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Lee Hanken
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Episode: 1272
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Title: HPR1272: Open Badges?
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Source: https://hub.hackerpublicradio.org/ccdn.php?filename=/eps/hpr1272/hpr1272.mp3
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Transcribed: 2025-10-17 22:45:38
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---
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Hi everyone, welcome to Hacker Public Radio.
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This is Klaatu and I'm talking with my friend Sinai Cupcake.
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Say hello, Sinai Cupcake.
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Hello, Sinai Cupcake.
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About open badges or actually the concept of badges, but this was all sort of, this
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was suggested to us, I guess, because of something that you saw Cupcake on Mozilla.
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They've got a new specification for something called open badges.
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What is this?
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The main context that I've seen it in is for education, but it can be used all over the
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place.
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It's pretty much, you get a badge, a digital badge that says you have a certain skill set
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and then it goes into what's called a backpack, which is kind of where you display all your
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badges.
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There's also real life physical badges that you can get from places like out of fruit.
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You just purchase them and you have to sew them or iron them on.
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The thing that I thought of immediately when you kind of told me, hey, Mozilla has an
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open badge spec now was like on a video game like consoles, where you get the trophies
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for achievements and stuff like that, but it's not really part of, I guess it is kind
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of part of the game, but then it shows up under your user profile as well so other players
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can see, oh, they got the, you know, marksmanship badge from this game and got every piece of
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loot possible from that game.
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So I think it's kind of the same concept except it's just kind of like your internet badge
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backpack.
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Yeah, and it's not like with a video game, it's pertaining to like what happened, you
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know, on your Xbox or whatever.
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This relates to like real life skills that could be online or offline so like you could
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have like the Raspberry Pi badge or the I bought a, I built a robot today badge in addition
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to like, you know, I'm a coder and I know HTML and whatnot.
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Have you tried this out yet?
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Have you taken a look at this?
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I briefly tried it out.
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I earned the, I don't know what the badge is called, but at least called it.
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I think it was the, I know that badges exist badge or something.
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Yeah, that's pretty much what it was and in order to achieve that badge, you pretty
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much like walk through their quick little tutorial about, you know, what they were trying
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to do with badges and why they were doing badges.
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And then you just answered like true or false questions.
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I think there was like five of them and like congratulations a badge.
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And I don't know if all badges are like that, but if they are that, I don't know, it seems
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kind of lame to me, but that was the first one.
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So it was pretty easy.
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I doubt that they're all that easy.
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So the concept of the backpack, I mean, just not, I haven't looked, we haven't looked
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at the specification in depth.
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It is on GitHub.
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You can go to open badges.org and look at it.
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But it seems to be like you almost, you set up a badge server and then people who earn
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the badges that you're offering essentially will authenticate into your server so that
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their badge will display wherever they want it to display.
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That's, that's what I sort of gather from the open badge spec that I kind of briefly
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looked at.
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I think the larger question rather than, I mean, it's good that there's a specific
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specification, that there's a technology for this, I guess, because I guess maybe there
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was some demand for it.
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And it's better that someone step in and say, okay, here's the open badge spec.
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We can all use it rather than everyone coming up with their own badge spec and then us having
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like 30 different specifications, like it commonly does happen.
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But my question is like, I mean, I know that you're in education.
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Okay.
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That's kind of like your business.
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Was there, in your opinion, a demand for this, like, like, why does this exist, I guess
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is what I'm saying?
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I guess it exists because people are, one, we're moving more into technology.
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I go to lots of things where they're discussing like, how can we integrate programming and robots
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and all that other fun stuff into education, yeah, which I totally support.
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And I think that, like, when we get into that, then they sort of think, well, how, you
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know, there aren't tests that we can like track, you know, and say, like, this is what
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these kids learned and like, you know, you can't really test it.
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So I think that they're trying to find ways to motivate children to be interested in these
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things, which is very good.
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But also for the teachers themselves and to also get the state to believe that, like, there
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is worth in what they're doing and look, this is how we can prove that by coming up with
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these badges and whatnot.
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Personally, I don't really support the badge idea.
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To me, I think it's a little silly.
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It's, I think that if kids are interested in something, they're going to be interested
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in it without a goal and that there's been a lot of, like, studies done.
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I can't actually tell you that in exact name of the studies, but they have studied children.
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And a lot of times when they have these badge systems, the children progress to a certain
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point and they, like, start out like getting lots of badges.
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And then they kind of plateau and they're not really interested anymore because they weren't
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interested so much in what they were learning as they were interested in the actual attainment
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of the badges.
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So they're not going to, like, once they reach, like, if you're, you know, programming
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a video game, like you program a video game and you meet all the qualifications, get your
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badge, and there's so much more to still learn, but while I learn it, if you aren't getting
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the prize and, you know, you're not, you know, that, to me, seems like sort of a weakness
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of the idea because you can only dangle this idea of look a little virtual badge in front
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of someone for so long and then after they accrue, like, five or ten or whatever, they catch
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on fairly quickly that, okay, all I'm getting is a little digital badge, like, it doesn't
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really, you know, how long can that really satiate your desire for, for earning stuff?
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You know, I don't know if that, it doesn't seem like the motivation is correctly.
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Placed there.
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Also, like, not just on the side of education, I mean, there's also badges aren't just
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for kids, they're also for adults, and I think that that is even more absurd than the idea
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of badges for children because I can only see where they're coming from, but for adults,
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on Mozilla's website for open badges, they actually say that they use the example of why
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badges are important by saying that you can just, like, write anything on a resume and
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there's nothing really to back it up, but somehow badges do back up that I have these skills.
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And before we even looked up the open badges, when we're, like, looking into it, like,
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we had already heard about it in terms of the discussion, one of the things that we said
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was that, we use that as an example, but in the opposite way, that whenever you do do
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a resume, it's not just the things that you write down, you write down things, but then
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you have to, you have to supply often a portfolio and almost, I think, every job I've ever
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applied to, I had to have either a letter of recommendation or references, especially
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when you start getting into the tech field, like, you do have to show, like, yes, I know
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these skills, and you're not going to get slide by for very long, if you're stupid enough
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to put something that you cannot do on your resume.
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Yeah, it might not be verifiable, but, I mean, the moment they hire you, you sit down
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and you don't know what you're doing, I mean, you're going to be fired the same day,
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isn't it?
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That's for very long.
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So I don't think anyone would, I don't think that's a common practice of, oh, I'll put
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this skill on my resume, and then I won't be able to ever back it up.
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It's just kind of like, that's not how people usually work.
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I'm sure there are stories where people did do that.
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They got the job, they coasted for a while, and then it turned out they didn't know what
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they did.
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But I imagine that's not that common.
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I think that with adults, like, your work speaks for itself.
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Yeah.
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Well, that's what the internet has enabled us all to do, and that's how it's been, I
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think, is it's been based on what do you have online right now, like, show me your
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code, like, what have you got, or show me your portfolio, like, on the internet?
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That is your badge.
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You don't need a badge system to validate what you're doing.
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Even with us, we've been working on me and plateau, we've been working on robots a
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lot.
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Yeah.
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And every single time we reach a new plateau with the robot, we'll either take photos
|
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or do a video, and then we'll write about it, like, we'll post online.
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Like, this is what we did today.
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This is, like, problems we've encountered, and this is how we fixed it.
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So, I mean, it shows, like, yes, like, we're working on this.
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Yeah.
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And even the mistakes that we make, because we've posted things where it wasn't working
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exactly.
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But that shows the progress and, like, the path that we're taking, which is, I mean, that's
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the open source model, you're full transparency.
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You show every step that you make, even the bad stuff, even the bugs, you kind of, like,
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let that be out there in the open.
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And it concerns me, I think, this idea that you need a third party to, like, sort of,
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step in and validate things or verify things.
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Because, I mean, that's the same thing with, like, SSL certifications, right?
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You've got these digital signatures that you put on your server that verify, hey, this
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really is the server that you think it is.
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Yesterday, you signed into the server, today, you signed into the server, both times, you're
|
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signing into the same server.
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And then there were, like, these vericine and all these other third parties that, like,
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sell SSL certifications for, like, five grand.
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And everyone's like, oh, well, if it's not, if it's not one of these expensive SSL certs,
|
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then we're not going to trust it, you know, we're going to call it a questionable site.
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When you can roll your own SSL certs, it's not that big of a deal.
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So why is there this illusion that we need a third party to step in and validate things,
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which is what this open badge system is doing, pretending like, oh, well, there's this third
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party that's issuing this badge, so it must be true.
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And that gives us, I think, a false sense of not security, but a false sense of truthfulness.
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Whenever I was younger, I was in Girl Scouts, and I was in 4-H, and Girl Scouts does use
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a badge system, which is cool, and you, like, work on badges by yourself, you work on them
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with the troop.
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And I hear in many, many badges, I can't remember any of them, but 4-H is not used
|
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as a badge system.
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4-H generally thought of for, like, horses and limestone, but they have other projects
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too.
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Like, I did a cat project, I did a horse project, and I also did a photo project.
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With the projects, you get a booklet, and you can work on it with other people, personally,
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everything except the horses I worked on privately with myself.
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And when I raided the photo project, I filled out the booklet, I did all of the different
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projects they had you do, but they also had you set goals of, like, why you were doing
|
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this project.
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Like, what did you want to learn for it, like, what did you want to improve with your
|
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photography skills?
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Had you done photography at all before?
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So, like, little spots to write that in, you could like, discuss it with your parents
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as well.
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And I did a project, I created a photo album, and took it to a fair, a 4-H fair, and
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I won first prize.
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And I still have that photo album today, and that's still a great source of pride for me,
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and it's something that I can show to people.
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And also, I've done, since then, I've done two other photo albums, and I would still continue
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to do them, but now most of my photos are digital, but I'm still a photographer.
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Like, I am constantly taking photos no matter where I go.
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So, the badges, like, I did learn a lot in Girl Scouts, I'm not going to discredit those
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things I learned, but I can't really remember any of them, because it was collecting the
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badges.
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And yeah, like, learning cool skills, but a lot of it was collecting the badges.
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Whereas with the 4-H method, it was actually learning something I was interested about,
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and fostering, like, a lifelong love of that thing.
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And I think that's an important differentiation between, like, I don't know what we would
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call that, method, the 4-H method, whatever that would be.
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But the badges versus that, like, in that case, you are setting your own goals to attain
|
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it.
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Whereas with a badge, yeah, it's like about this badge, and then once you've collected
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them all, yeah, you probably are going to forget about them, because you're going to realize
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that 50 other people have those badges, and, you know, it's just, it's not as significant
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to you.
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And letting people, maybe if there was some kind of hybrid where, yes, you had the open
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badge system, but the badges were decided upon by the person, you know, and then they could
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only get it if they achieve their own personal goal, and maybe that would be more significant
|
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to people.
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The motivation is coming from within, I guess, right, and the desire to learn, not the
|
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desire to get a badge.
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For adults, we were poking around on the Mozilla Open Badges website, and, like, for the
|
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actual, like, Mozilla badges that they were giving out, they were all, like, go to this,
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like, Mozilla website, and, like, do, like, three comments, and about, like, the HTML,
|
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and stuff like that, to prove that you knew what you were doing, your coder.
|
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And to me, I mean, that just sounds like busy work.
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It sounds like whenever you're in school, and they're like, oh, do this worksheet, because
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I don't know what to do.
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I've got some free time after you're done with this test.
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So just do a quick worksheet that doesn't mean anything.
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Right, yeah.
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And that's kind of the way I feel with this.
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Like, it seemed like, I mean, yeah, I mean, and I get, I get that, I, I, I kind of
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kind of get, like, if you're just someone, and, and for some reason, you've latched
|
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on to, you know, some project, let's say it is Mozilla, and you say, I want to earn all
|
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these badges, just to show how much I love Mozilla, how much I've really helped out on their
|
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project, and sort of that I subscribe to everything that they say.
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You could do their badges and, like, earn those badges, just really as a game for yourself.
|
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I guess my main opposition is the idea that these badges might ever become seen.
|
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And as actually valid measures of someone's worth or, or expertise.
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The Code Whisperer, in order to prove that you are a Code Whisperer and you know HTML,
|
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you add explanatory and helpful comments to a Mozilla web maker project, and you have
|
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to, like, code, like, write code comments at least three times and web maker projects.
|
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So they're not really proving, like, yes, like I created this wonderful website using HTML
|
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and CSS.
|
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It's just saying that you were able to critique somebody else's code, or I mean, yeah, it
|
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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.
|
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Ooh, that sounds so mystical.
|
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This person must be really amazing.
|
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And like, then you look into it further and it's like, oh, so they added three comments
|
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to someone else's code, so they're a Code Whisperer.
|
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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.
|
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Yeah.
|
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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.
|
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Right.
|
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But I don't know, like, some other people who are participating in the badges and creating
|
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their own badges, like, might have more in-depth stuff.
|
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Sure.
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But there's the div master, which is a mini badge, and it represents an HTML skill, and
|
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it's earned by properly using the div tag in a Mozilla web maker project, and you only
|
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have to use it properly twice.
|
||||
Perfect.
|
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And every div master for that.
|
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For, yeah.
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||||
Yeah.
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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.
|
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Right.
|
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Right.
|
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Wow.
|
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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
|
||||
you have been listening to Hacker Public Radio where Hacker Public Radio does our
|
||||
we are a community podcast network the releases shows every weekday on day before day
|
||||
today's show like all our shows was contributed by a HPR listener like yourself
|
||||
if you ever consider recording a podcast then visit our website to find out how easy it really is
|
||||
Hacker Public Radio was founded by the digital dog pound and near-phonomic and computer
|
||||
club HPR is funded by the binary revolution at binref.com all binref projects are
|
||||
proudly sponsored by linear pages from shared hosting to custom private clouds go to
|
||||
lunarpages.com for all your hosting needs unless otherwise stasis today's show is released
|
||||
under a creative commons attribution share a like lead us all license
|
||||
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