The potential use of Digital Badges in teaching and learning
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I used to think that digital badges are a waste of time. Until I read this week's readings. I had this notion because I have not encountered instances where the issue of digital badges actually increase learner engagement. But it started to make sense when I read the 'Design Principles for creating digital badges to support learning'. If educators are able to integrate the playful qualifies of gamified spaces and to illustrate the connectedness of badges within a system, I don't see why it cannot be used as a teaching and learning tool. This reminds me of adventure games, where players navigate through a series of challenges and collect coins and weapons along the way. More coins and upgrade of weapons indicate mastery. The quest roadmap also indicates how far the gamer has come, and how much more to go. All these can be applied using digital badges, where criteria to earn each badge (i.e., quest) is clearly stated, and how each badge is related to each other.
The problem is the difficulty of integration with the curriculum, especially when these badges will not be formally recognized as learning achievements when it comes to conferring diplomas. However, one way we can circumvent it is to use digital badges as part of awarding class participation points, something similar to what EME 6414 is doing. For example, learners must complete x number of badges to earn a participation score of n. If it is a short course/workshop, learners must complete a minimum number of x badges in order to certify attendance and completion. Of course, the next question would be what type of platform would be suitable to host such learning, especially if I am considering converting a 3-hour asynchronous course hosted in a typical LMS to be hosted entirely on a digital badge system. Afterall, all I need is to grade the learners as complete or incomplete. This would work well using digital badges. I wonder if the currently available platforms are able to support that?
That article does a great job explaining how they integrated digital badges to support learning and I agree that it's a kind of an adventure game. I see that you're raising some of the possible tensions when integrating such activities into formal learning processes and it might be one of the most challenging dynamic to work with.
ReplyDeleteHave you heard about badgr (https://info.badgr.com/ - from our tools page in Canvas)? Badgr has Canvas LMS integration and one can design badge activities based on modules. There're so many tutorials on the internet about badgr and how teachers integrate it into Canvas. And if you learn something new about it or if you see any potential with badgr and Canvas integration, keep us updated! :)
Thanks for introducing Badgr! I am going to check it out!
DeleteHi Sharon!
ReplyDeleteInterestingly, I did a project on gamification strategies in education during my 5442 module last semester and digital badges were one of the strategies that we looked into. Our survey findings revealed that digital badges do promote student engagement by creating a sense of achievement and fostering a sense of collaboration (rather than competitiveness) as it not employed as a finite resource. However, it also showed that this strategy was significantly more useful for students who were already motivated and wanted to participate and was limited in its ability to engage students who did not possess initial task interest. I am interested to know, in your experience, would you agree with the findings?
Hi Kelvyn, thank you for sharing the survey findings here. I definitely agree with you. Even as a learner myself, if the badges are not part of the grading criteria, I wouldn't even have done it. Opps. I learnt that we must have both extrinsic and intrinsic motivation in any learning activity (not just badges). Students must know the larger purpose or benefit of doing the activity (intrinsic), and they must also know what is the immediate outcome of doing it - will it be counted as part of the letter grades? (extrinsic)
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