Skip to main content

You Get A Badge! You Get A Badge! Everyone Gets a Badge

 

This was iconic right! Most of us remember Oprah giving away a plethora of free stuff each year during her favorite things episode. As the show evolved she used this episode as a way to highlight people who had gone above and beyond. One episode was full of expectant mothers, another was full of teachers.


Not once did the world say wait a minute, what did each teacher do to deserve that car. They were just excited! When it comes to the idea of awarding digital badges many people see it through the "everyone gets a trophy" lens. I personally don't have a problem with everyone getting a trophy. For me it is about socioemotional health. The idea of recognizing all students is one that appeals to me. In today's education system, there are a large number of students who go through the day unnoticed. They do what you ask, when you ask, within the parameters that you have set. Digital badges will allow educators to acknowledge the accomplishments of those students. Why shouldn't the students who completes an assignment or meets a milestone be encouraged and recognized. 

Another benefit of digital badges is that it allows for flexibility when it comes to recognizes accomplishments. Because educators are able to design new badges, they can create badges surrounding new skills or ideas that come up during the course. If I notice that students are not reading enough of a particular genre, I could make a badge targeting that issue. 

As a whole I don't see it as everyone getting a trophy, instead I see badging as a way to encourage to continue working towards their learning goals. 


Horstman, T., Tierney, G., & Tzou, C. (2020). Design principles for creating digital badges to support learning. Information and Learning Sciences, 121(11/12), 889–907. https://doi.org/10.1108/ils-02-2020-0042

Labels:

Comments

  1. Lauren ShellJune 4, 2022 at 9:55 PM

    Yes! I was thinking about needing to make sure I wasn’t just giving out a badge for everything, but trying to make it meaningful. I love your comment that badging is a way to encourage students to keep working towards their learning goals!

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Three Is More Than One

  Umm, excuse me Governor Desantis but last year you said that you had a issue with standardized testing. I was like okay, this is a cause that I can get behind. The way we are currently using standardized test in the education system is abhorrent. In many cases these tests are the only measure of student and teacher success. Standardized tests don't allow us to celebrate the small wins. If a student read 2 books last year and 15 books this year, that's a win. If you learned to write your name in cursive, that's a win. If you know how to divide or understand fractions that's a win. I don't care what the test says. When did kids become standardized. My oldest daughter could read before she went to kindergarten. Her sister learned to read in kindergarten. My son could read when he was four. They all turned out just fine. Kids are not standardized.  I was excited to hear that we were doing away with the FSA. As an educator, I felt like someone was finally paying attent...
Post a Comment
Read more

Digital natives vs. digital fluency

I think digital natives are a real thing, but all digital natives are not fluent. The term native reminds me of the process that babies use to acquire language.  A person is said to be a native speaker when they grow up surrounded by the language that is "native" to them. They grow up hearing their parents use the language and that's how they develop their proficiency. Some kids grow up with an amazing vocabulary and some students enter school at a deficit. Digital literacy is the same. Some students grow up in households where they are surrounded by laptops, phones, reliable internet and online tools that are being used consistently and effectively. But some kids grow up in a house where they don't have those things, or where they don't see these tools put to effective use. Those students are, by definition, digital natives. But are they digitally fluent? Nope. Just because you know how to scroll through TikTok or Instagram, doesn't mean you can navigate onli...
4 comments
Read more

And Another One!!

  Step up to the plate Clay County Florida. A school board member in Clay County thinks that "disciplinary action" should be taken against people who allow books deemed "inappropriate". She goes on to blame librarians for allowing these books into schools. Umm, excuse me ma'am but are you under the impression that the librarian is superhuman. Do you think that they can magically read all of the books in the library and know which ones will offend some random person, at some random time, in the future?  This school board member goes on to explain that she has already identified 75 books containing "pornographic material" that should not be on shelves. They don't provide the list, that would encourage people to think for themselves and that is definitely not the goal. They do however offer some examples, three to be exact. I would have to assume that she choose the most egregious examples to prove her point. The first book is called "Julian is a...
1 comment
Read more