Badges

So there might be a plan in the works to move me from my current classroom and into the library. We only have a couple of weeks left before the school year starts, and it might be very last minute if it does work out. But it's definitely caused me to redirect my focus on pinterest and start looking at library type things. I found this great website called OpenBadges. Basically you can design your own badges for whatever you want. 

This is totally basic, and not anywhere near what I really want, but it's a start, and I'm just learning what I can do with it. My plan is this, create a badge acquisition program for students. I might use this whether or not I'm a librarian. Based on student's reading habits, they can acquire badges. I'm thinking of having them leveled too. If they read five realistic fiction books, they earn the Realistic Fiction Level 1 badge. The tricky part is to keep track of this and well how do I tell if they really read it or not? Maybe I can set aside the last 5 minutes of class for students to give me a brief summary in their folder of the books they've read. Then also, how do I distribute these? They'll be small, and printing out hundreds of them, and laminating, and cutting, will a serious pain in my behind! There might be too many issues with this idea, but I really like it, and I really want to run with it. 


Maybe I can print them on stickers, and the students can keep them on their library folders or wherever they wish to display them. I think the sticker route might be the way to go. But do I also print separate leveled stickers as well, or just hand write those? Hand writing them seems easier, but more lame for the kiddos, you know what I mean?


I guess what I really wanted to say was, check out this website, play around with it, create badges, awards, medallions, etc. You can use them for end of the year awards, character awards, assembly awards, the uses are endless, and it's pretty darn fun to design.