Lavado's LEARNING HUB

Badges aren't just for Girl and Boy Scouts anymore. They are a trending image that is awarded to a recipent who has shown extreme knowledge and skills in a certain area. The idea of earning a badge for being able to demonstrate knowledge, skills or abilities in a particular area sounds great, especially to be able to self-regulate, assess and create credibility in a more competitive world but not all badges that are earned and awarded can prove that the knowledge is attached to the visual image that represents what it claims. There are many knock off badges out there that people can claim which then can discredit the amount of time and effort a person puts into their actual badge work.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Mozilla Open Badges provides metadata attached to the badge image, including details about the information and mastery for the user. This type of credentialing needs to be universal for the idea and process of Digital Badges to really take off. Also the knowledge of what badges mean and the best practice to use them also needs some fine tuning. The only people that know about Digital Badges though are those who want to know about them, this information hasn’t quite swept the nation and unless the administration in buildings understands the fullest potential of these badges the approval to use badge work as professional development opportunities will be non-existent.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The idea of badges for student and teacher use to further their education in areas they they are interested in, is a great way to keep people motivated and have a sense of accomplishment. The people that are motivated to do this further learning on their own though probably are less intrigued by the badge and more enticed by the knowledge and skills then the materialistic badge unless in our society we start using the badges to identify credentials.

The acknowledgement of hard work and learning is not new, physical badges have been around through scouting programs as well as the idea of “leveling up” in certain video games where you complete a set task and then you move on to something harder. This model is truly the basis of how education is built but we are just providing new words and images to how we are recognizing knowledge. This “newness” is creating a more visual representation of knowledge rather than just a letter or number grade. I don’t mind the idea of badges either way but I think just like the rubrics we have to use at school there needs to be a skill set identified that clearly needs to be met before a badge can be awarded.