Purdue Veterinary Medicine Digital Badges Aim to Excite Youth and Expand Their Knowledge

by Rebecca Itow

Purdue Veterinary Medicine has designed a digital badge system to challenge Kindergarten through high school students to earn digital badges as they learn about veterinary medicine. The PVM Digital Badge system is open to any K-12 student. Youth engage with veterinary medical content online or at PVM events, and then take a short (usually multiple choice) quiz for the chance to earn their badge. This looks the start of a second wave of new projects using digital badge beyond the DML Badges for Lifelong Learning. I am particularly curious about their assessment practices in light of what I learned studying the assessment practices across the 30 DML awardees.  Plus with its campus-wide Passport badging system, Purdue really seems out in front of other universities when it comes to digital badges.

Research Design Principles for Studying Learning with Digital Badges

Web-enabled digital badges are quickly transforming the way that learning is recognized in schools and in informal learning contexts. But there are few examples or models for studying digital badges. This post introduces six design principles for studying learning with digital badges that are emerging in the Design Principles Documentation Project. These principles distinguish between summative, formative, and “transformative” research, and between using conventional forms of evidence and using the evidence contained in digital badges.

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PS.  There are dozens of comments across several threads at that post.