I’m a recent convert to iDoceo and their suite of tools for teachers, and this is the one I’ve procrastinated with the longest and experienced the greatest regret from the delay. The other apps by this developer which I’ve used (iDoceo, Grade Scanner, Audiologic) all have self-evident value adds to an analytically minded teacher. But classroom gamification always felt a little too gimmicky for me. (Disclaimer: I think indulging students’ desires to have an aesthetically pleasant or fun experience has gone a little overboard in public education these days.)
As a result, I was totally disinterested in this app and bought it only alongside the full package to get Grade Scanner and Audiologic at discount.
But I’ve spent the past two weeks noodling around in the application and am pleasantly surprised by its ease of use and the potential for enlivening my classroom. When material incentives are not an option (every student wants a pizza party for just turning in his homework), and when the potential costs of those incentives are huge investments of money and time, enter the Badge Maker. At its core, this is about marketing pride in the accomplishments of your students: Bragging Rights.
With only a few hours over the past two weeks, I’ve designed a yearlong scope of badges for all the potential academic and extra curricular achievements which are entailed in successful completion of my high school English course. The idea for me is to print and laminate the different badges in a kind of “I Love Me Wall” in my classroom; each achievement will be based on some critical component of the work and traced over the course of the year.
One thing to make note of is that the gamification aspect of this tool is really limited only by how creative you can be in the classroom. For me, that’s not a very high ceiling. Nonetheless, if you struggle to motivate your students and are unwilling to reach into your own pocket (as you very much should be) to provide extrinsic motivation, then this app can help you visualize and phrase students for their good work.
The gamification isn’t automatic, and it’s not as though there’s a promise with this application that it will gamify your courses right out of the box. You’ll have to develop an incentive scheme and a delivery mechanism to show your students the pride in achievement that they can have. But in an era where every student thinks she’s God’s gift to everyone else, a little realistic honorific won’t go far amiss.
Get the app. It’s fun to build the badges and to try to figure out what’s worth celebrating for your students.