My attendance at the meeting came about coincidentally after I tweeted one morning that I needed to get more work done instead of reading about badges - I instantly got a reply 'do you want to come to our meeting?'
Just before I left to go to the meeting, I had chaired a college Moodle group meeting, where we were talking about the upgrade to Moodle 2.5 and the inbuilt badge system, this instantly generated a lot of discussion as people wanted to know more and I'm like 'guess what, I am just going to a meeting about badges!' - quite bizarre.
The whole badge thing got a hold of me whilst I was completing the Open Ed MOOC, I found it extremely motivational. Even when I submitted TMA2 I was instantly back on to OU MOOC earning my last badge. Ever since then I have been thinking on ways I can implement a system within the college, concentrating on three main areas: accreditation for learners on non-advanced courses, to motivate staff on introductory teacher training programmes and also to try and engage more staff in the use of Moodle.
There were approx 35 people signed up for the meeting, but only 25-30 in attendance. There was a mix of people from industry, secondary schools, FE colleges and HE. It was fantastic to hear all the different stories and ideas and of course, meet some new and old faces.
A lot of themes emerged from the meeting, mostly to do with learner motivation and engagement and staff CPD - most of us, if not all, were thinking along the same lines. What lies ahead is that were are going to form sub-groups for developing badges - I am torn between getting involved with SQA developing badges for learners on non-advanced college courses, or developing badges for Moodle training - I cant make up my mind!
I also managed to earn a badge just for attending the meeting :-)
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