Week 4 - About Badges

 One of the articles I read this week was Horstman et al's Design principles for creating digital badges to support learning. As I was reading the paper, which lays out principles of effective badge design by examining two badge systems, I was reminded of some of the badge systems I've encountered so far in my career. The most obvious is the badge system here in EME6414, the first in-class badge system in which I've participated. 

Another learning-based badge system is the one in which Florida early childhood and afterschool educators can participate. Through an informal pathway of professional development, educators can earn "stackable" micro-credentials which indicate completion of a smaller unit of professional development that can be part of a larger course of study. Sometimes those micro-credentials can qualify for college credit. The courses I write at my center are part of those micro-credential options for educators. 

Horstman et al.'s paper brought this educator's informal pathway to my mind as soon as they mentioned "micro-credential" on page 890. I immediately made the connection between the two concepts. Some of the other articles I read, Gasevic's An Approach to Folksonomy-Based Ontology Maintenance for Learning Environments and Petrucco's Learning about evaluation and assessment: teacher’s use of folksonomies and ontologies in an online narrative environment both talk about the need for a common, agreed-upon language in the field of educational sciences, and this is an instance in which two very similar terms are floating around right by each other. Whether you call them badges or micro-credentials, the point is that they must be used in a manner that is meaningful for participants for them to have any value. 

For the educators, the value in the micro-credentials is that they have the possibility of qualifying for college credit. In the case studies in Horstman paper, the value is the same. In all situations, participants are engaging in actual practices of the community. The design of all of them are a bit different, but the intention is the same. I like the idea of small, chunkable achievements that build up to an overarching goal. Sometimes, a big project or a lofty goal can seem like a mountain to climb. I think most learners appreciate breaking up work into smaller pieces. This may be especially true for learners who are used to gaming. Gamification and "gamefulness" has allowed that philosophy of rewarding small achievements to work effectively in learning environments. It's a trend that I hope continues and to which I can contribute.