Digital Badges/Microcredentials
This week I decided to read and blog about digital badges also known as microcredentials. I have very little prior experience with using badges and thought this was a great opportunity to learn more about them. Once I started reading about digital badges I realized that it was a lot of information, I have decided to focus on three main topics including a description of digital badges, motivation and personalization.
Digital badges or microcredentials are online depictions of learning, they highlight learners accomplishments and skills according to Gamrat, C., & Zimmerman, H. (2015) the implementation of using badges to track educational milestones for adults and children is still in the early stages. One of the benefits is that students are able to work at their own pace. Badges can be used to track participation or to show that someone has mastered a skill. Digital badges or microcredentials are shown as graphics or icons on the screen. IXL uses badges to motivate students to complete a certain number of problems or a certain number of skills in a category to have a badge appear for them. When a teacher access the student’s account they can look to see how the student is doing. From my experience with IXL math these badges motivate young elementary students to complete more problems and sections in order to unlock badges.
Digital badges allow learning to be more personalized since learners are deciding what they want to learn they are more invested in what they are learning. Having different formats available for learners also helps make sure that all learner have many options. According to Gamrat, C., Zimmerman, H. T., Dudek, J., & Peck, K. (2014) digital badges allow learners to create their own learning path by choosing what they want to work on to meet educational goals. These badges usually have levels of participation allowing learners to decide what they want to work on and what level they want to be involved in their learning.
Motivating learners can always be hard especially at the K-12 level. Often younger learners are not motivated internally as much as they are externally. I think this is one of the reasons that teachers of younger students almost always have a tangible rewards system setup for students. As stated by Davis, K., & Singh, S. (2015) both internal and external motivation play roles in supporting meaningful learning activities. As with any type of motivation being used with students digital badges may not motivate all students but I think they will motivate many.
The use of digital badges is still in the early stages and more research is needed. I think in the future digital badges will be able to be used to motivate all learners and keep track of educational learning accomplishments. Earlier I discussed my limited experience with digital badges and I am wondering what if any experience my readers have with them? Do you think they motivate learners? Do you think that personalizing learning is a good idea?
Badging: Gamrat, C., Zimmerman, H. T., Dudek, J., & Peck, K. (2014). Personalized workplace learning: An exploratory study on digital badging within a teacher professional development program. (pages 1136-1148).
Badging: Gamrat, C., & Zimmerman, H. (2015). An Online Badging System Supporting Educators’ STEM Learning. In D. Hickey, J. Jovanović, S. Lonn, & J. E. Willis (Eds.), Proceedings of the 2nd International Workshop on Open Badges in Education co-located with the 5th International Learning Analytics and Knowledge Conference (LAK 2015)(pp. 12–23). Poughkeepsie: CEUR Workshop Proceedings.
Badging: Davis, K., & Singh, S. (2015). Digital Badges in Afterschool Learning: Documenting the Perspectives and Experiences of Students and Educators. Computers & Education, 88, 72-83.
Elizabeth, I too focused my readings on digital badging this week. I have some experience with digital badges. As a fitbit user, I receive badges when I reach my 10k steps or other milestones. I would say it’s somewhat of a motivator as I like the feeling of accomplishment but it if it wasn’t something that was already intrinsically important to me I’m not so sure.
I also have some professional experience with digital badges. I’m currently in the 3rd week of launching a new online member community for a client. This platform allows members to share, discuss and contribute topics that are important to them and the field. We give digital badges for outside accomplishments (such as credentials earned, volunteer positions, etc.) and also for contributions on the platform. When someone reaches 1000 contribution points, they receive a bronze contributor badge. At first we didn’t see much interest in it but there are some members that have noticed and have already asked how they get those badges. We also included a tab in their profile that shows the badges available to earn, I think that peaks their interest.
I’ve managed educational conferences for years and while not “digital” the ribbons that attendees attach to their badge are very similar. Personally, I hate them – they are a pain to administer but conference goers take them VERY seriously. I think they really like the recognition of their accomplishments and the opportunity to show them off to colleagues.
For adults, I think the motivation factor will vary greatly depending on the person. For children, I see a lot of potential for motivation.
With digital badges, as with any change in credentials, there will be some time before they will be able to gain much traction in being recognized as anything beyond a trophy on a specific website. Despite this, I think that if they can be utilized there could be great strides in personalization of learning. While personalized learning could make it difficult to arrive at a grade, it definitely gains more individual learning through the student’s intrinsic motivation. As we have all seen, a motivated and engaged student will make greater strides in a skill than an unmotivated one. So, by picking up on what interests them, the individual could potentially increase learning by many fold as compared to one locked into a certain pre-specified learning path. This however would not be without its struggles and pitfalls. All of the individualization would still have to be aimed at reaching a specific end goal, with the path being the differentiation. This feels like it would create a lot more work for the teacher. Then there would also be questions raised about how you could compile a grade within this style of learning and how it may or may not help improve standardized testing scores.
So my overall feel is that, given that badges are to show mastery or levels of it within a specific topic, these micro-credentials have a great deal of potential and could open up different possible paths of learning.
I also read the article about digital badging in professional development. After reading these articles and your post, I feel like I’m still a bit confused about digital badging. I don’t think I’ve used any programs that use it as a motivator, but I can definitely see how kids would LOVE that. We do XtraMath, and they get really excited when I print a certificate for them…so I’m sure they’d be thrilled to receive new badges. However, I wonder if there are methods to show off their badges, because I’m sure students would want to show off their accomplishments. Now that I’m thinking about it, I feel like when I used Khan Academy last year they may have used badges, but I’m not 100% sure. I do think they could be motivating. As a teacher, I would feel bits of success when I completed a badge…but it would be more like crossing something off a checklist kind of good feeling, not like the actual digital badge made me more excited or willing to do the task. I definitely think personalized learning is a good thing (I mean, that’s what we’re taught to do with differentiation), so in that sense, I think it’s great when students or teachers have choices on what badges they can earn.