Digital Badges in Formal Education: Are Teachers Ready?

Digital badges – a novel validator of accomplishments launched by Mozilla Foundation in 2011 – are revolutionizing the world of certification systems. One of the sectors that is most likely to be deeply affected is formal education. The paper analyses Italian teachers’ hopes and fears about badges to acknowledge their own achievements as well as the students’ achievements, through the analysis of a large-scale survey (to 195 teachers on the job) with closed as well as open-ended questions. Results show the “shy” ripeness of the Italian scenario, where teachers seem keen on the adoption of this certification system. They would appreciate badges to acknowledge their own achievements; they are not much confident, though, on the fact that their “environment” (the principal, colleagues and the school system) would take them into full account. As regards badges for students, they are less enthusiast but show willingness to consider them, provided that the “issuer” is trustworthy. Overall, the Italian school “ecosystem” seems ready for an experimentation, especially at high-school level.