Digital Badges

Goals and Outcomes

Outcomes

After completing this module, students will be able to:

• state the purpose of using digital badges
• describe the critical components of effective digital badges
• create digital badges in education or training setting
• describe the process of creating digital badges
• compare and contrast the techniques for creating digital badges

Overview of Digital Badging

The teaching and training world is changing fast. Today, more than ever, traditional modes of assessment often fail to capture the learning that happens everywhere and at every age. Digital badges are a powerful new tool for identifying and validating the rich array of people’s skills, knowledge, accomplishments, and competencies. Digital badges inspire new pathways to learning and connect learners to opportunities, resources, and one another. Nowadays, open digital badging makes it easy for anyone to issue, earn, and display badges across the web through an infrastructure that uses shared and open technical standards.

Digital badging represents the happy marriage of gamification and positive behavior recognition. Digital badging can be applied as a reward system in eLearning or professional development. A badge-based eLearning reward system is currently one of the most popular gamification strategies. Online learners have the opportunity to earn carefully crafted incentives to proudly display their accomplishments. Thus, they are more likely to engage with the eLearning content and perform at their very best. Same token, digital badging system makes professional development more engaging and interactive.

Review the following information regarding digital badges:

1. Overview of Digital Badging
2. Benefits of Digital Badging
3. eLearning’s Guide to Badges
4. Seven Lessons Learned from Implementing Micro-credentials

Now it is time to earn a digital badge. First, locate an online venue where you can earn a digital badge related to teaching and/or learning. The following indicate some of the choices that are out there:

1. Mozilla’s Open Badges
2. List of Badge Issuers
3. IBM
4. Microsoft
5. Khan Academy Badges
6. Digital Promise
7. Badgr

Second, complete the requirements and criteria for at least two selected badges. As you complete the badge, take informal notes on the process, criteria, tasks, and overall experience. These notes will be very helpful with the digital badge assignment.

Selected Readings

Required

• None

Assignments

1. Digital Badge Project

Please read the Digital Badge Project page for details about this assignment. Draft the final paper in a word document first, addressing three parts: badge displaying link, template and reflection. Then create a Weebly page to display the your paper. To submit your work, post URL of your Weebly page to the corresponding link under Submissions inside Moodle before 11:59 p.m. U.S. EST/EDT on the following Monday.

2. Project, Part 1: Analyze Learner

Please read the Project: Blended Learning Activity page for details about this assignment. Click here to read about ASSURE Model.

Due Dates

To guide you through the whole process, six parts aligned with the ASSURE model are created. The due date for each part is listed below.

• Project, Part 1: Analyze Learner (Due on the 1st day of Module 9)
• Project, Part 2: State Standards and Objectives (Due on the 1st day of Module 10)
• Project, Part 3: Select Strategies and Resources (Due on the 1st day of Module 11)
• Project, Part 4: Utilize Resources (Due on the 1st day of Module 14)
• Project, Part 5: Require Learner Participation (Due on the 1st day of Module 15)
• Project, Part 6: Evaluate and Revise (Due on the 1st Monday after Module 15)
  You can view the exact due dates on the Course Schedule page.