This weekend, we had the pleasure to attend the MAME Conference, held here at UofM. I was really inspired by Barry Fishman's talk on making education a more gameful experience. I like to think that the badges movement which I've been following and trying to get involved in, could be a step in the right direction towards solving the problem of meaningless quantifiable outcomes for learning. Grades seem arbitrary, but, while they might be a consistent way to represent student achievement, badges show exactly what the student has accomplished and are able to point back to the work that a student did to achieve it. I also like the fact that badges can be used to represent learning that occurs beyond a classroom, which finally connects what we have considered two separate spheres of education- formal and informal- and privileges them both alongside each other. Have I mentioned how much I love badges?
At MAME, I also witnessed, for the first time, the collective sense of impending doom that we have alluded to throughout this class. School librarians are a scared, desperate group of people. I have thought it before, but never really felt it until now. Are we a dying breed or is a new kind of librarianship just starting to grow? Thoughts?
Badges are interesting - at the library I interned at over the summer, online badges were the new form of the summer reading program. However, since they also did away with all prizes, the badges made the summer reading program not as successful as in the past. But for learning, particularly in education, I think that badges potentially be much better for assessment than letter grades. A young student might just take great pride in earning a cool looking badge.
ReplyDeleteI need to learn more about these badges--are they for real badges like Scouts' or a virtual thing? I think it'd be cool to have physical badges--makes the accomplishment that much more concrete.
ReplyDeleteAs to "dying breed" or "new kind of librarianship," I think both. I think the stereotypical "school librarian" is dying, but the new "school library media specialist" is going to grow.
Thank you for explaining the badges thing a bit more! Like Marty, I need to do some research into this area.
ReplyDeleteWe need to sit down and chat about badges sometime. I would be interested in hearing more of your thoughts. Ann Arbor District Library uses badges in its summer game, with quite a bit of success.
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