Student engagement in virtual teaching can be challenging. Having students interact with you with their cameras off or responding to a question in the meeting chat is not a normal. For me, it is hard to adjust to this type of interaction and unfortunately, it is the new normal.
During my robotics club, I wanted to encourage student engagement and spark conversations. I wanted to see and hear my students. So, I decided to take old concept of digital badges, and use them in my robotics club. I explained to them how they would earn a digital badge and it worked! The students turned on their cameras and unmuted themselves and even chatted with each other during club. I was so happy the digital badges sparked this type of engagement and conversations.
I created my own badges in Canva, downloaded them and added them into a Google Slide presentation. I told the students to create a digital avatar of themselves and add it to the a slide. Once they did that, I changed the Slides to view only, and started to add the badges.
You can also create a badge grid in Google Drawings.
- Set the page up for 9600 x 5400 pixels
- Insert a table with the amount of rows and columns
- Insert each badge into a cell in the table
- Download the grid as an image
- Create a new Jam and share it with your students as view only
- Change the background image to the badge grid
- Duplicate the frames
- Add a shape to cover the badge
- Add a label to describe the badge
- When the student earns the badge, delete the label and text box to reveal it.
Here is a sample Jamboard of Badged Up.
Enjoy!
