Badging the Library, Part 1: What and Why

 News / Last Modified: 09 May 2013

This is the first post in a series talking about badges and what they mean for libraries. In this post, we'll focus on what badges are and why they might be important to libraries.

What is a badge?

Much like a scout badge, the badges we are talking about today are a way to recognize learning and reward achievement. As we explore more online learning contexts, and as libraries continue to develop online community-building tools, digital badges become a more important way to engage with and reward users for active participation. Badges can be used for a number of reasons, including "to set goals, motivate behaviors, represent achievements, and communicate success in many contexts."

Badging the Library, Part 2: How

 News / Last Modified: 08 May 2013

In our first post on badging the library, we talked about what badges were and why libraries might consider implementing badges. There are a lot of good uses for badges in the library world, and hopefully you saw some that fit in with your work. In today's follow-up post on badging, we'll talk more about some of the tools we need to create badge images and what we do with them once they're made. If you haven't already, go read Badging the Library: Part 1 before you jump into this article. It's a quick read and will help with some context as we move into discussing how to create and implement badges.

The first step in creating a badge is also the hardest. Unless you already have rubrics and learning plans and assessment techniques built in to the activities you want to badge, then this is where you should start, and it breaks down more or less like this ...

Connecting: Interaction Design and User Experience

 News / Last Modified: 23 April 2013

The 18 minute "Connecting" documentary is an exploration of the future of Interaction Design and User Experience from some of the industry's thought leaders. As the role of software is catapulting forward, Interaction Design is seen to be not only increasing in importance dramatically, but also expected to play a leading role in shaping the coming "Internet of things." Ultimately, when the digital and physical worlds become one, humans along with technology are potentially on the path to becoming a "super organism" capable of influencing and enabling a broad spectrum of new behaviors in the world.