show me your badges

Show me your badgesPaul Treadwell @ptreadwell

November 2012

WHAT ARE BADGES?I’m no boy scout….

badges = visual representations of a skill or achievement

Why should we care?

• 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

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

Trust, standards and openness

• 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

MOZILLA OPEN BADGE INITIATIVEEstablishing a valid infrastructure for badges

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 systemThe badge infrastructure supports participation in the system by Issuers, Earners (or

Learners) and Displayers.

Anatomy of an open badgeMetadata 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.

BADGE ASTRONOMYAn example From Mozilla Webmaker

Building digital literaciesMozilla funded project to develop tools, projects and communities that can “make” the

web.

Webmaker badgesMini, cumulative and peer badges.

Badge constellations

Taking badges seriouslyA few questions and concerns

• 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….let’s talk about it.

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

Thanks to all for generous sharing.

• 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-made-of-stars-designing-constellations-for

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

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