2020 #DTA: #VWEDU: The merit of badges: Define a useful skill set, specify a goal, give public recognition of skills.

The merit of badges:  
Define a useful skill set.
Specify a goal.
Recognize skills. 

Badges are sometimes thought of as deriving from gamification.  But they are widely used in more serious activities, though with different names.  And they may be used because they are thought of as motivators.  But, with proper design, they can serve other useful functions as well. This article is explicitly licensed Public Domain (CC0).

Goal seeking: a useful skill 

The naming of badges

• Merit badges
• The education system awards badges. 
• The Red Cross awards badges.
• They use other names: certifications, degrees, completing a grade.
• But they all require the same: demonstrate a specified skill set. 
• Badge is well suited to microlearning.
• A skill set is developed by practice and demonstrated by execution.
• Badge model of gamification
• Use-targeted learning plan for schools in digital worlds. Learners can pick the skills they need for the uses they intend. Gamified as a model

The badge system serves motivation and more

• It aims at a valuable skill set, such as First aid.
• It specifies the contents of that skill set.
• It specifies how to demonstrate the required skills.
• It can mark a step toward a larger goal (a set of badges).
• It is a short term goal that offers practice in goal-seeking.
• It encourages self-directed learning.
• It gives social recognition of learning achievement. 
• It reduces test anxiety, because learners take the test when they are ready. 
• And the "test" consists of demonstrating well practiced skills.

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Creating a badge system

Specify a useful skill set

• The skill set lets a person do something generally considered to be useful.
• Help frame up a house, get good grades in high school.
• The specification is much like a detailed job description

Specify each skill in the set

• In general, each skill has two parts: 
• being able to execute it and 
• knowing when and how to apply it to a specific circumstance
• The value of the specification is not in testing, 
• but in telling learners what skills they need to master.
• And how they must demonstrate those skills.

Example skill-sets for digital worlds

• OpenSim Traveller badge: Knowledge base. What you need to know to be a world traveller in SceneGate. Travelling the Hypergrid.
• Images for learning projects: Creative commons licenses. PBL: Project-based learning

The DTA could handle the details

• The Digital Teaching Assistant (DTA) for MUVES (virtual worlds): Summary

Badges sound to gamey?

• Then get pompous with microcredentials.
• Microcredentials (search)
• Professional Learning in a Pandemic
• Maybe that term works better for teachers.
• That probably looks better on a resume'.
• But it means the same thing.  
• I think the term "badges" is less likely to scare students.

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License

• Original text in this blog is CC By: unless specified public domain.
• Use as you please with attribution: link to the original.
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• Selby Evans in Kitely and Hypergrid, Thinkerer Melville in Second Life.