This post is intended to provide an overview of information about digital badges and possibilities in teaching and learning. This post is a supplemental piece meant to accompany the column printed in the Journal of Adult and Adolescent Literacy. You can find out more about the column and subsequent interviews in coming weeks.
More about Zainab Oni
Zainab Oni attended the Hudson High School of Learning Technologies in New York, NY. At 12 years old, she moved from Nigeria to New York City in a transition that was challenging for the adolescent. While at Hudson High, Zainab joined the MOUSE Squad, a youth development program designed to train students in economically challenged communities to be the technology and web literacy experts for their learning environments. Zainab also joined the organization’s advanced Design and Technology program, MOUSE Corps, which levels students up by helping build skills and apply their interests to create new technologies and solutions for social good.

For more information about Zainab’s achievements while at Hudson High and MOUSE, please click here.
Zainab is also big in the webmaker community. Paraphrasing her words, we should strive to not be a user, we should all be a maker. To meet Zainab and other webmakers, please view the following video.

Four Questions for Zainab Oni

1. Please explain the work you did with MOUSE and how badges, or the badging ecosystem fit into that system.
2. How would you define digital badges?
3. Did badges, or the possibility to earn badges motivate you?
4. What possibilities do you see in digital badges in education…how do you think teachers should be using badges with their students?
Examples of badges earned at MOUSE
Zainab earned numerous badges while at MOUSE. Please click the links to view the badge she earned for Empathy, and the badge she earned for Assistive Tech.

While you’re on the individual badge pages, you can easily view the individual elements that make up the metadata of the badge. The metadata helps us understand the work Zainab completed to achieve the badge.
We can review the title of the badge (A), as well as when Zainab was awarded the badge (B). We can review the description of the badge (C), as well as the evidence that Zainab did in fact achieve the described goals (D). The badge also details the granular criteria (E) needed to achieve the badge, as well as the associated categories (F), tags (G), and links for more info about the issuing body (I).

Cover image used with permission from MOUSE Squad
Top image used with permission from MOUSE Squad
Bottom image used with permission from MOUSE Squad
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