I feel a little late to this conversation.
The idea of using digital badging is not new. For the last several years I have seen blog posts on the topic, and at online learning conferences seen speakers talk to the possibilities of using badging in education. It is a conversation that I have not given a lot of attention. It seemed to be one driven by digitally passionate teachers in select schools, and did not seem to be growing. It also seemed one more focused at post-secondary than in K-12. And from a cursory look, I thought we might really be talking about digital ribbons and trophies – and I didn’t think we needed those.
As a background, Erin Fields describes these next generation of Girl Guides or Boy Scout badges in the world of education as:
Badges are a digital representation of a skill, behaviour, knowledge, ability or participation in an experience. What makes this digital symbol unique is the attached metadata. The metadata of a badge is “baked-in”. The “baking-in” process allows issuers to provide information about why the badge was earned that is then attached to the badge image. This information, or metadata, attached to the badge will include the criteria for earning the badge, the issuing organization, and evidence of earning.
I found it interesting that Digital Badging made the front cover of last month’s School Administrator Magazine – a magazine targeted at Superintendents and other district leaders across North America. The cover story was written by Sheryl Grant, the director of alternative credentials and badge research at HASTAC at Duke University. She argued:
Kids today build their reputations in a much different world. They move seamlessly between offline and online networks, some with dozens of virtual peers who share similar interests, often spending hours together as they learn and share new skills. They create websites, produce movies and play video games where they earn badges and have followers and friends they may never meet face-to-face.
In the same issue of School Administrator, Amanda Rose Fuller from Aurora Public Schools in Colorado wrote about badges as micro-credentialing and as a way to expand access to post-secondary workforce readiness credentials to all students. She said:
The digital badging program has supported many students throughout their academic journey by providing credentials to open doors. As students develop 21-century skills such as collaboration, critical thinking, invention, information literacy and self-direction inside and outside the classroom, they have the capacity to earn evidence-based credentials.
It is with some of this recent reading that timing was interesting, as this past Friday I was asked to be a speaker and “Instigator” at the BC Open Badges Forum – which featured a cross section of people ranging from curious to passionate in the use of badges throughout education and outside of education in “the real world.” The notes from the day (HERE) and the conversation at #BadgeBC on Twitter are both useful to see the thinking of the group.
As I often have written, it is an exciting time in K-12 education in BC, and one of change. We have revised curriculum from K-12 which focuses on big ideas and is less about minutia that dominated curriculum in the past, there is a commitment to core competencies throughout the system, including having students self-reflect, there are districts looking at new ways of communicating student learning to students and parents, and notions like capstone projects or passion projects are becoming more the norm in both elementary and secondary schools. There is also a genuine commitment from those inside the K-12 system to find better ways of recognizing the amazing learning that students do outside of school, but is part of the package of their learning.
It is in this context that I wonder about the place of open badging and the opportunities going forward. I don’t think a collection of badges is going to replace a traditional report card or transcript, but I do think there are possibilities that if our learning partners like the library, community centres, museums, sports clubs and others looked at badging as a way to share what students have done, we could find a way to recognize it inside our system. I know our very forward thinking public library, the West Vancouver Memorial Library, is already beginning to think about this. We want students to have portfolios that are rich in information from their school experience but also their larger learning experience, and maybe badges have a role to play.
We have long found ways to give “credit” for students who reach a certain level of Piano, or make a Provincial Soccer Team, or earn a trades credential – but there are so many other areas that are part of learning but marginalized as part of a student’s learning record.
Two months ago, if asked I would have said digital badging in K-12 felt like a bit of a fad, and maybe something for a very small small group of teachers and students. My thinking is shifting. If those working with youth can begin to create micro-credentialing in the digital world, and do so in an open-source way that allowed others to do the same, I think we could begin to find meaningful ways of including it in our work.
I am curious to hear the experiences of others in the badging world.
Two of my grandchildren are in Air Cadets. I was never a fan of military cadets until I began to see the potential for life changing experiences in these two girls.
The youngest girl, currently in grade 9, won the Alberta age group championship in biathlon a few weeks ago and is off to Quebec for Nationals next month. She is ‘over the moon’ excited. However what I found interesting as she talked to us was the fact that she will receive her next level badge in athletics for cadets. I was surprised so probed: why is the badge important to you? She talked about receiving recognition for all the hours of training – effort, skill development etc. What will stick with me though is her comment: “I did it Nana and Papa and I will always have the proof that I worked hard and it paid off”. I have not heard any of my grandchildren talk about their marks and grades this way and they are all A and B students.
The middle granddaughter, soon to be 17, is not in cadets. She is ‘online’ – writing stories with others around the world. I will call her tonight to see what she thinks about digital badging. I suspect she and the thousands of people who participate in this work have ways of ‘badging’.
Feedback is nature’s plan for survival and growth. The human brain has a small organ (anterior cingulate) that lights up in one place when we want to know how we are doing. Badges satisfy this need. As Erin Fields noted, with the presentation of badges comes a description and explanation of ‘why’. Marks and grades are largely for parents. In my opinion, the people who do the work need more than a mark on a report card to remain motivated.
Thanks Susan what a great story about the power of badging. I was having a conversation with a friend who told similar story about their child and badges for swimming. They were receiving badges for clearly measurable skills and they knew exactly what they needed to do to earn the next badge. I wonder if some of us (at least me) struggle with the idea of digital badging because we haven’t done it ourselves. Since publishing this post I have learned more about staff working towards digital badges, and like so many other things in education there may be real power in the modeling that the adults can do for the students.
Thanks for being such a regular, thoughtful contributor to these conversations.
Thanks for your thoughtful post, Chris. As an organizer of BC Open Badges Forum, I can say that we were hoping to spark just this kind of thinking.
Unfortunately, the School Administrator magazine article is behind a subscription wall, but Sheryl Grant also recently wrote this piece, which likely overlaps:
Promising Practices of Open Credentials: Five Years of Progress
https://www.academia.edu/31173947/Promising_Practices_of_Open_Credentials_Five_Years_of_Progress
Also, I’m not sure if anyone is going to ISTE this year, but this event is taking place just ahead of it:
2017 Badge Summit
An exploration of micro-Credentials, access & equity
June 24, 2017 San Antonio, TX
http://badgesummit.weebly.com/
If it’s anything like the one last year in Denver, there should be lots of digital badge stories in K12 and beyond, such as the Aurora PS one you mention.
Thanks Don for the excellent session, and for helping to continue this conversation. It is interesting how much curiosity this post in generating online and offline. There are clearly a lot of people interested in learning what others are doing in K-12 in this field. Thanks for sharing the additional resources as well.
Such a timely post! I have been thinking a lot about badging too, but more for the perspective of Teacher mico-credentialing, and as a way to personalize ProD. I think as the concept of competency based learning becomes more prevalent, as educators we need to model what that can look like in our professional work. I really like the approach of Denton School’s instructional Technology department,
https://sites.google.com/a/g.dentonisd.org/denton-isd-instructional-technology-badges/home
and have been building a site based on this model, for SD 27. I have had buy in from the teacher’s and schools I work most closely with, but resistance at the hight levels as an adoption model for the district.
Hi Isabella, based on what I’ve seen elsewhere, starting badging with teachers is good strategy and the Denton example is interesting.
I have a couple of questions: does a human evaluate the form and issue the badge? Are your badges aligned to ProD frameworks for BC? Do you know if they are they Open Badges, ie portable from one system to another? OK, that was 3 questions.
Hi Chris, I am a retired Principal but continue to follow the conversations of colleagues in the craft. Your blog is a regular read for me particularly because you are so engaged with learning and frequently comment on educational technology, a passion of mine as well.
The badging issue is fascinating to me because it offers so much more than evaluation but isn’t summative in the sense of accreditation. Susan’s two grandchildren are a good example of why this might really be an important tool for not just educators but many other organized or informal groups. Recognition of our efforts to learn and to become better at whatever we strive for is important. We are always developing, always becoming or as Bob Dylan would say ‘He who is not busy being born, is busy dying’. ‘Badges’ is the word we use as a metaphor in the digital realm for recognition.
I don’t know if you follow Doug Belshaw’s blog Thought Shrapnel but he writes about Badges a lot. See also https://openbadges.org
cheers
Graham
Thanks Graham. I wonder if one of my challenges is that I was getting stuck on the word “badge” – something that I relate more to rewards like ribbons and trophies. Thanks for the link to Doug’s blog – I hadn’t seen it before.
I also wonder if the lack of a common standard is one of the real current challenges. Would a student (or anyone) want to invest all their efforts in a particular format only to find out they were in Friendster was everyone else was in Facebook. I see that as a real challenge and opportunity for open badges.
Hi, Chris, and thanks for writing such an interesting piece. I’ve been an ed tech consultant for ten years, and that experience has led me to the conclusion that a simple micro-credentials platform could be useful in all kinds of educational contexts. So I’ve built one, and am now in the process of launching it. It’s designed to be super-simple for both the learner and the teacher, to handle any kind of learning material and to be accessible anywhere, anytime and on any device. I’d be happy to show it to you anytime to get your feedback and advice: if you’re interested, drop me a line on http://scr.im/eitc . I’m travelling for much of the next month, but will get back to you as soon as I can.
Hi, Don. For my purposes, yes, I would be evaluating the form, and issuing the badges. I have been building them in Google Draw, so I can give them out electronically, and printed off as a hard copy sticker. I’m not aware of any ProD frameworks for BC. Someone feel free to correct me on that point! I am doing this small scale, with the teachers in schools I service, and the feedback has been positive. It’s nice to see the stickers showing up on people’s lap tops etc, around the district and to hear the chatter around them. I would love to see if the model would work on a district role out scale, but as I mentioned, I haven’t been able to convince the powers that be that this would be a model worth investigating. 😦
You may be interested to read what Baden Powell said about badges (he started them…)
“Proficiency Badges are established with a view to developing in each lad the taste for hobbies or handicrafts, one of which may ultimately give him a career and not leave him hopeless and helpless on going out into the world.
The Badges are merely intended as an encouragement to a boy to take up a hobby or occupation and to make some sort of progress in it; they are a sign to an outsider that he has done so; they are, not intended to signify that he is a master in the craft he is tested in.
The examination for Badges is not competitive, but just a test for the individual. The Scoutmaster and the examiner must therefore work in close harmony, judging each individual case on its merits, and discriminating where to be generous and where to tighten up.
Some are inclined to insist that their Scouts should be firstrate before they can get a Badge. That is very right, in theory; you get a few boys pretty proficient in this way — but our object is to get all the boys interested. The Scoutmaster who puts his boys at an easy fence to begin with will find them jumping with confidence and keenness, whereas if he gives them an upstanding stone wall to begin, it makes them strong.
At the same time, we do not recommend the other extreme, namely, that of almost giving away the Badges on very slight knowledge of the subjects. It is a matter where examiners should use their sense and discretion, keeping the main aim in view.
There is always the danger of Badge-hunting supplanting Badge-earning. Our aim is to make boys into smiling, sensible, self-effacing, hardworking citizens, instead of showy, self-indulgent boys. The Scoutmaster must be on the alert to check Badge- hunting and to realise which is the Badge-hunter and which is the keen and earnest worker.”
– Aids to Scoutmastership
He saw badges as a way of stimulating interest in a subject, not as a way of recognizing mastery of it.
[…] So What About Badges? | […]
Hi Chris,
Thanks for this Baden-Powell quote… I love it. It’s a great plea for the engagement side of badges.
But I think there’s room for both formative engagement and summative recognition, especially for badge earners with education and career goals and badge consumers selecting candidates. I think the point is not to get the two confused with each other.
The origin story of the Boy Scouts is fascinating: they’re apparently inspired by the Mafeking Cadets, a cadre of boys used as message runners during the siege of Mafeking in the Boer War. Baden-Powell was the British commander during the siege of Mafeking. He was impressed by the cadets and wrote of them in the opening pages of his 1908 book, Scouting for Boys.
So, in effect, the Boy Scouts were inspired by a para-military group and adopting badges was a natural result of the military roots. I have a slide about this that I didn’t include in my presentation in the BC Open Badges Forum.
[…] So What About Badges? […]
[…] be replicated for students in school who collect their own learning NFTs. I wrote a few years ago about digital badges and the NFT seems like the logical next step in creating a modern trophy case of your […]