Badges? We don't need no stinking badges!

Digital Badges ...

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/11/20/business/digital-badges-may-highlight-job-seekers-skills.html?_r=1&partner=rssnyt&emc=rss

Excerpt:

“What people are learning in school is often not connected to the world of work,” she said. “Badges can fill that gap. They can be a kind of glue to connect informal and formal learning in and out of school.” If valued, they might also inspire students to accomplish new tasks.

To create prototypes of these alternative credentials, MacArthur has started a “Badges for Lifelong Learning” competition that will culminate in March 2012, when the foundation will award a total of $2 million to several dozen winners, Dr. Yowell said.

Then again, we could perhaps repair the lack, in this joint MacArthur Foundation/Dept of Education/VA/Google project of badge designs for studies and accomplishments in, e.g.:

• Marxism
• Leninism
• Maoism
• Dialectical Materialism

These sponsoring capitalist institutions may be more kindly disposed toward such awards than we might quite naturally suppose, given that the whole scheme is clearly derived from:

• Орден Ленина (Order of Lenin)
• Герой Социалистического Труда (Hero of Socialist Labor)

and perhaps signals that the capitalist ruling class has at last realized the error of demeaning such awards with every jot and tittle of their grudging mention for several decades.

Товарищ Х