Earning Badges in courses

The whole concept of earning Badges as the way to certify courses is interesting.  I just completed a course through UW Stout on Games and Learning.  The entire course was done through Badgestack (Learning Times).  As a learner,  the course work was designed as "quests".  After the learning was accomplished,  work uploaded, and reflections and discussions posted, a badge was awarded.  Learners had a choice in the badges they wished to pursue, but they needed 3 or 4 badges to "level" up to the next level.  The levels were warm-up, novice, and master.  Reward points were also needed to level up and they were earned through discussion with other students and nominations for badges.  Being the over achiever that I am, I finished the badges in three weeks rather than four......  I just couldn't stop.  Learning was fun. I wanted to earn more Badges.  At the end of the course I earned a real nice UW Stout Course Badge.  Sweet!

It is my goal to roll that concept out next year at iForward.  We are planning to bring the instructor from Stout to Grantsburg to train our teachers on how to use badging in their lesson design. Our hope is to make learning, more engaging, motivating, and lead the way as games become more a part of how we learn.

The text for the Game Design class at Stout was a good one that I highly recommend:  Reality is Broken, by Jane McGonigal.  It helped me to understand why gaming is so motivating...I will never think of video games the same way again.  She suggests that games are "happiness engines" that can make education more fulfilling, more engaging, and more productive. She has some good theory and research to support her claims. And, it worked on me..... and I am a savvy learner.

If you are interested in more about badging..... check out Digit!.... a badging project with New York City Transition Schools at http://badgestackproject.org/blog/digit-nycdoe/.  More about Badging to come....