Episode: 1272
Title: HPR1272: Open Badges?
Source: https://hub.hackerpublicradio.org/ccdn.php?filename=/eps/hpr1272/hpr1272.mp3
Transcribed: 2025-10-17 22:45:38

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Hi everyone, welcome to Hacker Public Radio.
This is Klaatu and I'm talking with my friend Sinai Cupcake.
Say hello, Sinai Cupcake.
Hello, Sinai Cupcake.
About open badges or actually the concept of badges, but this was all sort of, this
was suggested to us, I guess, because of something that you saw Cupcake on Mozilla.
They've got a new specification for something called open badges.
What is this?
The main context that I've seen it in is for education, but it can be used all over the
place.
It's pretty much, you get a badge, a digital badge that says you have a certain skill set
and then it goes into what's called a backpack, which is kind of where you display all your
badges.
There's also real life physical badges that you can get from places like out of fruit.
You just purchase them and you have to sew them or iron them on.
The thing that I thought of immediately when you kind of told me, hey, Mozilla has an
open badge spec now was like on a video game like consoles, where you get the trophies
for achievements and stuff like that, but it's not really part of, I guess it is kind
of part of the game, but then it shows up under your user profile as well so other players
can see, oh, they got the, you know, marksmanship badge from this game and got every piece of
loot possible from that game.
So I think it's kind of the same concept except it's just kind of like your internet badge
backpack.
Yeah, and it's not like with a video game, it's pertaining to like what happened, you
know, on your Xbox or whatever.
This relates to like real life skills that could be online or offline so like you could
have like the Raspberry Pi badge or the I bought a, I built a robot today badge in addition
to like, you know, I'm a coder and I know HTML and whatnot.
Have you tried this out yet?
Have you taken a look at this?
I briefly tried it out.
I earned the, I don't know what the badge is called, but at least called it.
I think it was the, I know that badges exist badge or something.
Yeah, that's pretty much what it was and in order to achieve that badge, you pretty
much like walk through their quick little tutorial about, you know, what they were trying
to do with badges and why they were doing badges.
And then you just answered like true or false questions.
I think there was like five of them and like congratulations a badge.
And I don't know if all badges are like that, but if they are that, I don't know, it seems
kind of lame to me, but that was the first one.
So it was pretty easy.
I doubt that they're all that easy.
So the concept of the backpack, I mean, just not, I haven't looked, we haven't looked
at the specification in depth.
It is on GitHub.
You can go to open badges.org and look at it.
But it seems to be like you almost, you set up a badge server and then people who earn
the badges that you're offering essentially will authenticate into your server so that
their badge will display wherever they want it to display.
That's, that's what I sort of gather from the open badge spec that I kind of briefly
looked at.
I think the larger question rather than, I mean, it's good that there's a specific
specification, that there's a technology for this, I guess, because I guess maybe there
was some demand for it.
And it's better that someone step in and say, okay, here's the open badge spec.
We can all use it rather than everyone coming up with their own badge spec and then us having
like 30 different specifications, like it commonly does happen.
But my question is like, I mean, I know that you're in education.
Okay.
That's kind of like your business.
Was there, in your opinion, a demand for this, like, like, why does this exist, I guess
is what I'm saying?
I guess it exists because people are, one, we're moving more into technology.
I go to lots of things where they're discussing like, how can we integrate programming and robots
and all that other fun stuff into education, yeah, which I totally support.
And I think that, like, when we get into that, then they sort of think, well, how, you
know, there aren't tests that we can like track, you know, and say, like, this is what
these kids learned and like, you know, you can't really test it.
So I think that they're trying to find ways to motivate children to be interested in these
things, which is very good.
But also for the teachers themselves and to also get the state to believe that, like, there
is worth in what they're doing and look, this is how we can prove that by coming up with
these badges and whatnot.
Personally, I don't really support the badge idea.
To me, I think it's a little silly.
It's, I think that if kids are interested in something, they're going to be interested
in it without a goal and that there's been a lot of, like, studies done.
I can't actually tell you that in exact name of the studies, but they have studied children.
And a lot of times when they have these badge systems, the children progress to a certain
point and they, like, start out like getting lots of badges.
And then they kind of plateau and they're not really interested anymore because they weren't
interested so much in what they were learning as they were interested in the actual attainment
of the badges.
So they're not going to, like, once they reach, like, if you're, you know, programming
a video game, like you program a video game and you meet all the qualifications, get your
badge, and there's so much more to still learn, but while I learn it, if you aren't getting
the prize and, you know, you're not, you know, that, to me, seems like sort of a weakness
of the idea because you can only dangle this idea of look a little virtual badge in front
of someone for so long and then after they accrue, like, five or ten or whatever, they catch
on fairly quickly that, okay, all I'm getting is a little digital badge, like, it doesn't
really, you know, how long can that really satiate your desire for, for earning stuff?
You know, I don't know if that, it doesn't seem like the motivation is correctly.
Placed there.
Also, like, not just on the side of education, I mean, there's also badges aren't just
for kids, they're also for adults, and I think that that is even more absurd than the idea
of badges for children because I can only see where they're coming from, but for adults,
on Mozilla's website for open badges, they actually say that they use the example of why
badges are important by saying that you can just, like, write anything on a resume and
there's nothing really to back it up, but somehow badges do back up that I have these skills.
And before we even looked up the open badges, when we're, like, looking into it, like,
we had already heard about it in terms of the discussion, one of the things that we said
was that, we use that as an example, but in the opposite way, that whenever you do do
a resume, it's not just the things that you write down, you write down things, but then
you have to, you have to supply often a portfolio and almost, I think, every job I've ever
applied to, I had to have either a letter of recommendation or references, especially
when you start getting into the tech field, like, you do have to show, like, yes, I know
these skills, and you're not going to get slide by for very long, if you're stupid enough
to put something that you cannot do on your resume.
Yeah, it might not be verifiable, but, I mean, the moment they hire you, you sit down
and you don't know what you're doing, I mean, you're going to be fired the same day,
isn't it?
That's for very long.
So I don't think anyone would, I don't think that's a common practice of, oh, I'll put
this skill on my resume, and then I won't be able to ever back it up.
It's just kind of like, that's not how people usually work.
I'm sure there are stories where people did do that.
They got the job, they coasted for a while, and then it turned out they didn't know what
they did.
But I imagine that's not that common.
I think that with adults, like, your work speaks for itself.
Yeah.
Well, that's what the internet has enabled us all to do, and that's how it's been, I
think, is it's been based on what do you have online right now, like, show me your
code, like, what have you got, or show me your portfolio, like, on the internet?
That is your badge.
You don't need a badge system to validate what you're doing.
Even with us, we've been working on me and plateau, we've been working on robots a
lot.
Yeah.
And every single time we reach a new plateau with the robot, we'll either take photos
or do a video, and then we'll write about it, like, we'll post online.
Like, this is what we did today.
This is, like, problems we've encountered, and this is how we fixed it.
So, I mean, it shows, like, yes, like, we're working on this.
Yeah.
And even the mistakes that we make, because we've posted things where it wasn't working
exactly.
But that shows the progress and, like, the path that we're taking, which is, I mean, that's
the open source model, you're full transparency.
You show every step that you make, even the bad stuff, even the bugs, you kind of, like,
let that be out there in the open.
And it concerns me, I think, this idea that you need a third party to, like, sort of,
step in and validate things or verify things.
Because, I mean, that's the same thing with, like, SSL certifications, right?
You've got these digital signatures that you put on your server that verify, hey, this
really is the server that you think it is.
Yesterday, you signed into the server, today, you signed into the server, both times, you're
signing into the same server.
And then there were, like, these vericine and all these other third parties that, like,
sell SSL certifications for, like, five grand.
And everyone's like, oh, well, if it's not, if it's not one of these expensive SSL certs,
then we're not going to trust it, you know, we're going to call it a questionable site.
When you can roll your own SSL certs, it's not that big of a deal.
So why is there this illusion that we need a third party to step in and validate things,
which is what this open badge system is doing, pretending like, oh, well, there's this third
party that's issuing this badge, so it must be true.
And that gives us, I think, a false sense of not security, but a false sense of truthfulness.
Whenever I was younger, I was in Girl Scouts, and I was in 4-H, and Girl Scouts does use
a badge system, which is cool, and you, like, work on badges by yourself, you work on them
with the troop.
And I hear in many, many badges, I can't remember any of them, but 4-H is not used
as a badge system.
4-H generally thought of for, like, horses and limestone, but they have other projects
too.
Like, I did a cat project, I did a horse project, and I also did a photo project.
With the projects, you get a booklet, and you can work on it with other people, personally,
everything except the horses I worked on privately with myself.
And when I raided the photo project, I filled out the booklet, I did all of the different
projects they had you do, but they also had you set goals of, like, why you were doing
this project.
Like, what did you want to learn for it, like, what did you want to improve with your
photography skills?
Had you done photography at all before?
So, like, little spots to write that in, you could like, discuss it with your parents
as well.
And I did a project, I created a photo album, and took it to a fair, a 4-H fair, and
I won first prize.
And I still have that photo album today, and that's still a great source of pride for me,
and it's something that I can show to people.
And also, I've done, since then, I've done two other photo albums, and I would still continue
to do them, but now most of my photos are digital, but I'm still a photographer.
Like, I am constantly taking photos no matter where I go.
So, the badges, like, I did learn a lot in Girl Scouts, I'm not going to discredit those
things I learned, but I can't really remember any of them, because it was collecting the
badges.
And yeah, like, learning cool skills, but a lot of it was collecting the badges.
Whereas with the 4-H method, it was actually learning something I was interested about,
and fostering, like, a lifelong love of that thing.
And I think that's an important differentiation between, like, I don't know what we would
call that, method, the 4-H method, whatever that would be.
But the badges versus that, like, in that case, you are setting your own goals to attain
it.
Whereas with a badge, yeah, it's like about this badge, and then once you've collected
them all, yeah, you probably are going to forget about them, because you're going to realize
that 50 other people have those badges, and, you know, it's just, it's not as significant
to you.
And letting people, maybe if there was some kind of hybrid where, yes, you had the open
badge system, but the badges were decided upon by the person, you know, and then they could
only get it if they achieve their own personal goal, and maybe that would be more significant
to people.
The motivation is coming from within, I guess, right, and the desire to learn, not the
desire to get a badge.
For adults, we were poking around on the Mozilla Open Badges website, and, like, for the
actual, like, Mozilla badges that they were giving out, they were all, like, go to this,
like, Mozilla website, and, like, do, like, three comments, and about, like, the HTML,
and stuff like that, to prove that you knew what you were doing, your coder.
And to me, I mean, that just sounds like busy work.
It sounds like whenever you're in school, and they're like, oh, do this worksheet, because
I don't know what to do.
I've got some free time after you're done with this test.
So just do a quick worksheet that doesn't mean anything.
Right, yeah.
And that's kind of the way I feel with this.
Like, it seemed like, I mean, yeah, I mean, and I get, I get that, I, I, I kind of
kind of get, like, if you're just someone, and, and for some reason, you've latched
on to, you know, some project, let's say it is Mozilla, and you say, I want to earn all
these badges, just to show how much I love Mozilla, how much I've really helped out on their
project, and sort of that I subscribe to everything that they say.
You could do their badges and, like, earn those badges, just really as a game for yourself.
I guess my main opposition is the idea that these badges might ever become seen.
And as actually valid measures of someone's worth or, or expertise.
The Code Whisperer, in order to prove that you are a Code Whisperer and you know HTML,
you add explanatory and helpful comments to a Mozilla web maker project, and you have
to, like, code, like, write code comments at least three times and web maker projects.
So they're not really proving, like, yes, like I created this wonderful website using HTML
and CSS.
It's just saying that you were able to critique somebody else's code, or I mean, yeah, it
kind of smacks because look, when I go to someone's site in theory, and I see this Mozilla
Code Whisperer badge, like, it smacks of sort of hyperbole, you know, because it's like
Code Whisperer.
Ooh, that sounds so mystical.
This person must be really amazing.
And like, then you look into it further and it's like, oh, so they added three comments
to someone else's code, so they're a Code Whisperer.
I don't know, that just seems like it's, I don't know, it smacks of, like, either buzzwords
or, you know, that sense of meaningless sort of, like, things that just don't, they don't
mean anything.
Yeah.
I think some of the other, like, I mean, this is just Mozilla's, but like all of the ones
that I see here are pretty much like you have to complete, like, this seemingly meaningless
task on somebody else's project.
Right.
But I don't know, like, some other people who are participating in the badges and creating
their own badges, like, might have more in-depth stuff.
Sure.
But there's the div master, which is a mini badge, and it represents an HTML skill, and
it's earned by properly using the div tag in a Mozilla web maker project, and you only
have to use it properly twice.
Perfect.
And every div master for that.
For, yeah.
Yeah.
I mean, yes, it's an important skill, but that doesn't, oh, Facebook.
This is, like, if somebody who does have, like, have websites that I've created, this
is kind of, I feel kind of insulted.
Right.
Right.
Wow.
And I don't even think, like, I'm not, I've only been working with HTML and CSS for under
a year still.
Right.
It's almost a year, but under a year.
Yeah.
And I find this insulting.
Yeah.
And I couldn't imagine being somebody who actually has been doing this for their entire
lives.
Oh, you're getting a badge for being a div master because you've used a div tag twice.
Using ordered and unordered tag list tags?
Right.
Yeah.
But see, I mean, again, I kind of see where they're coming from.
It's like, if you are someone who wants to learn HTML and you need some way of tracking
your own progress, then this does give you a kind of a basic guideline on how you might
go about learning that stuff.
I agree.
I agree.
I agree.
I agree.
I agree.
I agree.
There's a lot of people who are like monitoring people who actually like know these skills well.
Yeah.
And like, this is like their life.
Yeah.
This is not what you would want to go by.
It's good for, like, once again, going back to possibly for education, but not for the
world.
But again, not really.
And not even, I mean, possibly for education, but not necessarily.
I mean, that's not going to be, it's only going to be something that people are interested
in for so long until they just figure out that the badges are sort of meaningless carats
that you're dangling in front of them.
It's like, right.
might be better less of a badge than a like a guide post or something like hey go
this way if you want to learn more about html follow this path right I mean it would be impossible
for somebody like who's like with your issuing badges like sit there and like look at everybody's
code and like prove that they really did write that code yeah but once again that's like that's
what we're kind of saying like I mean your work shows itself you don't need a verification
from someone else yeah and the other thing I wanted to mention too is like like I mentioned
at the beginning with adifruit adifruit you can buy for like I think like two bucks or something
you can buy a little iron on patches it's a like I'm skilled at scratch or the raspberry pie
right whatever and I mean there's no way for that like there's no way to like verify that
at all like anybody can just buy them and there's nothing saying like like we're gonna like run
you through all these rigorous tests to make sure you've actually opened up scratch before right
yeah and so it's just it just seems so silly like we're not boy scouts and girl scouts anymore
we're adults and and even with kids like I think that the kids will do the work and I've seen
kids do the work because they're passionate about it I was taught by a bunch of like eight to ten
year olds how do you scratch because like they told me about it they were in in the middle of
this summer too like it wasn't like we were in a classroom setting like it was at a summer camp
they taught me scratch because I expressed an interest to them in it and they were already
passionate about it yeah so like they like taught me the basics and then like we'd be sitting down
like like lunch break and I'd be writing my program and they would come up and like well why don't
you do this and I'm like why don't I know how to do that and they'd come over and they they'd tell
me how to do it that's what like I think we want to get it we want to have like passionate kids
who are excited about learning they're excited about the technology that they've learned
because because of the technology itself not the badges like they they're passionate about
what they're doing and I think that the badges can really take away from that so we're wondering
like we kind of obviously don't really agree with badge system but it's it's still pretty new
and it's you know growing probably will grow and change but we're wondering like if you disagree
with us like why and also like for any of you listeners like have you used badges do you see a
benefit have you seen a benefit um have you seen anything negative from it what has your
experience been like we're really interested in learning more about it because it is so new
so if you have used them or have an opinion on them uh please share yeah absolutely open badges.org
yep
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