Badges and e-learning

I've been trying out various online learning systems thinking about teaching web design as part of Digital Media Computing next year.  This year we have been teaching computer games development by next year we will have a separate games development class so there will be a gap in the DMC course.

First I looked at Code Academy.  I love this site.  Its such a nice interface and the tasks are broken down into small manageble chunks that you just flow through the work.  There are badges you can win too, and everybody loves badges!  Code Academy started with just Javascript but now features HTML and CSS too.

Then I signed up for Stanford University Coursera's CS101.  It also takes me through learning CS principles using Javascript.  There are clear videos to watch and practical tasks as you go along.  It seems quite good but no badges :-(  The disadvantage of CS101 is the timing - everyone starts together and lessons are released weekly.  Code Academy and other systems have a more flexible pace.

Last night I discovered WiBits.net.  This looks fun and interesting but again no badges or accreditation.  It might be a nice site to send kids off to for some independent learning.

I also looked at P2PU's School of Webcraft.  The first task is to write a blog post introducing yourself (Hello, my name's Kate.  I'm a Computing teacher in Edinburgh, Scotland :-)

P2PU has the added benefit of being part of the Mozilla Open Badge Framework.  This is something we're VERY interested in here at Castlebrae.  We're planning on badgifying our whole DMC curriculum to make it easier for us and the students to reailse what assignments they have submitted and completed and what work they have still to do.  

If you fancy trying out the Open Badges system, try and get a Badges 101 badge and a Hackasaurus badge.  If you teach DMC or NPAs and fancy joining us on our badgifying quest, please get in touch! :D

 

Comments

[Nicola Osborne]

Interesting post - and thank you for the heads up on the OpenBadges. It is curious how addictive earning badges on code academy or FourSquare can be (even moreso Gowalla when that was still running).

Hope you'll be posting some more on how the kids take to the badging of the DMC curriculum - curious to see if similar would be appealing for some HE training contexts.

[razu]

cool blog i like it

[Algotruneman]

Keep us posted on the badge process (of course that's your plan, Duh.)