COLTT Conference to Feature Revolutionary Micro-credentialing, Badging Tech

Discovery and innovation, Learning and teaching

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REGISTER FOR COLTT HERE; CALL FOR PROPOSALS

UPDATE: Rep. Joe Neguse will host a conversation with student leaders to address the power of student advocacy in shaping policy on today’s most pressing higher education issues.

The Colorado Learning and Teaching with Technology Conference (COLTT) will once again this year feature leading edge innovations and supportive education. For years, COLTT has been convening leaders and novices from across the state, as well as building a systemwide CU community of practice. This ongoing connectivity leads to the sharing of knowledge and practices, builds a network of practitioners and has actionable outcomes. CU on the Air speaks with Kristi Wold-McCormick, CU Boulder registrar, and Noah Geisel, micro-credentials program manager, leading up to the Aug. 4-5 COLTT Conference.

  • CU President Mark Kennedy introduces the importance of the COLTT conference and keeping CU at the leading edge of technological advancements and adaptive learning.
  • Digital badging and micro-credentialing illustrate how well COLTT supports emerging innovations for faculty and others in the educational technology community through sessions, workshops, vendor relationships and year round communities of practice.
  • Sessions will be for those who want to learn more about the micro-credential and badging initiative that at CU Boulder, as well as those who are more experienced including a wide range of uses in every sector.
  • Micro-credentialing is about recognition of storytelling on a technology level. Rich metadata tells more than an individual’s class and grade. It can attach evidence to show how students met the criteria to earn the digital badge credential and complete their Micro-credential Program.
  • Badging enables a candidate to reflect other learning that is happening outside of the classroom and in the community.
  • A Micro-credential Program badge is verifiable. It’s not just the individual putting something on a resume – their word against the employers or anybody else’s.
  • Micro-credentials and badging began two years ago as campus stakeholders from academic and non-academic areas started brainstorming. The CU system office then procured a contract with one of the leading badging platforms.
  • Micro-credentials in programmatic terms: Something in which you enroll and there are defined characteristics about the learning objectives, skills and capacities that will be demonstrated as a part of that Micro-credential Program. The digital badge is the container that helps communicate what you did in the micro-credentials.
  • CU Boulder is quickly becoming a leader in this space, but it’s not alone. Dozens and soon hundreds of two- and four-year institutions as well as “real world institutions” will be doing it as well.
  • The value that a university such as CU brings to this space is that educators can also step in where corporations don’t want to provide this technology. CU can lead the way.
  • For students, badging is a powerful opportunity of telling their story: grades, test scores, transcripts, community activities.
  • This technology highlights the importance of connecting people with opportunities and opportunities with people based on merit and on how well a fit, and not based off of things that are inequitable, such as last name and gender and race.
  • When the mission is accomplished: Verifiable credentials that help to say, “You don’t have to take the word of anybody else on what I’ve accomplished. Here are these learning artifacts. Whether it’s college admissions, graduate schools, employers, and actually validate for yourself who I am as a learner and see what we’re communicating.”

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