Khan Academy, (--> Here! <--) a website providing over 4,000 videos on a wide range of educational topics, has integrated a badge system into the Khan Academy experience. The badges are used to motivate students to complete activities. The badges are organized by difficulty, as you can see below. There are Meteorite badges (the easiest), the Moon, Earth, Sun, and (the hardest) Black hole badges. Challenge Patches are awarded for certain activities, such as "Achieve Proficiency in all skills in addition and subtraction."
To get a badge, the user must first make an account. To make an account go to the top left corner of the home screen, and click the "Log in." You should get to a screen like the one on the right.You can use a Google or Facebook account, or make a Khan Academy account by clicking "Sign up," right below the log in button. 
One thing I like about the badges is the range of awarded skills. Other websites have tried this, but it usually ends up with "Complete 10 activities," and then, "Complete 20 activities". Khan Academy has a wide range of badges, such as "Pause a tutorial and tinker with the code," "Ask a question that earns 10+ votes," and "Stay a member of Khan Academy for 1 year." Khan Academy also has the standard badges like "Achieve proficiency in any 50 skills," and "Watch one hour of video on a single topic."One thing I dislike about their system is that accessing the possible badges is very counter-intuitive. You have to go to your profile, scroll down to recently completed activities, then click on one of the badges you've earned. That then brings you to the badge gallery. I feel that compared to other websites, Khan Academy has done a good job motivating kid to learn. 
Max N.; you have given a very thorough report worthy of sharing with a larger community. But then again, all your blogs are excellent.
ReplyDeleteDo you think that these badges could be useful in a public school? If so, how?
ReplyDeleteIf you had badges for class achievements, as well as individual achievements, then badges come motivate a class to work together, as well as try hard.
DeleteHenry likes these badges too. They motivated him to do a LOT of work a couple of weeks ago. I haven't heard him talk much about them since. Do you think the effect of the badge as a motivator wears off over time? Which badges have you earned? Would be interesting to have you and Henry compare notes on which badges represent the most engaging learning topics.
ReplyDeleteI have not done much with khan academy yet, so I have not earned that many badges. On the topic of motivation wearing off, I know that the harder badges at khan academy are just "Do (however many) activities," or "Watch (however many) videos," so once you get to a certain point the badges are not that good.
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