Badges

badgeUW-Green Bay is, behind the scenes, considering implementing a badge system that would allow for students to more easily foreground the skills they acquire in classes in a way that transcripts don’t obviously present. How do I know this? Because it was my idea, and we’re going to pilot the concept of badging in this course, and Prof. Ryan Martin will also be doing so in one of his psychology courses.

In short, you will have the opportunity in this class to earn three to four badges, that you will then be able to document digitally on your Domain of One’s Own Site. What will these badges be?

1. Basic WordPress (this makes sense, given that you’ll be engaging so deeply in this with A Domain of One’s Own)

2. Basic Social Networking and Curation (this will connect to Project Suite #1)

3. Basic podcasting or presentation skills. (Depending on the project for Suite #6)

4. A self-proposed badge, possibly in: Basic Network Visualization, or Basic HTML/CSS

What does this mean and/or require?

  • Participation in the badge pilot is optional. Still, I’m asking for your help and want to show our administration that students want this and can do it, with ease. Also, since you are doing the work anyway, why not simply get the final feather that you can add to your digital portfolio? (More on that later.)
  • What are the criteria? I will be writing those up soon. Basically, the criteria will be a list of skills that you have to demonstrate.
  • How do you meet the criteria? I will create a short, self-contained assignment. If you meet/exceed the criteria, you receive the badge.
  • How will this be documented? We’ll discuss this in class, but I will create a document/certificate for you that is digital, portable, and can be produced physically.
  • What is the larger goal? For you to be able to foreground and discuss skills on your resumes and in interviews. For example, while your transcript might only say you took a course called “Major Prose,” you can shift the perspective to “In this course I worked with WordPress and site installation, as well as curating social media posts and visualizing them in networks.” Wow. See what I mean?

Offered Badges

Basic WordPress