offer badges in a standard, interoperable manner.

The three participants in an open badge system

The badge infrastructure supports participation in the system by Issuers, Earners (or Learners) and Displayers.

Anatomy of an open badge

Metadata attached to a badge insures a reliable chain of trust by linking to evidence of learning, issuer and contact information.

Badges are collected from a variety of issuers

Badges can represent achievements, learning, skills development, interests and competencies garnered on or off-line. Badges could visually represent lifelong learning.

Once a badge is issued it is collected in a backpack.

The badge backpack can then feed a variety of display sites, allowing learners to present their achievements in a variety of contexts.

Moodle & Mahara

Work is underway to develop the infrastructure to allow Moodle to issue badges and Mahara to display them.

An example From Mozilla Webmaker

BADGE ASTRONOMY

Building digital literacies

Mozilla funded project to develop tools, projects and communities that can make the web.

Webmaker badges
Mini, cumulative and peer badges.

Badge constellations

 Badges have the potential to represent, validate and integrate, diverse and varied learning pathways.
This would require a fairly major shift in worldview for many players in the world of formal education
Issues of authority and control Issues of profit

I am skeptical that this will happen

But.lets talk about it.

Taking badges seriously

A few questions and concerns

 The Mozilla blog

https://blog.mozilla.org/

Erin Knight
http://erinknight.com/

Doug Belshaw
http://dougbelshaw.com/blog/

Jess Klein
http://jessicaklein.blogspot.gr/

Chloe Varelidi
http://chloeatplay.tumblr.com/post/29356744058/we-are-all-madeof-stars-designing-constellations-for

Carla Casilli
http://carlacasilli.wordpress.com/

Resources (or who I borrowed from to make this presentation)

Thanks to all for generous sharing.

Contact
Paul Treadwell
pt36@cornell.edu Paul.treadwell@gmail.com @ptreadwell http://www.paultreadwell.com

My diigo badges bookmarks list

http://www.diigo.com/list/ptreadwell/badges