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Can I send you a digital badge?!?

I was taken with the idea of digital badges reading Weller (2020). I connected with the Second Life and Virtual Worlds which discussed gamification. Gamification is a fun thing to do as a parent for mundane tasks (timing yourself emptying the dishwasher, seeing how many things your kids can put away in 3 minutes, etc.) Professionally though, I feel like I don’t “gamify” learning enough. While perhaps a topic for another day, Alfie Kohn’s ideas feel engrained from my undergrad learning. I feel like he would see gamifying and point systems as an extrinsic reward which would then squash motivation for the more intrinsic nature of learning? These ideas seem to be at odds and might call for further exploration. Anyhow, the host of the Between the Chapters podcast, Laura Pasquini, proposes more opportunities for using point systems. When digital badges were brought up it seemed to nestle perfectly in with gamification and point systems. Additionally, it brought me back to the early days of Facebook as an undergrad, when in-app Facebook downloads were a trend, and my favourite one was called “Pieces of Flair” where you could add buttons of the things you liked to adorn your facebook profile. It also reminded me of my Girl Guide days, when I was given physical badges to represent the skills I had demonstrated. I began thinking of the myriad ways digital badges could be implemented into my professional work as a teacher, professional development instructor and teaching artist. Weller looked at digital badges as a way of earning credentials, chunking learning, acknowledging hidden work in academia, and gamification. I’d like to add that digital badges would have positive implications in accessibility goals, helping learners stay on track and build towards the accomplishment of a larger task or unit of study. In the spirit of that, and in the spirit of play, I created a digital badge to share with my LRNT 523 community! Please comment your email address below and I will send you the badge I created using Certifier. I used a graphic created from the remixer available from visual thinkery. Filling in the metadata of the badge felt like it was an excellent synthesis activity that could also hold potential for the upcoming post-secondary class I will be teaching in January. To preview the badge, you can click the following link –>> https://credsverse.com/credentials/6b2db285-34c2-4d0d-9c05-de0e3cb7cee7?preview=1

This Post Has 6 Comments

  1. Charmaine

    Hi Jenna,

    Thank you for this! This is a really great idea 🙂 My email address is: charmaine.clayton@royalroads.ca

    Warm regards,
    Charmaine

    1. Jenna

      I issued you your badge! Congratulations on your achievement of reading and engaging with 25 years of Ed Tech by Martin Weller! :p

    1. Jenna

      I issued you your badge! Congratulations on your achievement of reading and engaging with 25 years of Ed Tech by Martin Weller! :p

  2. Jenn

    Hi Jenna, I read the book! This is such a fun idea! Thanks for sharing with us!

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