In creating the Marvel Power Grid I have combined some elements of a Karate Belt Ranking system and a Badging system. Over the past few posts I have laid out the plan and the semi-automated digital display on the student’s dashboards. As I laid out in the last post though, a private dashboard is not very useful so a physical display in the classroom is also important.

I am lucky enough to have access to a Poster Printer which is the basis for this physical display system. First though I want to automate as much as possible which brings us to… Google Sheets.

To begin the class students create a Superhero Avatar complete with writing a “backstory” and selecting an avatar. These are completed through Google Forms which allow me to quickly learn about my students and update that information in my Google Sheets Gradebook. Here is the “Student Data Sheet” Tab.

The information on this sheet feeds into the Grade Records, Items, and other tabs. It also helps feed information into the Personal Dashboards.

But this post is about creating a Physical Badge system so this information will be fed into a DIFFERENT spreadsheet.

Each of the Power Grids are based on simple import range formulas. The grids themselves are all the same with the only change being the name and avatar image which are imported from the student data sheet tab of the gradebook. To change the information per class all that needs to change is the spreadsheet URL address in B1 to the new class gradebook.

After updating the avatars and names the power grids can be saved as a PDF using the Print to PDF option. Then this file can be printed on the poster printer and posted in my classroom!

Physical Badges

Once the power grids are all posted on the wall then it will be just a matter of updating the posters as students upgrade their powers. The simplest way to accomplish this would be to use a marker to fill in the appropriate box but part of the SAPS reward is “Status” and what better way to accomplish this than with a celebration.

My students meet every other day and then every other Friday. I envision a Friday ranking ceremony for each student has upgraded their powerset. The dashboards will automatically be updated when the power ranking is earned and students will have access to their new powers automatically as well. The ceremony would be voluntary and would feature music and a sticker students place on their power grid.