Achievement vs SherryBucks. Struggling with this one a bit, mostly in determining how to make the most value of each option. Sherrybucks are clearly the students "chips" - capital that can be earned and redeemed for something (extra time, bonus points, etc). Because of that exchange, they're value is apparent to the students.
But the achievements are trickier for several reasons. In a game they would be tied to multiple types of objectives - some of which would be required to complete a game, some of which would be optional. Its ok to see that your friend did not earn the achievement for beating level 1 because its ok that your friend did not beat level 1. But in a classroom, can we tie achievements to tie achievements to graded activities in a way that would be social? For example, is it ok if Millet can see that I obviously did not complete X assignment because I did not earn the badge associated with it? It also might get confusing to students... "I earned 5 achievement points for completing this assignment but my grade was an 8/10".
What might work is if achievements were tied not to tangible things, but rather sub objectives that did not have a specific point value. Thus they'd be tied to a students learning, but not to grades. Example: students have to give a presentation. During the presentation, they successfully unlock the "Commanders Chair" badge for articulating the concept of unity of command. Having that badge does not mean you know how the student did on the paper so it is ok to share (maybe?) and it also gives the student a meaningful report of the concepts they went through in the class. Could be a valuable study guide. Great reflection piece. But very hands on from the administration perspective.
Transparency:
The activities you have to go through to earn your points is clutch. This is the page that will shape behaviors. Its a bit too hidden at the moment. (my account --> points --> points legend). We'd need to have that someplace up front and obvious.
http://chrismillet.com/wp/members/cstubbs/cubepoints/earnpoints/
Activity Thread:
Love it. Coupled with some kind of leaderboard (s) this is a great way to get that social pressure kicking.
Random Idea:
It would be cool if you could actually have badges appear on posts or comments where they were earned. No small task unfortunately, but it would really helpful for behavior modeling. "Oh so that is the kind of post that earns the 'ubercomment' badge. Because not every badge will be earned automatically, there might be a delay if not outright confusion over what specific post/ comment/ link etc someone shared to earn them a specific badge.
Might be some less technical ways to do this, but it would require additional feedback from the instructor.
Thoughts welcome.
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