Tuesday, November 27, 2012

A simple three badge system design

I am facilitating a two week seminar series on digital badges and one of the participants suggested issuing badges for the series. Well that seems like a no-brainer, particularly if I build out the badge development as a part of the seminar series. I see value in proposing what I see as the three badge system design and grow the discussion from there. So these are the three badges I am considering issuing, and the basic criteria for earning each badge;
  1. Learner badge - person introduces themselves to the group via the discussion forum and contributes to a couple of discussion threads. Mostly, they could be considered lurkers (much can be learned through lurking)
  2. Participant badge - person introduces themselves to the group via the discussion forum and actively contributes to 7 of the 12 primary discussion threads, also participates in one of the two lunch-and-learn sessions.
  3. Contributor badge - does everything the participant does with the addition of contributing;
    • by designing badge images
    • creating a badge system design for another curriculum
    • blogs about their participation in this seminar series
    • other creative endeavours regarding digital badges
So depending on a persons engagement they will earn a badge. And this recognizes whether a person just "shows-up" or engages deeply. It allows the learner to determine their amount of engagement, and still honors their effort.