Write a blog post about badges!

Gamification is a relatively new concept in education. It is something that we can use to motivate students and teachers to be their very best and to pursue extrinsic rewards with our badges. I have decided to try out gamification with the teachers at Mar Vista Academy because I think they will benefit from this type of professional development.
Badge List is a web based platform that allows users to create badges and to submit evidence to earn these badges. I have created a Badge List learning group for Mar Vista Academy teachers to learn about different technology tools that can better themselves and better their classroom practices. At the beginning of the 2015-2016 school year I will have approximately 30 badges available for teachers to earn.  These badges range from technology tools to iPad apps to classroom message. There’s even a badge for guest bloggers on this block. Teachers who are interested in earning a badge simply sign up for badge list, join the learning group, and click on the badge they are interested in earning. Users then submit evidence for each component of the batch. This evidence could be a link to a student product a written explanation, or a picture.
In the future I hope to expand badges to Google tools and for more advanced creation such as teachers creating their own tutorials.
I also will create badges for parents to learn about the different technology tools that we had at Mar Vista Academy. From feedback from parents they would prefer online trainings to in person sessions because online meets their busy scheduling needs. Badges for parents will include the different tools we use at school such as canvas and Jupiter, ways to manage technology at home, and sample student products.
Reflecting back on this badge creating process I have learned a lot for myself. One of the coolest things that I have gotten experience with is Google draw. Google draw is a simple way to create graphics and illustrations that is user-friendly and does not rely on a large skill set of programs such as Photoshop. For a graphic designing newbie such as myself Google draw was easy to learn and easy to use. I enjoyed creating each and every badge that you see in our Badge List learning group.

Check out our BadgeLIst learning group: 
1. Go to http://www.badgelist.com/mva-viking-teachers 
2. Sign up for BadgeList and join our learning group "MVA Viking Teachers"
3. Click on the badge “Badge Beginner”
4. Click on “Post Text” in the required evidence section and follow the instructions there
I will then review your evidence and award you the badge. 

Here are some sample badges you can earn: 
(images are inserted on the blog post)

In my last post, I noted how I had set myself the target of blogging every three weeks. So this one is early. But I’ve just achieved something, and I wanted to share it now!

I’ve taken a bit of a leap. Our school learner profile may well describe me as a ‘risk-taker’. Either way, I should get a merit sticker for my efforts I reckon!

An enforced lay off has given me the couple of hours I needed to do something I had been planning for a while; creating a ‘Badge System’. We set up a hashtag on Twitter for our school back in the Autumn term. It was inspired by the excellent #SISrocks hashtag and we called ours #BSJbytes. It has been ticking along nicely. Teachers share inspired moments of learning, links to pertinent articles, celebrations of achievement and observations from their daily experiences. We even used it as a backchannel during INSET days. It’s a great way to connect folk who are often physically separated on our fairly expansive campus.

http://www.visionair.nl/politiek-en-maatschappij/nederland/
openbadges-de-opvolger-van-universiteit-en-hogeschool/But to take it to the next level, I wanted to recognise those folk who contributed to our community. I’d heard about ‘Badges’ and it intrigued me as a way of giving people the little push of extrinsic motivation needed to get them involved. Mozilla has developed an ‘Open Badge’ platform for anyone to use as a recognised format to award people’s achievement. Visit the site to check it out.

http://kstreem.com/2015/02/badgelist/I have made use of Badgelist, a free community that allows you to easily set up a badge and create all the necessary elements to be able to award on to the Open Badge platform. It really is nowhere near a scary as it sounds. But it was definitely some new learning for me.

There are currently seven #BSJbadges that anyone can earn. Just create a Badgelist account, join the #BSJbytes Open Learning Group and upload your evidence. Boom! You’re in. You can add the badge to your Open Badge ‘Backpack’ and display it on your social media.

What more could you ask for??

Now the risk is, that nobody can be bothered to join in. But it is a risk I’m willing to take, after all, if it doesn’t take off, at least I have learnt that much!