Presentation given at the NJEdge 2012 Annual Conference. See http://www.njedge.net/ for more information.

1. Badges? We Don’t Need
No Stinkin’ Badges!
And Other Gamification Myths

2. Presentation Download
• http://tinyurl.com/stinkbadge

3. Who am I?
• Lead Instructional Designer
• At PSU since 1984
• Working on bringing best
practices/uses of educational
technology to Penn State
• Founded the Educational
Gaming Commons

4. The Educational
Gaming
Commons
• Goal
• Foster research, teaching, and learning around
educational games, virtual worlds, and simulations.
• Staff
• Brett Bixler – Founder and Evangelist
• Chris Stubbs – Manager
• Elizabeth Pyatt – Instructional Designer
• Web – http://gaming.psu.edu
• Facebook - http://tinyurl.com/FBPSUEGC

5. The EGC (contd)
• Projects
• Engagement Initiatives
• One-on-one consultations
• Virtual Worlds Research and Development
• Sponsoring presentations, guest speakers, etc.
• EGC Lab
• Innovative space at PSU containing PCs, game consoles,
and a variety of games, virtual worlds, and simulations

6. Some EGC Works

7. iStudy for Success!
• http://istudy.psu.edu .
• Tutorials designed to advance students’
knowledge in areas that can promote overall
academic achievement.

8. SOFTWARE PROVIDED BY
www.TurningTechnologies.com

9. What is your level of knowledge
about gamification?

10. What is your level of knowledge
about digital badges?

11. Why are gamification and badges
important to education?

12. How It All Started…

13. This is Stupid
• Gamification is dumb.
• Badges are stupid!
(He’s lying.)

14. What is Gamification?
Gamification <>
Games

15. What is Gamification? 2

16. What’s Going on Here?

17. How About Here?
• Foldit.
• An online puzzle
game about protein
folding.
• Scientists can use
the “results” to solve
real-world problems.
• Players get bragging rights.

18. Gamification Defined
• Gamification
• The use of one or more "game-like
elements" or dynamics in a non-game
context to improve engagement or change
behavior.
• Game-like Elements
• Pieces or mechanics that make up games.

19. Badges Defined
• A digital badge is an online record of an
achievement, the work required, and
information about the entity that issued the
badge.

20. What is this Important?
• Education is under attack!
• Costs of education are spiraling up.
• Employers want skills, not degrees.
• Open courseware.
• MOOCs.
• Badges.

21. The Barbarians Are at the Gate!
And there ain’t nothin’ you can do about it!

22. Or can you?

23. A Vision of the Future
What will the future hold for education?

24. Back to the Present…
Let’s look at gamification and
badges in today’s world.

25. Game-like Elements
Over 25 Elements Exist
Achievements Infinite Gameplay
Appointments Levels
Badges Loss Aversion
Behavioral Momentum Lottery
Blissful Productivity Ownership
Bonuses Points
Cascading Information Theory Progression
Combos Quests
Community Collaboration Reward Schedules
Countdown Status
Discovery Urgent Optimism
Epic Meaning Virality
Free Lunch
From http://gamification.org/wiki/Game_Mechanics

26. Achievements
• A virtual or physical representation of having accomplished something.
• Achievements can be easy, difficult, surprising, funny, accomplished alone or
as a group.
• Achievements are a way to
give players a way to brag.

27. Cascading Information
• Theory
Match the level of task difficulty to the current
ability of the student.
Scaffolding
• Provide just enough support so the student can
accomplish the task. Remove this “scaffolding”
over time.

28. Progressive Implementation
A series of tasks, from simple to complex, that lead towards
the ultimate goal.

29. Levels
• Levels are a system by which players are rewarded for accumulating points.
• Often features or abilities are unlocked as players progress to higher levels.
• Levelling is one of the highest components of motivation for gamers.
Examples
• Real world – Job promotions.
• In a game – Earn enough points.
• A good use – Use levels to show
competencies.

30. Points & Leaderboards
• Points are a running numerical value given for any single action or combination of actions.
• Leaderboards allow one to display their “earnings” to the world.
Examples
• Real world – Grocery points.
• In a game – Earn enough points.
• A good use – Grade by points.

31. Marriage – The Game?

32. Progression
• Where success is granularly displayed and
measured through the process of
completing itemized tasks. Progress bars!
Examples
• Real world – Coffee cards. Buy 6,
get one free.
• In a game - Progress bars and subtasks. As you level up, you
receive power and better equipment, etc. Progression is
powerful.
• A good use – Show students where they are in a course.

33. Status
• The rank or level of a player.
• Players are often motivated by trying to reach a higher level or status.

34. If You Do This Right – Flow!
• The ultimate motivational state, where hours go by in minutes.
• Achieved by balancing
the learner’s current
ability with the
difficulty of the
current challenge.

35. This Sounds Too Good…
What is a potential problem
with gamification?

36. What is it All About?
• Feedback! It’s motivating.
• Timely informing the student of their accomplishments/failures.
• Games do it all the time!
• Behavioristic in nature.

37. Motivation?
• Defining it is an elusive prcess, as difficult to
do as grasping a slippery fish in a dark cave.
• Here’s the one I like:
• “The term motivation in psychology is a global concept
for a variety of processes and effects whose common
core is the realization that an organism selects a
particular behavior because of expected consequences,
and then implements it with some measure of energy,
along a particular path.” (Heckhausen, 1991, p. 9).

38. Extrinsic vs. Intrinsic Motivation
Extrinsic - From outside you.
Intrinsic - From inside you.
• There is a controversy over gamification and
extrinsic motivation - some say it weakens or
“crowds out” intrinsic motivation.
• See Deci, Koestner, & Ryan (1999). A meta-
analytic review of experiments examining the
effects of extrinsic rewards on intrinsic
motivation. Psychological Bulletin 125(6), 627-
668.

39. Extrinsic vs. Intrinsic Motivation
2
• Extrinsic rewards may “crowd out” intrinsic
motivation.
• Sometimes called the over-justification effect.
• Tangible rewards (bonuses) may be the most
de-motivating.
• Unexpected rewards (at random) may be OK.
• Performance-contingent (do a job, get a
reward) may be de-motivating if the reward is
tangible (money) but OK if it is intangible
(praise).

40. Self Determination Theory
and Gamification
Three factors
• Competence – I am accomplishing something.
• Autonomy – I am in control. I am doing it because I
want to. Meaningful choices.
• Relatedness – I am serving a larger cause/social
group/community.
• See Deci & Ryan at
http://www.selfdeterminationtheory.org/theory

41. The ARCS Model
• By John Keller - http://www.arcsmodel.com/
• Attention – How do you gain it?
• Relevance – Tie it to the leaner’s life experience.
• Confidence – Build in learning success.
• Satisfaction – Make learning rewarding.

42. But What About Those
Stinkin’ Badges?

43. Badges
• An overt reward of achievement.
• Meant to be displayed for others to see.
Examples
• Real world – Scouts.
• In a game – Complete a task,
earn a badge.
• A good use – Mozilla Badges.

44. Badges 2
• A digital badge is an online record of an achievement,
the work required, and information about the
organization, individual or other entity that issued the
badge.
• A digital badge "certifies" information that has been
consumed and skills acquired by the badge earner.
• Digital badges can be used for assessed or non-
assessed learning, as determined by the badge issuer.

45. Badges 3
Example:
•A badge issued to people who are
present at a workshop as an
indication of attendance.
• One might also require some
measurement of comprehension
and retention (via a quiz or an
assignment submission) before
issuing a badge.

46. Open Badges
• The Open Badges Infrastructure (OBI) project
was initiated by Mozilla to create a universal
framework for badges.
• The Mozilla framework consists of three
components:
– Issuer
– Earner
– Displayer

47. A Badge In Action

48. A Badge In Action 2

49. Displaying a Badge

50. Potential Benefits of Badges
Enhance One’s Digital Identity
•Provide a more granular and complete picture of skills and
learning history than a traditional degree.
•Provide informal certification, e.g., from clubs, work
experience or online.
•Assist in third-party as opposed to individual validation.
•Signal skills and achievements to peers, potential employers,
educational institutions and others.
•Recognize “hidden” skills - appropriating information, judging
its quality, multitasking and networking that don't show up on a
transcript.

51. Potential Benefits of Badges 2
Enable Global Perspectives
•Allow one to share skill sets with the world. This fosters
flexibility and connections.

52. Potential Benefits of Badges 3
Facilitate Better Instructional Management
•Support better individualized learner support.
•Capture the learning path and history.
– Badges can capture a more specific set of skills and qualities as they
occur along the way, along with issue dates for each. This means we
can track the set of steps the most successful learners take to gain
their skills - and potentially replicate that experience for others.
•Assist in accreditation.
– By capturing the learning path, meeting the documentation needs of
accreditation agencies will be eased.

53. Potential Uses of Badges
• "Course Completion" badge
– Certifies that an individual completed a certain course.
• "Competency-Based" badges
– Gives students a way to demonstrate competency derived from
course offerings or non-class experiences, such as clubs.
• "Honors" badge in a program
– Define requirements to achieve honors and motivate students to
perform.
• "Event Participation" badge
– For participation in sponsored events.
• "Community Membership" badge
– To establish that an individual actively participates or has participated
in a given community. This can increase the size and participation in
academic communities.

54. What is the main “problem”
with digital badges?

55. Questions About Badges
• Badge infrastructure and metadata is evolving.
• Spoofed badges.
• Support structures needed by an institution to host
badges must be created.
• Policies on badges for higher education institutions do
not exist. Issuing, accepting from the outside
- what does that means for revenue?
• Forces us to examine our current
assessment structures.

56. Badges = Accountability!

57. Badge Skeptic?
• Read Henry Jenkin’s cautionary post on
badges.
• http://tinyurl.com/badgeskeptic

58. Insurgent Credentials
• Great read by Michael Olneck, UWM
• http://tinyurl.com/blo6uwy

59. Some Gamification Providers

60. Image Credits
• Barbarian
– http://www.flickr.com/photos/florida_photo_guy/4522063643/
– Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 2.0 Generic (CC BY-NC-ND 2.0)
• Schooling for the Future
– http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_ONy41FdnwDo/SV8Kle_BKmI/AAAAAAAAINw/Y99uKbnfb4k/s320/schoolin
g-for-the-future.jpg
– Free to use – Advanced Google Images search.
• Two people talking
– http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Two-people-talking-logo.jpg
– In the public domain.
• Panic Button
– http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Panic_button.jpg
– Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 2.0 Generic license.

61. Some Gamification Info. Sites
• Kapp Notes
• http://www.uleduneering.com/kappnotes/
• Gamify
• http://gamify.org
• http://gamification.org/wiki/
• Gamifying Education
• http://www.gamifyingeducation.org/
• The Gamification Summit
• http://www.gsummit.com/
• April 16-18, 2013

62. Some Badges Info. Sites
• Open Badges Overview
– http://bananigans.tumblr.com/post/22586770579/how-to-
learn-more-about-open-badges
• Show Me Your Badge
– http://www.nytimes.com/2012/11/04/education/edlife/show-
me-your-badge.html?pagewanted=all
• EDUCAUSE– 7 Things Your Should Know About Badges
– http://www.educause.edu/library/resources/7-things-you-
should-know-about-badges

63. In Conclusion

64. Jerry Orbach
My Hero

65. Discussion
Let’s talk!

66. Thanks!
• Brett Bixler
• bxb11@psu.edu or gaming@psu.edu
• http://www.personal.psu.edu/bxb11/
• Twitter: brettbixler