This is an oft-quoted movie line and has several iterations and variations.  In fact, I really had no idea of the origin and the many shows and movies in which it has been used.  From Blazing Saddles, Gotcha, WKRP in Cincinnati and the Monkees. See more here.  But when it comes to social media, it is amazing what people will do for a digital badge.  Whether it is the mayor of some hot spot or unlocking badges on Foursquare, gathering stickers or digital badges at conferences, showing competency in Edmodo, or rewarding positive behaviors using Class Dojo.  Heck!  One only needs to look at my laptop to see how badges can be used to establish some nerd street cred.

Some of the ways that badges can be used in the classroom are presented above in the case of Edmodo and Class Dojo.  Others include a site called Credly where you can design and distribute digital badges easily to groups.  Brandman University has just announced they will provide digital badges for students to demonstrate mastery in their online competency based degrees and programs.  Per the article, the university is being told by employers they require the need to validate applicants skills and these digital badges are one way to do this.  Credly allows the university to assign badges to students, which are connected and validated by Brandman. This is a relatively new approach and I wonder how long before it trickles down to the K-12 environment.  It could make for a nice addition to my personalized PD model that I am working on for my dissertation.  I am going to give them a shot using these Avery labels.