VET E-portfolios Showcase presentations

Whilst re-visiting the VET E-portfolios Showcase presen-tations I was most impressed by how VET and adult learning rings true with my vision of eFolio as a Lifelong and Lifewide tool.

Despite the variable sound quality of the Elluminate presentations I would strongly recommend listening to the presentations. In the first presentation keynote speaker, Ruth Wallace (Charles Darwin University), presents her research into the use of e-portfolios to support learner identity and re-engagement. She repeatedly used one of my pet phrases, concerning the ability of the e-Portfolio to represent 'This is ME'.

Perhaps the main message is about how the e-Portfolio can help to establish a learner's on-line identity and even how the learner chooses to organise the e-Portfolio and their learning. - Well worth listening through.

Jerry Leeson spoke fluently but raised many questions which remained unanswered. All thanks must go to Allison Miller for organising the conference

A Bridge Too Far?

Earlier this term I wrote an article for the Autumn issue of the CRA e-journal, 'On Reflection'. This journal is a very practical and down-to-earth commentary on real issues within FE relating to the Recording of Assessment and the whole area of e-Portfolios.

My paper, 'A Bridge Too Far?', asks questions about the feasibility of introducing e-Portfolios with FE colleges, and the pressures that this would or does raise in particular for tutors and support staff.

For those who are regular readers of this blog my conclusion to the article will not be surprising:

CONCLUSION: The e-Portfolio must not be hijacked - not by Industry, nor Higher Education, nor mainstream schools, nor adult Training Institutions, nor by the QCA, nor any VLE supplier but, more importantly, not by factions within the education system who may have a limited view of its real potential. The e-Portfolio is a dynamic, evolving and personal item of equipment for everyone and for every aspect of their studies, career development or leisure use, which should be available to all - from '5-95' - by right. How it is used by both our students and staff will vary according to college policies, learning styles, digital competencies and academic maturity. Suffice it to say that the above list of features (in the full article) should make the e-Portfolio accessible to all whatever their age, aptitude, ability, accessibility or attitude.

A bridge too far? No! But most staff need much more support to understand and adopt the above concepts and press on together with confidence.

On-line Learning

The above company drew my attention to some challenging statistics concerning on-line learning. Obviously, I see on-line learning as the future for all ages and strata of society. And, as I've argued previously, mainstream schools need to start thinking about how 'the school without walls' will actually support teaching and learning and to what extent the curriculum will change.

Despite the statistics being American it gives us six significant pointers for discussion and how we should be arguing for on-line provision in our own countries or localities.

Again, for readers who might not have seen some of my previous posts, the benefits of having one's own e-Portfolio cannot be over stated. eFolio meets the needs of all learners, Lifelong and Lifewide (ie whatever one's abilities).

Citrix on-line also provides some very thought-provoking papers including 'Questions senior executives ask about eLearning' and 'Five Keys to getting started with interactive on-line training' and 'How to Market Training'. Again, very thought-provoking papers to be read in the context of schools and Virtual Learning.

Small-Group Collaboration

I have just come across a very useful article on teaching and learning with a particular emphasis on collaboration from eSchoolNEWS. The article is well worth reading with the proviso that one can think in terms of on-line learning instead of the scenario depicted of US schools still living in the 20th Century.

Almost every single point could be translated into 21st Century Virtual Learning using a good e-Portfolio system such as eFolio. The Author, Ellie Ashford writes:

"Everyone needs to be able to collaborate in a group, because that's how things are done in the real world. No one sits alone and works by themselves any more," said Stan Silverman, director of technology-based learning systems at the New York Institute of Technology.

Some educators believe students gain a deeper understanding when they participate in group projects.

Lance Sutton, a teacher at Westview Elementary School in Goose Creek, S.C., said: "When a teacher lectures to them, they forget; when you have kids help design something, they will remember for a lifetime."

Sutton said collaboration is "a more positive way of teaching" and addresses the needs of students who learn best in different ways, such as those who are visual learners or auditory learners. He uses an interactive whiteboard and Interwrite Workspace software from eInstruction to facilitate small-group instruction with his fifth-graders."

As much as I agree with the teaching and learning style eloquently put in this extensive article, surely it is time to encourage, even at this young age, that students work on computers attached to a VLE or at least the Internet. This way all the exciting discussions, and activities, the artefacts produced etc are recorded for the teacher to assess or for the pupils to collaborate even more effectively, to reflect upon, access from home or present to an audience.

Everything Ellie Ashford says is true, but how much more effective can collaboration be through the use of e-Portfolios!

Minds on Fire?

This morning I came across a blog from 'Supercool School' which pointed me to the Educause document
'Minds on Fire', from last year. The document is well worth reading, even if a bit out-of-date now.

What particularly attracted me was the strapline to their recommendation, "In a rapidly changing world social learning will dominate over formal education."

'How daft', was my instant response. For ages we have recognised that more sex education is taught behind the bike sheds than in the Biology labs, that 5-year-olds are taught how to say 'please' and 'thank you' not by being told that this is the accepted norm, but by the fact that parents and grandparents informally and unconsciously teach these things by regular practice between themselves and also upon the informal correction, at the point of need, of the child.

Similarly, schools recognise that they only have an input to the child's education for some 12% to 20% of their young lives. Recently, through the Home Access Programme in the UK we are supporting the need for closer contact with parents and carers in order to reinforce good educational practice. (Use the search tool at the top right column for more on the Home Access Programme.)

Nowhere is the e-Portfolio a more practical and effective tool for supporting informal or social learning and documenting the transitory and ephemeral experiences of out-of-school learning. What I would like to see in the coming months is more examples of good practice in capturing that 'butterfly' of informal learning, particularly with younger students. - Any offers?

How many different e-Portfolios?

I recently read an impressive document analysing the functionalities of e-Portfolios. The above graphic gives a good idea of the range of uses to which an e-Portfolio can be put. However, traditional thinking tends to underline the belief that we should use different e-Portfolios for different purposes.

To be fair to the authors, K. Himpsl and P. Baumgartner of Danube University, Krems, Austria, their article set out to identify e-Portfolio software in (then) current use and, unfortunately they were not aware of my progress with eFolio for the UK and Europe. I include their abstract, below, but for a pdf copy of their full report (7 pages), you need to register here first.

Abstract—E-Portfolios are a new type of software and it is still relatively vague to determine, which functions are obligatory – that is which functions constitute characteristic features – and which functions are just optional (“nice to have“). This article describes the concept and the preliminary results of a research project which was conducted to evaluate E-Portfolio software, and aims at providing decision guidance for implementing E-Portfolios in higher education - first and foremost from the pedagogical perspective. Which recommendations can be made to an institution which now wants to implement electronic portfolios with a certain objective?

My argument is not against their well documented analysis of some of the available e-Portfolio software available to HE but of the conclusions that they come to as in the above graphic.

As any who have been following this blog will understand, I present eFolio as being the perfect e-Portfolio solution for ALL of the 12 functionalities, and much more, within the one e-Portfolio and also concurently. This is my whole point about eFolio. The developers in Minnesota have produced a system which allows the one set of artefacts to be re-purposed in a variety of ways. The learner's one eFolio can therefore present to different audiences, for different purposes, even concurrently. Furthermore, the different 'views' can visually support differing aspects of one's whole life. For instance, different audiences could see my eFolio as representing me as a Technologist, as a Human Resource manager, as an environmentalist or a charity worker and yet, at the same time, I could be collaborating with my peers concerning an article that I might be in the process of writing.

There is an inevitable implication throughout the paper (constrained by the funding system), that the e-Portfolio is only of use in Higher Education. It is thus inevitable that no mention is made of the needs of the young, the elderly, the less-able, those involved in teaching these groups or those who wish to use e-Portfolios for community or extra-curricula studies. In other-words the vast majority of learners appear to be excluded.

However, it is worth checking out the Himpsl and Baumgartner paper if only to convince one's self of how limited all the other so-called e-Portfolio applications are when compared to eFolio.

What institutions really need to know

I pounced upon this new article published by Glenaffric Ltd e-learning consultants as it appeared to be a comprehensive analysis of the present thinking on e-Portfolios. A quick look at the authors quoted soon gave this document an air of respectability that few who have studied the e-Portfolio scene in the UK would disagree with. The opening paragraphs looked even more exciting:

Key messages for senior managers have emerged from a three-year JISC programme on MLEs for Lifelong Learning, which funded ten multi-institutional projects working across different sectors and organisations to support student learning and progression. The work of the Programme involved exchanging data with key external bodies such as UCAS, local education authorities and large employers.

With a strong focus on the interoperability of e-portfolios across a wide range of contexts, the Programme has been able to explore the likely impact of national policies for lifelong learning upon individual institutions and their medium-term strategic planning of technological and pedagogical development.

However, reading further, I was sorry to get the feeling that nothing new was in fact said. It would appear that the authors are still arguing from a technical perspective that interoperability is the solution to all the e-Portfolio problems.

Secondly, the ludicrous position is still maintained that it is the institutions that are responsible for Lifelong Learning. I am repeatedly frustrated by reports and proposals for reports all concerned with the same introspective approach to Active Research. What I want to see is reports of learners who have left academia, taken up employment and have continued to maintain their e-Portfolios and successfully shared them with new audiences.

If children in Primary and Secondary schools can create their own e-Portfolios expecting full portability, is it not time that the FE/HE sectors asked themselves whether their institutional products will support Lifelong, Lifewide Learning and Leisure?

What is Feedback ?

For far too long we have assumed that 'Formative Assessment' and 'Feedback' are one and the same thing. Students say "I don't want to know about the feedback, just tell me the grade I've got." Teachers, too, tend to give feedback towards the end of a project and invariably only once.

It is time that both teachers and their students began to learn a few home-truths about Formative Assessment.

I always enjoy Sarah Stewart's blog - she is a hard-working and adventurous professional and her recent blog on Formative Assessment set me thinking. One quote in particular stands out:

"As a teacher, in the past the only time I heard from students about the feedback I gave them was when they wanted me to increase their grades. Very rarely have I heard from students who have wanted to discuss my feedback so they can learn how to improve their 'performance'."

I see Formative Assessment very differently. Firstly, as a teacher I see formative assessment as being the pre-emptive strike that ensures that we are both understanding each other. This, I hope will ensure that the student does not waste valuable time going off in the wrong direction. Secondly, I am concerned that the student should feel that I'm really interested in what he/she is doing - one visit hardly demonstrates interest. Apart from anything else, as we increasingly encourage independent investigation and lateral thinking, there is a fair chance that I may need to 'mug-up' on some areas into which I think that the student might venture. And, leading on from this, feedback is seriously NOT uni-directional. - Feedback from the student may suggest that the teacher needs to modify his/her presentation techniques or coverage of the syllabus.

Sarah referred to the University of Technology, Sydney and some very useful links to the whole discussion on assessment. For me one paper in particular made very pleasing reading, 'Formative assessment and self-regulated learning: A model and seven principles of good feedback practice.' A bit of a mouthful, but well worth downloading. I quote the seven principles:

Good feedback practice:
1. helps clarify what good performance is (goals, criteria, expected standards);
2. facilitates the development of self-assessment (reflection) in learning;
3. delivers high quality information to students about their learning;
4. encourages teacher and peer dialogue around learning;
5. encourages positive motivational beliefs and self-esteem;
6. provides opportunities to close the gap between current and desired performance;
7. provides information to teachers that can be used to help shape the teaching.

I've referred elsewhere to W.J. Popham's book, 'Transformative Assessment' but would again commend it here for its very clear message to teachers about how feedback can influence the work of both students AND teachers.

The argument for e-Portfolios
From the above propositions I can almost hear teachers saying, "But when have I got the time to arrange all these interviews, MULTIPLE interviews, with all my students????" And this is where the e-Portfolio enters in as the perfect solution. Teachers can 'chat' privately with their students as and when they choose, synchronous or asynchronous. Staff can access the students' work in progress and even chip in with a suggestion without the student asking. Perhaps, more importantly, the e-Portfolio allows staff to look, as it were, 'behind the scenes' and better understand where the student is coming from, in all senses of the word. And eFolio, being a 'rich media tool' is an excellent solution to the whole problem.

Where in the world are we?

The recent post from John Pallister set me to think, Is it not time that we had a world-wide audit of the current usage of e-Portfolios?

I am aware that there are some 2,500+ readers from 77 countries visiting this blog, some on an almost daily basis.

Can I ask, therefore, that you all tell me your opinion of what is happening in terms of e-Portfolio usage where you are? If you can collect any local data all the better. Short articles that I can publish a link to would also be helpful.

In the next day or two I will set up a simple questionnaire to collate your responses, but meanwhile, any comments or e-mails to me will be helpful.

Thanks in advance.

Thinking Differently in a Digital World

I had thought of a more slick title such as 'Get Real, man!' - but thought better of it. However, the principle still stands. Two different posts recently reminded me of the vast gulf which still remains fixed between those in their ivory palaces of academia and the real world of day-to-day learning and living. How we can best use the communication systems that we have and how we relate to one-another in the digital world still needs to be understood.

The first post, from Wayne Mackintosh in New Zealand, mentions an incident which is quite common, that of moving house, and even, in this case, from one country to another. He writes:

We have recently relocated back home to New Zealand after working a few years in Canada. My son is in Year 11, and due to curriculum differences between the two countries, in some subjects he had already covered aspects of the NZ curriculum in Canada. He had an assignment to write a book review and had already done one in Canada. So he simply copied the digital version of the book review for submission here in NZ. Educational issues aside -- he was able to reuse his efforts and investment in learning from a previous learning experience.

Similarly, in subjects areas which adopt a concentric curriculum design on increasing levels of difficulty a student may want to rework last year's assignment covering the same topic. Part of our responsibilities as educators is to prepare our students for a changing digital future .... This may place interesting challenges on traditional notions of property and ownership of learning outputs.

In a completely different scenario the writer, Julian Beckton, was extolling the virtues of a rendering of Mahara into which, credit where it's due, he has put a lot of work. However, it appeared to be a very introspective HE solution and lacked little reference to the wider world. I responded somewhat critically but, I hope, constructively:

If you can consider that an e-Portfolio is ‘for life’, or ‘from 5-95′ or as Dr Barrett says, ‘from sperm to worm’, you will appreciate that the one tool must be far more user-friendly than your somewhat technical solution suggests.

Secondly, the e-Portfolio is the centre for all sorts of learning external to ’school’ or ‘college’ and as such must have within it a number of e-safe tools which allow peer-review, collaboration, polls, surveys and questionnaires etc.

Thirdly, within the context of the percieved audiences, there must be simple tools to control who sees what and when.

Fourthly, and this is my chief complaint with Mahara, the e-Portfolio tool must be capable of using a number of templates, colour schemes and fonts which allow some degree of personal self-representation.

Fifthly, you mention nothing as far as I can see, about ‘transition’. Although there are ‘fixes’ for allowing some level of interoperability with Mahara, you do not warn people that the Mahara solution will probably not be of any use to learners once they move on from their present institution.

So, the bottom line is still the question that I often ask, 'How can we use e-Portfolios to enhance or even revolutionise Teaching and Learning in a Digital World?'

Moving House?

There comes a time in most people's lives when they have to move house and take all their loved possessions with them - and what an upheaval that can be! Unfortunately some people have a perception of the e-Portfolio as being that 'removal van' or 'pantechnicon' - which is used to transport every bit and piece of value or even no-value - just sentimental rubbish that one cannot throw away. However, the analogy gets worse! The learner decides that rather than unloading all their stuff, every bit of coursework, every idle amusement, every item of correspondence shall all be kept on board - because, after all, they are not stopping here but plan to move on again. And the effort of unloading and loading up again is just too much bother.

Others prefer to travel light, only carrying with them the immediate essential tools and equipment currently used in their studies. They have a more scatter-brained approach to learning - leaving a never-ending trail of artefacts scattered, on their academic travels, around the universe - sometimes called 'cloud computing'. The trouble with this approach, as any parent knows, is that things get far too easily misplaced or even lost for ever. For those who haven't read my previous jottings on 'transition' the potential amount of travelling the learner could experience is illustrated here.

As one gets older and possibly not much wiser there is the temptation to carry around even more clutter, 'just in case'. However, as we make our way to yet another presentation or job interview we begin to understand the need to cut our 'showcase' down to the bare minimum with which our audience can cope. And this is so true of our e-Portfolios. eFolio, in particular, is capable of displaying only what we want to show, uncluttered by ephemera or irrelevancies.

I have seen far too many blogs containing discussions about how much space on a school's servers their e-Portfolios should take. Similarly, there are debates about how long students' artefacts should remain on the school's servers once the students have left. Surely, these are all irrelevancies when considering the fundamental purposes of an e-Portfolio? It all comes down to an understanding of one of my several mantras:

"Let the VLE do what it does best and
leave the e-Portfolio to do what it can best do!"

This approach leaves all coursework, past and present, on the VLE's server alongside the specialist programs, assignment briefs, schemes of work, assessment tools, on-line reporting and all the other mechanics needed to run an effective 'electrified' school. How long these 'school owned' artefacts are kept is down to the institution's Policies.

The e-Portfolio, on the other hand, should be seen as belonging to the learner and need only contain those artefacts and tools that the student considers needful in their present circumstances. - Anything that rightfully belongs to the learner and is no longer immediately needed can be off-loaded to one's own PC or Tb backup for safe keeping.

Again, the e-Portfolio should be seen as a flexible and adaptable system. As much as any young adult may change friends or experience the coming and going of different teachers, the e-Portfolio should be flexible enough to adapt to the differing audiences who are permitted to share in the learner's activities. As children steadily mature into adulthood, so too, their affections and loyalties will change and their e-Portfolios should be capable of reflecting that change. It is not so much the opportunity to publicise one's avowed following of a film star, pop-group or football team so much as the fact that the e-Portfolio is capable of reflecting something of one's deeper self image.

The choice of media is so very important. Certainly we should avoid those e-Portfolio systems that are so heavily document-based as to provoke the audience to shout out, "I cannot understand what you are saying for the mass of words you write." The colour schemes, choice of fonts or avatars and the selection of recorded interviews, video-clips or SlideShares one may include will no doubt say more about a person than the text they write.

Ethics or Common Sense?

I recently came across a very sensible question on a NZ forum which needs a response. The original question I quote:

May I start a new discussion on the ethics of digital media and how we deal with it currently in our schools?
What are some of your guidelines on student-teacher confidentiality and rights in your school handbooks?
I am concerned on the behalf of students who have 100's of photo's from school camps, balls and sports days placed on a shared network drive for the whole school to access, or even worse, on a webpage.
Has the permission of the students or the caregivers of these students been sought for this exposure and is it any different to displaying the pictures on the school notice board?
Another ethical issue that concerns me about Eportfolios is the hosting and integrity of the host sites on the cloud, for example, there are rumours that Facebook is
selling your public profile pictures to advertisers to use without your expressed permission.
Could this happen to other information on the cloud? I suggest not, if it was hosted by the MOE.
What other ethical views are there on this?
* Video Evidence
* Photo Storage
* Blogs - Access levels
* Cloud Data integrity

One answer came back fairly promptly:

It's all very well suggesting that people should store their data in the cloud, but when you do this you partially lose control over them, in ways that aren't necessarily in your interest.

For example, data stored in a foreign country is subject to the data protection laws of that country. I'm pretty sure the NZ government doesn't allow its data to be stored overseas for this reason.

Also, you can't just count on the good will of these "cloud services" to keep on running - or even working in your interest. For example, Facebook has absolutely no incentive to help you extract your data from it - "why would we let you do that, are you thinking of leaving Facebook?" This even applies to the Google's of this world. At the end of the day, they exist to make money - not store your data for you forever.

To me, it would make sense if a user's portfolio data was stored somewhere that at least has a partial interest in it staying around.

The answers make good sense but, as far as I am concerned, there are four very simple answers to all of this:

1. An e-Portfolio is not very different to any other website or school intranet or VLE. There are usually clearly stated policies about the disclosure of personal data - in particular that photographs should not identify named individuals. Children should be encouraged to use avatars or pseudonyms on any public pages of their e-Portfolio. However, in encouraging children to feel that they 'own' their e-Portfolio they need to be more aware of these issues, or of revealing private family matters. Teachers, parents and carers need therefore to help their charges in these responsibilities.
   
   
2. We do not know how information about us might be used in the future. The skills of target advertising, for instance, are not going to get blunted. In years to come it might be quite possible for an automated process to access an old photograph placed on a repository to identify that we are an animal lover for instance. My simple solution is not to risk the placing of anything of a personal nature in the hands of unknown or unvetted 'guardians'.
   
   
3. The functionality of an e-Portfolio can get seriously confusing if different artefacts are stored in a variety of different repositories. Grown intelligent adults might be able to manage a whole set of artefacts 'scattered around the universe' - but this is not the case for most of our children in schools, the slow learner, the elderly or even those who just don't want the hassle of keeping a log of where everything is. The solution, keep everything to be used in the e-Portfolio in one place where links can easily be established and where the same artefacts can be used possibly several times for different purposes.
   
   
4. Having said keep everything together - that is with one reservation. The e-Portfolio is not a substitute for a VLE - or even one's own PC. The e-Portfolio is not a pantechnicon to move around every single jotting, practice exercise or classroom test. From one's PLE, VLE workspace or laptop items which are of some significance can be copied to the e-Portfolio for specific e-Portfolio purposes. So again, use the e-Portfolio for the purposes for which it is intended - and not as a general dumping ground.
   

So, at whatever age or ability, I would just suggest use a bit of common sense!

Post Script:

For those wanting to further consider the ethics of ICT and in particular relation to e-Portfolios, I thoroughly commend Simon Grant's book, "Electronic Portfolios: Personal information, personal development and personal values".

When do we start with an e-Portfolio?

For some years, now, I have repeatedly used the image of 'the Seven Ages of Man' to try and explain something of the problem of 'multiple transitions' and have invariably used the phrase 'from 5 to 95'. Even within the 5-19 age range there are many potential transitions that can befall the learner.

However, I was recently reprimanded by one who is responsible for 'Early Years Foundation Stage' learning. He pointed out that staff in 'Early Years' had to cope with reporting on some 119 criteria as and when instances occurred - and I can see the common sense in using an e-portfolio for this type of recording. - Possibly even parents could complete instances as well as education staff?

Once on this train of thought, I reflected on Dr Helen Barrett's suggestion that Lifelong Learning is actually from cradle to grave. And one of her suggestions was that at the 'Baby Shower' party celebrating the birth of the child one of the gifts to the babe would be an e-Portfolio wherein all the milestones of baby's progress would be recorded with photographs and a checklist of dates/occurrences etc. So, which County Registrar is going to be the first to recommend instituting e-Portfolios for babies?