Abstract
One of the most promising educational technology tools, open digital badges, is quickly changing curricula, job acquisition, and workforce credentialing. Learning data, assessments, and expert validation made accessible in social media create a transparency that may well be suited for critical questions in education. Operating from a framework of establishing how badges are currently employed in learning—the influential contexts of individuals and communities, and data aggregation—raises questions concerning the roles of instructors, badge providers, and learning management systems. This “philosophy” of digital badges addresses a variety of epistemological concerns including the intersection of challenges to conventional educational motivation, suggestions of how Platonic and modern models of education are complementary, and implications of how badges may represent postmodern credentialing systems. These concerns are framed around understanding how current work in digital badges can feasibly transform learning; this is both an acknowledgment of how badges are beginning to change ecosystems of informal and formal learning as well as an attempt to demonstrate how an epistemological philosophy of badges can change educators’ thinking and accelerate innovation.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Abramovich, S., Schunn, C., & Higashi, R. M. (2013). Are badges useful in education?: It depends upon the type of badge and expertise of learner. Educational Technology Research and Development, 61(2), 217–232. doi:10.1007/s11423-013-9289-2.
Ahn, J., Pellicone, A., & Butler, B. S. (2014). Open badges for education: What are the implications at the intersection of open systems and badging? Research in Learning Technology, 22, 1–13.
Anderson, C. (2013). The makers revolution [video lecture]. Retrieved from http://longnow.org/seminars/02013/feb/19/makers-revolution/
Anderson, A., Huttenlocher, D., Kleinberg, J., & Leskovec, J. (2013). Steering user behavior with badges. Proceedings from 22nd International Conference on World Wide Web, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.
Badges/Onboarding-Issuer. (n.d.). Retrieved from MozillaWiki https://wiki.mozilla.org/Badges/Onboarding-Issuer
Britton, L. (2014, September 3). STEM, DASTEM, and STEAM in making: Debating America’s economic future in the 21st century [Web log post]. Retrieved from http://tascha.uw.edu/2014/09/stem-dastem-and-steam-in-making-debating-americas-economic-future-in-the-21st-century/
Charleer, S., Santos, J., Klerkx, J., & Duval, E. (2014). Improving teacher awareness through activity, badge and content visualizations. In Y. Cao, T. Väljataga, J. K. T. Tang, H. Leung, & M. Laanpere (Eds.), New Horizons in Web Based Learning ICWL 2014 International Workshops, SPeL, PRASAE, IWMPL, OBIE, and KMEL, FET, Tallinn, Estonia, August 14–17, 2014, Revised Selected Papers (pp. 143–152). doi:10.1007/978-3-319-13296-9_16.
Conley, D. T. (2014). The Common Core state standards: Insight into their development and purpose. Washington, DC: Council of Chief State School Officers (CCSSO). Retrieved from http://www.ccsso.org/Documents/2014/CCSS_Insight_Into_Development_2014.pdf
Cucchiara, S., Giglio, A., Persico, D., & Raffaghelli, J. E. (2014). Supporting self-regulated learning through digital badges: A case study. In Y. Cao, T. Väljataga, J. K. T. Tang, H. Leung, & M. Laanpere (Eds.), New Horizons in Web Based Learning ICWL 2014 International Workshops, SPeL, PRASAE, IWMPL, OBIE, and KMEL, FET, Tallinn, Estonia, August 14–17, 2014, Revised Selected Papers (pp. 143–152). doi:10.1007/978-3-319-13296-9_15.
Curran, T. (2014, June 6). How open badges can promote student motivation [Web log post] Retrieved from http://tedcurran.net/2014/06/06/open-badges-motivation/
Derrida, J. (1996). Archive fever: A Freudian impression. Chicago, IL: The University of Chicago Press.
Duncan, A. (2011, September 15). Digital badges for learning: Remarks by Secretary Duncan at 4th annual launch of the MacArthur Foundation Digital Media and Lifelong Learning competition [Archived Speech]. Retrieved from http://www.ed.gov/news/speeches/digital-badges-learning
Flintoff, K. (2007, June 23) Digital colonisers—Not what Prensky meant [Web log post]. Retrieved from http://gripfixturn.com/2007/06/23/digital-colonisers-not-what-prensky-meant/
Fontichiaro, K., & Elkordy, A. (2015, February 26). Chart students’ growth with digital badges [Web log post]. Retrieved from https://www.iste.org/explore/articleDetail?articleid=320
Foucault, M. (2002). The archaeology of knowledge. London: Routledge.
Gamrat, C., Zimmerman, H. T., Dudek, J., & Peck, K. (2014). Personalized workplace learning: An exploratory study on digital badging within a teacher professional development program. British Journal of Educational Technology, 45(6), 1136–1148.
Gay, R. (1988). Courage and thumos. Philosophy, 63(244), 255–265.
Gibson, D., Ostashewski, N., Flintoff, K., Grant, S., & Knight, E. (2013). Digital badges in education. Education and Information Technologies, 20(2), 403–410.
Goldberg, D. T. (2012, March 6). Badges for learning: Threading the needle between skepticism and evangelism [Web log post]. Retrieved from http://dmlcentral.net/blog/david-theo-goldberg/badges-learning-threading-needle-between-skepticism-and-evangelism
Goldstein, R. N. (2014). Plato at the Googleplex: Why philosophy won’t go away. New York, NY: Vintage Books.
Halavais, A. (2012a, June 3). Badges: The skeptical evangelist [Web log post]. Retrieved from http://alex.halavais.net/badges-the-skeptical-evangelist
Halavais, A. M. C. (2012a). A genealogy of badges. Information, Communication and Society, 15(3), 354–373. http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/1369118X.2011.641992.
Hanson, D. T. (Ed.). (2007). Ethical visions of education: Philosophies in practice. New York, NY: Teachers College Press.
HASTAC. (2015). What is a digital badge? Retrieved from http://www.hastac.org/digital-badges
Ingold, T. (2005). Up, across and along. Proceedings of the 5th International Space Syntax Symposium, Delft, June 13–17, 2005. Retrieved from http://spacesyntax.tudelft.nl/media/Long%20papers%20I/tim%20ingold.pdf
Ito, M. (2012, March 7). Reflections on DML2012 and visions of educational change [Web log post]. Retrieved from http://dmlcentral.net/blog/mimi-ito/reflections-dml2012-and-visions-educational-change
Knight, E. (2012, April 2). Reflections on reflections on badges [Web log post]. Retrieved from http://erinkinght.com/post/20348999445/reflections-on-reflections-on-badges
Kohn, A. (1993). Punished by rewards: The trouble with gold stars, incentive plans, A’s, praise and other bribes. Boston, MA: Houghton Mifflin.
Korzybski, A. (2005). Science and sanity: An introduction to non-Aristotelian systems and general semantics (5th ed.). Brooklyn, NY: Institute of General Semantics.
Lake, D. (2014). Jane Addams and wicked problems: Putting the pragmatic method to use. The Pluralist, 9(3), 77–94.
Lokuge, D. K., Gregory, J., Salmon, G., & Pechenkina, E. (2014). Badges in the Carpe Diem MOOC. In B. Hegarty, J. McDonald, & S. -K. Loke (Eds.). Rhetoric and Reality: Critical Perspectives on Educational Technology, Proceedings Ascilite, Dunedin 2014 (pp. 120–128).
Lomas, N. (2013, July 2). Basno raises $1M for its digital badges platform that aims to monetise boasting [Web log post]. Retrieved from http://techcrunch.com/2013/07/02/basno-1m-badges/
Lyotard, J. F. (1979). The postmodern condition: A report on knowledge. (G. Bennington & B. Massumi, Trans.). Manchester: Manchester University Press.
Nightingale, A. W. (2004). Spectacles of truth in classical Greek philosophy: Theoria in its cultural context. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Nussbaum, M. (2002). Education for citizenship in an era of global connection. Studies in Philosophy and Education, 21(4–5), 289–303.
O’Byrne, W. I. (2014). Empowering learners in the reader/writer nature of the digital informational space. Journal of Adolescent & Adult Literacy, 58(2), 102–104. doi:10.1002/jaal.337.
Olneck, M. (2015). Whom will digital badges empower?: Sociological perspectives on digital badges. In D. Hickey, J. Jovanovic, S. Lonn, & J. E. Willis, III (Eds.). Proceedings of the Open Badges in Education (OBIE 2015) Workshop, Poughkeepsie, New York, USA. Retrieved from http://ceur-ws.org/Vol-1358/paper1.pdf
Plato. (1956). Protagoras and Meno. (W. K. C. Guthrie, Trans.). London: Penguin Books.
Plato. (1982). Philebus. (R. Waterfield, Trans.). London: Penguin Books.
Plato. (2000). The Republic. (G. R. F. Ferrari, Trans.). Cambridge: University of Cambridge Press.
Russell, B. (1927). Selected papers of Bertrand Russell. New York, NY: Random House Modern Library.
Seigfried, C. H. (2007). Learning from experience: Jane Addams’s education in democracy as a way of life. In D. T. Hansen (Ed.), Ethical visions of education: Philosophies in practice (pp. 83–94). New York, NY: Teachers College Press.
Sullivan, F. M. (2013). New and alternative assessments, digital badges, and civics: An overview of emerging themes and promising directions. Working Paper #77. CIRCLE. Retrieved from http://www.civicyouth.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/03/WP_77_Sullivan_Final.pdf
Tsai, C., Chai, C. S., Wong, B. K. S., Hong, H., & Tan, S. C. (2013). Positioning design epistemology and its applications in educational technology. Journal of Educational Technology & Society, 16(2), 81–90.
Watters, A. (2012, March 4). Thinking (strategically) about badges [Web log post]. Retrieved from http://hackeducation.com/2012/03/04/thinking-strategically-about-badges/
Willis, III, J. E., Quick, J., & Hickey, D. T. (2015). Digital badges and ethics: The uses of individual learning data in social contexts. In D. Hickey, J. Jovanovic, S. Lonn, & J. E. Willis, III (Eds.), Proceedings of the Open Badges in Education (OBIE 2015) Workshop, Poughkeepsie, New York, USA. Retrieved from http://ceur-ws.org/Vol-1358/paper6.pdf
Acknowledgements
The lead author’s research was supported by a grant from the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation to Indiana University.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2016 Springer International Publishing Switzerland
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Willis, J.E., Flintoff, K., McGraw, B. (2016). A Philosophy of Open Digital Badges. In: Ifenthaler, D., Bellin-Mularski, N., Mah, DK. (eds) Foundation of Digital Badges and Micro-Credentials. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-15425-1_2
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-15425-1_2
Published:
Publisher Name: Springer, Cham
Print ISBN: 978-3-319-15424-4
Online ISBN: 978-3-319-15425-1
eBook Packages: EducationEducation (R0)