One of the main draws towards my research this week into digital badging stems from my unknowing exposure with digital badging through video games I play for leisure.  When pondering developers’ thought processes and design considerations to increase motivation and bring players back, digital badging certainly fits the bill.  In two video games I play, the NBA 2K series and Apex Legends, digital badging is a prominent part of the games. Below, I’ll give a quick rundown of the badges presence and influence in these games.

In NBA 2K’s MyPlayer series, players begin as a novice with a poor overall rating.  The MyPlayer is designed to have a specific proclivity for dominance in different aspects of the game of basketball.  For example, a player chooses to be a shooter and desires to rain 3s from all over the court.  Different badges exist in order for a player to hone their skills as a shooter.  The badges, tied to specific skills, will help that player develop into a more consistent and reliable player with that shooting skillset.  Badges increase from no badge, bronze, silver, gold, and hall of fame.  The player must grind out challenges in order to earn XP points towards their badges.  Our customized shooter may be deadly from 3 point range, but wouldn’t stand a chance getting rebounds over a Hall of Fame Rebounder because they most likely won’t be equipped to excel with that ability.  The NBA 2K series has a enormous following with savvy players trying to create deadly combinations of elite badges to make their MyPlayer virtually unstoppable.  Other players can see the badges and cast judgement on other MyPlayers based on their badge status.

Apex Legends uses digital badges as a means of ranking similarly skilled players.  Similar to NBA 2K, the badges scale up based on ability levels.  The badges hierarchy is as follows: Broze, Silver, Gold, Platinum, Diamond, and Apex Predator.  Within each badge, there are sub-badges IV, III, II, I.  For example, a player must advance through Bronze IV, Bronze III, Bronze II, and then Bronze I to move onto Silver IV where the progression begins again.  During ranked play, players will be matched with similarly skilled opponents.

Interacting with these games paired with this week’s research regarding digital badging leads me to believe that the game designers knew exactly what they were doing when they decided to add these features to the game.  Davis and Singh’s article hits on a ton of aspects that correlate to these games and the badging progression within them.  The badges serve to “highlight intermediate phases as they [players] deepen their expertise” (p 74). The badging process is just that, a process.  Players must devote sufficient time, effort, and energy into earning the badges to deepen their expertise towards the matter. These badges also promote “longer-term engagement by supporting deepening levels of participation over time…” (p 74).  Both of the games highlighted above masterfully implement them in order to draw in large crowds who are itching to revisit the games time and time again to advance up the ranks.  Further, the badges are ways for users to “gain recognition from others…for their skills and achievements” (p. 73).

In my opinion, digital badging’s effectiveness in gaming and other settings is cause to believe that there could be similar successes of implementing them in the education world.  First Gamret et. al note “customization through technology-enhanced workplace learning is important to learner empowerment” (p 1139). Although the author is coming from a perspective of adult learners, I believe that digital badging could be beneficial to students of younger grades as well.  Schooling in the 21st century is moving more and more towards personalization and customization of curriculum where teachers are hyper-sensitive to the needs of each individual student.  By implementing some form of digital badging, students would be able to work through their own unique curriculum that is tailored to their needs, and are rewarded with these badges to show progression.  Another aspect of badging, which can double as a portfolio, is that they can “emphasize [student] successes rather than failures” (Davis & Singh, p 79).  Traditional grading highlights student failures, especially for those operating below grade level.  Digital badges celebrate and show success instead of punitive grades.  This week’s articles also cite learner agency as another aspect towards the use of digital badges.

Although digital badging seems like it could be influential in school settings, it does have certain drawbacks.  Mainly, the buy in for students and the logistics of implementation could prove to be challenging.  I can see a viewpoint where digital badges lose their luster.  Popular token or sticker economies in school lose their value after students realize it’s just a sticker. Will these stickers be viewed as an authentic means of representation towards what a student knows and is capable of?  Does badging nudge students in the right direction to take control over their learning trajectory, or is it another way for districts to seize control over students for compliance?  Will students show more motivation to earn badges than grades on a report card?

The study of digital badging is still in its infancy, but I believe the concept does show some promising trends towards mainstream implementation, but it won’t come without its fair share of challenges.  Video games, teacher learning journeys through professional development, afterschool programs, and other arenas have shown promising results for the use of digital badging. I’ll be paying much closer attention to how digital badges are being used and implemented for online learning programs.

REFERENCES:

Davis, K., & Singh, S. (2015). Digital badges in afterschool learning: Documenting the perspectives and experiences of students and educators. Computers & Education, 88, 72–83.

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).

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. British Journal of Educational Technology, 1136–1148.