Student reflections on micro-credentials earned through the CCoL Global Leaders Program show that students remain skeptical of the efficacy of micro-credentials in college admissions decisions. This adds credence to the belief that micro-credentials can serve as a framework for increasing student agency and promoting 21st Century learning goals, yet more could be done to communicate the value of micro-credentials to those earning them. If “value” is a function of what colleges look at in admissions decisions, and colleges need good examples in order to develop a systematic and fair way to assess badge submissions, this could present a chicken-and-egg problem.

he MacArthur Foundation, Mozilla, and the Digital Youth Network partnered to form the Chicago City of Learning (CCoL), a “Connected Learning infrastructure that helps break down the barriers between the learning that takes place across spaces” (Chicago City of Learning, 2016, pp. 2-3). The work of CCoL served as an example of a way to promote learning agency by making connections across various domains of a learner’s life, leading to the development of a broader Connected Learning Framework (Ito et al., 2013), which describes a growing number of aligned efforts.

But how reliable are micro-credentials as indicators of student learning? How should micro-credentials be interpreted as indicators of academic potential?

Teaching digital literacy does not mean teaching digital skills in a vacuum, but doing so in an authentic context that makes sense to students. It means teaching progressively rather than sequentially, which helps learners understand better and more clearly over time.