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Brad Zomick of skilledup for learners did a series on proving your skills to employers which included digital badges and certificates, credentials, and traditional degrees.

Blog post by Dorie Clark, Entrepreneur, April 11, 2014 on projecting expert credentials. 1. Solidify your digital credentials with a trail of digital breadcrumbs that mark you as an expert. 2. Speak up--get in front of potential clients throughfree workshops 3. Read the experts so that you know who the players are 4. Don't ask for permission, project confidence even if you don't feel it

by Matt Zalaznick, Universitybusiness.com Article from Oct 2015 on how more institutions offer digital badges as a form of micro-credential or "subdegree" to students. Also - "Perhaps appropriately, the University of Alaska, Anchorage offers professional development badges to instructors for studying digital instruction techniques, such as course design, social media and student interaction."

"The Varied Functions of Badges" summary from HASTAC discussion, 9/2012 My interest in the functions of badges was spurred along when the MacArthur Foundation asked for help documenting the design principles for using digital badges that emerge across the 30 projects underway by the awardees in their Badges for Lifelong Learning project. We needed to come up with a manageable number of categories. Here is what we came up with: Recognizing Learning. This is the most obvious and arguably the primary function of badges. David Wiley has argued cogently that this should be the primary purpose of badges. If we focus only on purposes, then he may well be right. His point is that badges are credentials and not assessments. This is also consistent with the terrifically concise definition in Seven Things You Should Know About Badgesby Erin Knight and Carla Casilli. Assessing Learning. Nearly every application of digital badges includes some form of assessment. These assessments have either formative or summative functions and likely have both. In some cases, these are simply an assessment of whether somebody clicked on a few things or made a few comments. In other cases, there might be a project or essay that was reviewed and scored, or a test that was graded. In still other cases, peers might assess an individual, group, or project as badgeworthy. Motivating Learning. This is where the controversy comes in. Much of the debate over badges concerns the well-documented negative consequences of extrinsic incentive on intrinsic motivation and free choice engagement. This is why some argue that we should not use badges to motivate learning. However, if we use badges to recognize and assess learning, they are likely to impact motivation. So, we might as well harness this crucial function of badges and study these functions carefully while searching for both their positive and negative consequences for motivation. Evaluating Learning. The final category of

white paper out on how associations can add value by providing different kinds of development opportunities with mini-credentials and certificates for employees desiring to move upward in their careers.

good lock at women with sTEM credentials and why they haven't stayed in field

article by Becky Klein-Collins for Governing, July 2016

Another in the blog series by Brad Zomick for skilledup for learners from 9/14/13. He discusses whether digital badges and certificates mean anything to employers, and what their actual worth is. Badges are mostly used for incentives along the way in a course, and are often not very meaningful. Same for certificates of completion. Most valuable are online certifications if they are associated with a company such as Microsoft, an accredited school, or other recognized entity. Zomick states that online badges, certificates, and credentials are most valuable when embedded in an online portfolio that shows your work and the skills you learned to do the work.

Interesting article in the NYTimes magazine, August 7, 2013, on choices made by high-powered, elite credentialed working mothers to leave the workforce to become full-time mothers for extended periods (10+ years) and the consequences for their marriage relationships, financial standing, and re-entry options for returning to work. Bottom line: every decision yields both good and unanticipated impacts, new opportunities, and closed doors especially when the decision to depart is made prior to a recession, and the decision to re-enter workforce occurs after recession.

Fascinating ideas for presenting credentials in creative ways

Very interesting experiment to allow six months of MOOC work to be used in admissions to MIT instead of transcripts of performance from schools that are unknown/untested. If MIT will allow MOOC accomplishment to satisfy entry-credentialing, what about employers?

blog by Eli Dourado on March 6, 2013 on binge learning. Excerpt: A combination of technology (DVRs) and market service providers (Netflix, Hulu, On Demand) have transformed how and when and where we watch "television." I suspect that students want the same things. Technology and market forces appear to be reshaping how and when and where we learn. Perhaps we education providers should pay attention. But the kind of bingeing that people might like to do with online courses is entirely different. Most people who sign up for an online class at Udacity or Marginal Revolution University want to take the class for its own sake, not as a requirement for some broader credential. The point is not to learn and forget-it is to indulge an interest. This seems like a more natural way to learn than traditional educational structures can offer: develop an interest and mercilessly indulge it until another interest supersedes it. It is a method that conserves the mental energy associated with willpower, leaving more of the brain's resources to focus on the material itself. Since it relies on the student actually being interested in the class, it is hard to fit into a physical schooling environment, where classes have to begin on a schedule, go slow enough for everyone to keep up, and run in parallel with other classes. Online education also saves the resources associated with context switching. Humans are notoriously bad multitaskers. Each time a high school student has to change classes, she has to quickly stifle the thoughts and questions raised in previous classes to focus on the current class. She has to expend mental resources remembering where the previous session of the current class left off. And when she returns to the class that stimulated the thoughts that had to be stifled, she may not recall them. Far better to focus on-or even to binge on-one subject until she is at a good stopping point.

video by Jacob Morgan--#1 bit of advice, learn how to learn new things. People seeing things changing in workplace. College degree not as impt. because previous knowledge, academic credentials are no longer as relevant. Automation taking over jobs--learn new skills to keep up and get ahead. Sit and wait for things to threaten your job, or look ahead 5-10 years to get ahead now. online courses, YouTube, Lynda.com, don't wait.