Badges Support

​Badges support capturing and translating the learning across contexts.

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Capturing of the Learning Path

With degrees or cumulative grades, much of the learning path is abstracted and lost. Badges could capture and explicitly represent more specified set of skills and qualities as they occur along the learning path, and could also track a broader, and perhaps more granular, set of skills.  So, when you encounter a good web developer or writer, you can look at their set of badges (and issue dates!) to determine the skills an aspiring web developer or writer should learn, and even perhaps in what order s/he should learn them.

 

Achievement Signaling

Badges can represent skills or achievements and thus signal peers or outside stakeholders, such as potential employers or institutions. For example, recruiters could look for people with badges that align with certain job requirements or needs.  In this way, badges start to function somewhat like degrees or certifications, but with room for much more granular or diverse skill representation while encouraging and motivating participation and learning outcomes.

 

Motivation

Badges can provide intrinsic feedback or serve as milestones or rewards throughout a course or learning experience to encourage continued engagement and retention. Badges could make learners aware of skills or topics and encourage them to go down new paths or to spend more time trying to develop those skills. Further, badges could serve as entry points to become aware of and attain new levels of privileges.

 

Supporting Innovation and Flexibility

Badges can be used to capture a wide range of skills, including those that are often missed or ignored by formal channels, or newer skills like digital literacies that evolve with the ever-changing society. Badges can give us 5 the flexibility to award innovation and recognize new skills as they emerge and gain relevance.

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