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I am Chloe Varelidi. I work for Mozilla and also run Athens Plaython . This is my blog. The subjects range from game design, to learning & the open-web, to one-eyed monsters.

You can check more of my work at varelidi.com or follow me @varelidi on twitter.

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I am a ____________ Webmaker, and other badges for the Summer Code Party

After last week’s sneak peek into the Web Arcade Projects ,that we have been busy prototyping with all the Learning & Tech Mozillians, the time has come for a sneak peek into the specific Badges for Mozilla’s Summer Campaign.

During the Summer Campaign we are expecting people everywhere who are joining the Summer Code Party to MEET up to MAKE something cool and LEARN how the code.

The badges suggested in the paragraphs below aim to seed a community of practice, celebrate creativity on the open web and showcase the different types and (ever changing) roles one can take upon as a webmaker.  (more on the badge system -and Caine’s arcade- at Carla’s blog)

The Webmaker projects will support a suite of digital and analog badges. In this blog post we will talk about some of the digital badges, which vary from badges awarded by the system when you publish your remixed webpage, to badges that you can email your peers, to badges that you can award to yourself. All badges will be using the Openbadger tools.

I will start with this last one type; a badge that you award to your self. I know this might sound a little bit strange; why would I want to give my self a badge? One could say that sounds like cheating or take it even further and call it straight up self-centered. But bear with me as I give a little bit of background.

The idea came about from talking to friends about what it means to be a “webmaker.” People would get mixed up when I told them that webmakers are not necessarily people who make things with technology, programmers if you will. For me, I argued, being a webmaker is a way of looking at things and an identity that we take upon when being active citizens of the web, and yes it might also mean that you get to learn how to code a bit. (Michelle Levesque who is THE expert has many answers about what it means to be a webmaker on her blog)

So what if I thought there was a self-assessment badge, a badge that called you to fill in the sentence I am a _______ webmaker, a way for you to reflect on your ever evolving identity as an active citizen of the web. 

In classic “play-testing” mode I asked a few friends that were in the Mozilla London offices today, to fill in the sentence above and here is what they came up with; multifaceted webmaker, creative webmaker, novice webmaker, webmaker TROUBLE, girl webmaker.

Onto more badges:
The Webmaker Basic is a badge awarded by the system when you publish a project. 
When you receive the badge you also get the following text “There are people who are on the web, and then there are people who MAKE the web. Congratulations on making your mark on the web!” along with a video of a webmaker encouraging you to keep going.
The Mozparty Host is a badge awarded by the participants of an event to the host via email. When awarding the badge to a host you get prompted to send the following text to the host along with a personal message ;
“You host, you post, you even made the toast! You are the one the code party loves the most.” 
The Mozparty Maker is a badge awarded by the host of an event to the participants or from one participant to another via email. When awarding the badge to a peer you get prompted to send the following text to the peer along with a personal message ;You are a make machine. You keep going even when everyone else stops. 
The Mozparty Legend is also a badge awarded by the host of an event to the participants or from one participant to another via email. When awarding the badge to a peer you get prompted to send the following text to the peer along with a personal message ;”You are the soul of the party. The dancing floor is empty without you.” 
The Mozparty Buddha is also a badge awarded by the host of an event to the participants or from one participant to another via email. When awarding the badge to a peer you get prompted to send the following text to the peer along with a personal message ;  You bring zen to the event floor! You are the yin to the host’s yang. You code, you make, you might even bring a cake! 
The Keep Calm and Code On  is a badge awarded from one participant to another via email. When awarding the badge to a peer you get prompted to send the following text to the peer along with a personal message ;  if (stuck) { then.code on }
The You don’t hate, you motivate is a badge awarded from one participant to another via email. When awarding the badge to a peer you get prompted to send the following text to the peer along with a personal message ; You are there to help out anyone who is stuck with a task. 
Please leave us our feedback as we will be implementing the first iteration of these badges within the next weeks. You can also check this etherpad and leave comments there. Which ones would you like to receive, which ones would you like to give to others? Do you see any badges missing?

Thanks to Jess, Carla, Laura, Erin, Bekka, John and Tom for playtesting and word-smithing.
  1. chloeatplay posted this
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