Our customer from St. Louis, Missouri, USA, tells how they have started to issue Open Badges for their students. The kids have been involved in the process and they also have a dedicated instance of Open Badge Passport that is also branded for them. This is an ongoing story and we'll hear more before summer and this fall.

1. Badgifying the School Experience
Kevin Collier & Dr. Denise Ford
North Kirkwood Middle School
St. Louis, Missouri USA

2. About us and our School
• Kevin– Technology Specialist
• Denise– Gifted Teacher (SOAR) 6th, 7th, 8th
• NKMS– 680 Students, aged 11-14. Every
student has an iPad Mini, enabling a 1:1
learning environment. Kirkwood is a suburb of
St. Louis, Missouri.

3. How Did We Get Here?!?- A Recipe for
Success..
• Gamer Mentality– Life is a series of quests, in which
you must “Level Up” your skills in order to defeat the
challenges (“Bosses”) that pop up on your journey-
Thanks NerdFitness.com!
• Gamification in Schools– Been reading articles about
making learning fun by bringing in elements of game
design in the educational space.
• Vocabulary.com– 7th grade began using site in order to
boost their vocabulary
• Gamification Class– Former Librarian, then Denise
took a class that featured badges as rewards for skills
acquired or achieved.

4. • Untappd- the beer app.
• Badges are awarded based
on beers you drank.
• It made me realize that
badges have always been
around us.
But the real reason was….

5. The Awakening…Badges are
Everywhere!!
If Badges are the new way to demonstrate skills,
but they are also rewards and accomplishments,
why couldn’t we do this for kids to reach,
engage, and improve?

6. NKMS & Open Badge Factory
• Created a Closed Open Badge Passport
• Badges are awarded for participation in School
Experience, Behavior, Contests, but also inside
the classroom based on content—Mastery of
skills.
• Students apply for badges via our homepage
(Hopefully, they’ll be able to apply through
the passport soon)

7. Examples of our Badges

8. Our Passport

9. Content-Related Badges- 2 Examples

10. Content-Related Badges- 2 Examples

11. In Summary
• We both feel this has enormous potential.
• Teacher/Staff buy-in is critical– they have to
help create the buzz.
• We are starting with students first– but could
see where this could also transfer to a
professional development model for teachers.
• This could spread to the other schools based
on our success.

12. Feel Free to Contact Us!
Kevin Collier- Technology Specialist
kevin.collier@g.kirkwoodschools.org
Denise Ford- Gifted Teacher
denise.ford@g.kirkwoodschools.org