Badging

Badges are “digital credentials that represent an individual’s skills, interests, and achievements.” Badging has emerged as a trend in professional learning, as it values the accomplishment and not the learning. This means that it doesn’t matter whether a teacher learned a new skill by attending a PD session, going to an Edcamp, reading a book, or experimenting to figure it out, they are earning credit for the demonstration of competency in a skill. While anybody can issue badges, the Open Badges standard allows for badges to be created in such a way that they are both machine readable and transferrable across systems. Badging requires an ecosystem to succeed, with the following players:

• Educators and others who earn badges.
• Professional learning providers and others who will issue badges.
• School districts and other employers who will consume a badge as evidence of competency.

Badges also should be able to convey a value - typically this has been translation to continuing education hours (CEUs), but can be as straightforward as validating that a user has the skill that the badge claims. Badges should also be designed in such a way that they are portable and an earner can take the badges with them across providers and across consumers. Finally, badges should be stackable, in that a badge should be able to combined with other badges to show a portfolio of learning. Badges are also personalized such that a user can choose both which badges to earn and how they want to demonstrate the competency required by the badge.

Micro-credentials are a form of badges that specifically focus on educator competencies. Micro-credentials are grounded in research and best practice that can be scaled to a variety of audiences. Micro-credentials will typically require an educator to reflect on a professional practice to define it, show evidence of successful application in practice, and then complete a reflection. The submission is then reviewed by a grader, and either feedback is provided if a teacher needs to resubmit or the badge is issued. This process has gone through revision and validation over the years, with Digital Promise, Bloomboard, and the Friday institute leading the work in the field. Micro-credentials generally follow a similar format - the micro-credential shares background research and then presents a series of questions with a scoring rubric. A collection of similar micro-credentials can translate into a stack which is like a “super credential” that is earned when every micro-credential in the stack is earned. Forbes has a good article on mistakes people make when creating a badging ecosystem. Some districts choose to store their own micro-credentials or use a tool like a Google Sites. Other platforms like Digital Promise and Bloomboard allow teachers and schools to pay for access and scoring for badges.

Gamification

Badges are derived from the principles of gamification. Gamification is the application of the principles of gaming to other contexts. These principles are designed to promote engagement, choice, efficiency, and allow for personalization. This may include several elements including:

• Avatars, or virtual representations of a person within the gaming environment
• Points earned by accomplishing specific tasks
• Leaderboards
• Badges that demonstrate accomplishments within a quest or activity
• Meaningful stories that provide context behind the activity that a user is engaging in
• “Quests” where users complete a specific set of tasks in order to unlock a badge or achievement
• Teams that need to work together to complete specific quests
• Competition between individuals and between teams

A game-based activity doesn’t have to include all elements, but typically will always include a quest and some type of achievement that can be unlocked. Games can exist as actual games in a gaming environment (i.e. Serious Games) or may simply use the design principles of gaming in another way. In eLearning contexts, game based learning can promote higher engagement in self-paced contexts and can also be used in the classroom and for assessment.

In professional learning, gaming can be explicit game-based learning quests, such as the EPIC Academy in Surry County, or a choice board with some element of competition, points, and other elements of gamification.