In the past month or so, the topic of educational achievement badges has come up... a lot. It's such an interesting concept. The former elementary school teacher in me is screaming: it's the 21st century version of a sticker chart! The child in me is screaming: it's a 21st century scout badge!
So what do you get when you combine the structure and achievement of the sticker chart with the excitement of earning a Scout badge? Enter educational achievement badges. They're digital. They're cool. They inspire students to achieve. And they are easy to use.
But which ones are best for students and easiest for teachers? Here are the candidates:
Classbadges is designed specifically for K-12 education. Teachers set up an account to award customized badges to their class or entire school. Teachers can choose from over 100 ready-made badges or customize them to fit their lesson, unit, or theme. Award badges to track progress, recognize achievement, or assess mastery. And it's all FREE.
For everyone else (over the age of 13), there is Mozilla's Open Badges. This project aims to acknowledge that learning happens everywhere, Users must sign up for an account and then can decide to be an issuer, a displayer, or an earner. Badges earned can be collected (and displayed publicly if the user chooses to) in the Badge Backpack. FREE.
Badge Stack is a customizable badge program that can be integrated into your existing LMS and can even be integrated with Mozilla's Open Badges. Share badges with other instructors and even generate reports to track progress and measure growth.
Educational achievement badges are a great way to help students take charge of their own learning and measure progress. Can't help but think how helpful this would be to use throughout a STEM project....
