Week 4: Badges Continued

Another week, another thought on badges..

While I was excited to receive a badge in week 3 and even nominated someone for a badge, I am still wondering if there is any real intrinsic motivation for me to obtain a badge, or others for that matter. In an effort to utilize some tools from class and work cross purposes, I found another post/article/reference about badges on LinkedIn. What are the benefits and challenges of using digital badges to recognize volunteer learning? 

What I appreciated about this discussion was the breakdown of how digital badges can effect specific areas, they highlight: 
  • quality and credibility
  • engagement and retention
  • technology and accessibility
  • flexibility and diversity
  • and of course - motivation and recognition
This is an easy 3 minute read for anyone interested. What I knew before but was reminded in this, was that badges can provide validation and some people need that validation, but it is up to individuals on whether  that can be truly motivating or not. 

For me, still to be determined..

Comments

  1. MarionJune 7, 2023 at 11:38 AM

    Though badges are triggering serious reflections in my institutions, I did not give them a lot of thoughts until now. I must admit that, due to my lack of knowledge, I considered them a bit as "superficial awards" that had no real value on the job market.
    However, starting to read about badges made me ask some colleagues why badges were a hot topic at work at the moment. It appeared that the "trend" mainly came up from students asking teachers how to value their time spent within the institution more effectively. Overall, students often feel that what they learn during their 3 years in college is not of great help to survive and thrive as professionals. Which led to the badges.
    On one hand, implementing badges is a great idea because they will answer a direct need of students and thus might check the "engagement" criterion. On the other hand, before implementing badges, teachers should ask themselves why students feel what they learn in college is not perceived as helpful and relevant in the first place. Finally, in the specific case of my institution, we might also consider implementing badges as an instructional strategy within the core curriculum of students, and not think that badges are just here to fill in "instructional gaps".

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  2. Double MJune 9, 2023 at 2:47 PM

    I would tend to agree that it depends on the person, but I'd also add that the environment or context in which badges are used can also play a factor. For example, I was excited to get the "blog badge." Additionally, when it was mentioned that the social butterfly challenge came with a badge I quickly completed the challenge. Not sure if I would've done the challenge if I wasn't being rewarded with the badge. I probably would've opted for writing something else on my blog. Although I see it as a reward system, I am also using it as a way to push me out of my comfort zone and become more active on various sm sites and apps.

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