Where in the World?

Currently this blog has recorded 11518 readers from 129 countries and 2763 cities. (see bottom rh column). However, I would like to hear from the many silent partners, particularly at this time, on the subject of the age-groups of ePortfolio users. I am attempting to collate a list of 'Use Cases' from around the world which will demonstarte that people of all ages, from Pre-school, through mainstream education, VET, FE, HE and adult education are currently using ePortfolios for a variety of purposes. In particular, I am looking for more examples of the use of ePortfolios in order to support adult learners - or even those who use an ePortfolio system for a Community of Practice, in retirement or Care Homes. If readers can supply me with a link to your ePortfolio examples, or relate in approximately 100 words how you or your organisation use ePortfolios, I would be most grateful. If you want to email me, please use: support@maximise-ict.co.uk

Captivating the young

Too often people like the one in this cartoon think about ePortfolios from a technical standpoint or in terms of HE and FE, or upskilling of the workforce. It’s time we started focussing more on what we should be providing in terms of ePortfolios for our children.

I was pleasantly reminded of this by a long response that I got from Tricia Lockhart:

"As far as portfolios are concerned I share your frustration. Back in 1998 I came across primary schools where the year 6 pupils took with them a disc (almost a portfolio) of their work and skills to the secondary school who did not really know how to deal with it and so many of to-days schools have still not really got there.

"My exam boards talked about portfolios and so I made sure we were ready - only to find that firstly they delayed (because some schools were not ready) and then they gave a straightjacket of a structure or a theme which failed to understand what a portfolio really was (for example, we were allowed no external links yet these indicated the discoveries and hence journey of the students). They gave a context of a time capsule (the standalone portfolio would be found in a hundred years) and then failed to consider the reality of that - would the hardware and software still be decipherable. The logical failings of the task undermined what the students were doing. Imaginative schools and students were held back by rather unnecessary barriers. We had to change their online, working portfolio to make a stunted offline version for the exam board. Variety and opportunity must surely be the key - in a system that screams 'differentiation' why must assessment scream 'uniformity'?

"I worked with a year 4 lad, reluctant to read and write though quite clever and able he really did not have the motivation to navigate through the boring (to him) bits. In his spare time the call of the outside space and football lured him away. There were exceptions (The excellent Ways to Live Forever by Sally Nicholls). However, when he was given the role of a sports reporter, the zeal and attention to detail as he researched what to include, selected what to say and reworded how to say it, recorded then rerecorded (voluntarily saying there needed to be more expression or it needed to be slower) made him look like the most industrious and studious learner. The pride with which he then shared the resulting podcast with grandparents and peers was wonderful and of course was further motivation. This was just an audio production with a picture of the reporter as an image. (Hats and glasses are fun to wear and give some anonymity plus a 'stage name') Other examples I have are the 2 girls who made a news report and had used chroma key so they on their 'studio' chairs were in front with suitable footage behind. Sharing the result widely is so important.

"The way that parents and others can be integrated into the whole process is also important. Over recent years the way our assessments have been a barrier to parents fully understanding what is happening and then needs to happen means we have diluted the help from the most important allies teachers have - parents.

"Yes we need to make students aware of the problems and the need for security but not at the cost of the possible advantages. We also need to get some perspective - local papers of full of the pictures of all children who start primary school, smiling faces and names included. Electronic sources are not the only risk factors."

How I agree with everything Tricia has said above. I believe that the eFolio solution meets all of her criteria. eFolio is user-friendly, configurable to one's own self image and, above all is extremely e-safe and not 'discoverable' by any search engine until such time as the owner wishes to make a page 'public'.

Do other readers have similar stories of bureaucratic failure to deliver what our youngsters need? Are we not missing out by not captivating the young?

Reflection and ePortfolios

Karen Barnstable has done it again! See her blog. A clear and simple listing of the outcomes from reflecting on an artefact within an ePortfolio. For me this is all part of the 'Thinking Skills' initiative in the UK for mainstream (or K-12) education. The sooner teachers learn to encourage reflection and make it become a bedrock of learning the better.

3-Way Interviews

My friend Jamin Lietze wrote a very interesting post back in May. I have a very high regard for the work that he has put into developing e-Portfolio understanding for Primary schools in NewZealand. However, he raised an issue that I first came across in the work of John Pallister (some 4 years ago) in the UK and his work for MOSEP.

At that time John Pallister was running his 'eME' portfolio system 'in house' and, just like Jamin, used the student's e-Portfolio as the medium for discussion at short school-based 'Parent-Teacher Interviews'. The children would show their parents examples of work showcased from their VLE-based 'eME' system, parents would "Ooo!" and "Ahh!" at the right places and generally would see work that they had not seen before or did not even know about.

Obviously, as long as the majority of parents do not have on-line access to their child's VLE this 'shock-of-the-unknown' will continue in the same way as parent-teacher meetings did long before computers arrived in schools. But this brings out a valuable point. As more and more schools are opening up their VLEs for home access so the shock of the unknown or misunderstood should soon disappear. The regular sharing of learning experiences by children with their parents, mentors and peers will encourage both face-to-face and on-line feedback which will make the traditional parent-teacher meeting obsolete. Instead, one would hope that the 3-Way meeting will become a time of social pleasantries, celebration and constructive discussions where all are better informed. - Even cups of tea and cucumber sandwiches to talk over! (Never like that in my day!)

Perhaps the traditional 'Parents Evening' might even become a thing of the past?

e-Portfolios in Primary schools?

I was recently asked the questions, "How do I start using e-Portfolios in a Primary school?" - An important question that needs a serious answer. But, in simple terms, as with much of education, my answer is simply, "Start with the known and move to the unknown."

eFolio is exceptionally configurable to the needs of even the youngest children - a simple clear layout, in easy English, inviting the youngsters to take ownership of their eFolios right from the start. At this stage it should be noted that the eFolio is set by their age to be a private account and is not discoverable by search engines.

In discussion with eFolio staff, the teacher can decide what template, font styles and page tabs should be set as the default profile along with any scaffolding.

To begin with, say in yr5, it might be that only one task per term is asked for, and children find it very easy to start off with a topic such as 'All about ME!' Once the children are comfortably working at this writing task, it might be that the teacher asks the children if they have a digital photograph at home that they would like to use in their eFolio. This then becomes a great opportunity to get parents/carers involved. The teacher, at this stage, will have to enable access for the parents who can then assist in uploading an appropriate image to their eFolio. (removing the task from the teacher!)

Perhaps, in the next term, children could be asked to write about 'My favourite school subject(s)'. This, as with the previous topic, allows not only the teacher to understand more about each individual child and their backgrounds but also begins to help parents have a better insight as to their child(ren)'s learning.

Thirdly, children begin to develop their own identity through working on a further page, 'My hobbies and clubs'. By this time the children will have begun to develop their own self-identity within their eFolio and could be encouraged to allow two or three of their closest friends to have access to each other's sites. This will enable formative feedback, polls, surveys, Likart scales or peer review and thus stimulating the documentation of discussions often left uncaptured in the normal classroom environment.

In yr6 it might be that teachers want to start encouraging children to think about transition to 'the big school'. An enduring theme can start with the title, 'In the Future' - which could be as imaginative as the teacher wants. The student may change this title at a later date to 'When I grow up', and even later, 'My Career plans'. Apart from anything else, this begins to establish the concept of the e-Portfolio as being an ever-living, lifelong and ever changing document.

Another useful page could be, 'My awards and honours' which begins to document any credentials that the student feels are applicable. This might encourage the use of scanned images or additional photographs. I have found this particularly useful when interviewing children before their transition to Secondary school. In later years this section will provide links to the Learning Records Service (ex MIAP).

Well, that's the short version of my answer to what I call the evolution of an eFolio! For some more examples of this evolution, see: www.maximise-ict.co.uk/eFolio-01.htm

Or see the Issuu pamphlet at: http://issuu.com/efoliouk/docs/efolio_at_ks1-2

Show and Tell Video

I was recently privileged to attend a 'Show and Tell' meeting presented by Christine Terry of Grays School in Newhaven (on the South Coast.) For me the overriding message was not so much about the technology but primarily that of engaging parents.

Yes, the infrastructure had to be in place. Without a good learning platform developed for even the youngest of children, without a good broadband supply, without a good policy for getting laptops in the homes, without a good understanding of the principles of the Home Access Programme, without good training of all staff including Teaching Assistants, none of this could have come about.

Not much mention is made of their use of their e-Portfolio system inbuilt within their VLE but even the youngest children know and understand words like 'transition' and have a good understanding of how the e-Portfolio can be used even at this early stage. However, the overwhelming conclusion is that the dual criteria of their whole-school strategy and the insistence of involving parents right from the start worked amazingly well.

For more on Becta's notes on the visit please click here.

For more of Becta's Case Studies please click here.

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?

The Rose Report

Here in the UK a government commissioned paper 'The Rose Report' (on the Primary Curriculum) has just been published.

I was particularly interested in how ICT and in particular e-Portfolios might be able to assist in this revised approach to teaching and learning. I quote one opening paragraph:

"The report explores a curriculum design based on a clear set of culturally derived aims and values, which promote challenging subject teaching alongside equally challenging cross-curricular studies. Placing literacy, numeracy, ICT and personal development at its heart, the provisional model aims to secure high achievement in these vital skills for learning and life. Six areas of learning are proposed to give schools optimum flexibility to localise the curriculum and respond to children’s different but developing abilities, to provide ample opportunities for cross-curricular and discrete teaching and to help smooth the transition from the Early Years Foundation Stage to the primary curriculum. The areas of learning are shaped by the key ideas which are deemed essential to a child’s understanding."

As far as I am concerned, ICT should support and be developed in each of six proposed "areas of learning":

• Understanding English, communication and languages;
• Mathematical understanding;
• Scientific and technological understanding;
• Human, social and environmental understanding;
• Understanding physical health and well-being;
• Understanding the arts and design.

However more relevant to this blog: ICT is one of the central "skills for learning and life" which should be developed across the curriculum, along with literacy, numeracy and personal development.

The question about how ICT can support this required combination and how in particular an e-Portfolio strategy can be used to address these issues follows:

Use of e-Portfolios in Primary Schools
The ability of even the youngest child to select what they are proud of, to compare with others' work, to listen to suggestions, to be able to review one's activities and explain why certain procedures or processes were adopted is an essential part of learning. However, the documentation of these often ephemeral activities is not always easy to do.

The e-Portfolio is by far the best way to capture any of the above, in text, scanned images or any form of 'rich media'. So long as the e-Portfolio owner (ie the pupil) has access to the web, an e-Portfolio becomes independent of any LMS, VLE, stand alone laptop, home PC or for that matter any web-enabled device.

However, I was recently reminded that valuable information needs to be transmitted TO the Primary school from the Early Years Foundation Stage assessment regime. What with 119 stages to report on, all at different times and possibly in a different order from one child to another, the e-Portfolio is quintessentially apposite.

'Learning for Life' not only embraces those generic ICT skills which will last one's lifetime and evolve as new technologies become universally acceptable, it also has connotations of selecting and capturing those artefacts which have some enduring qualities related to learning processes which are worth keeping and reflecting upon both presently and at a later date.

Again, the e-Portfolio is most apposite in providing a medium of portability. At one time when a child moved from one school to another, either 'sideways' as when moving house or 'vertically' as in moving to 'the big school' children would take an envelope or the school would post on a parcel of exercise books and other artefacts (which invariably would not be seen by many staff). Now that much more work is done electronically, these transitions can also be performed through the learner's e-Portfolio. Sometimes called 'capstone' events, the learner has the opportunity to carefully select those artefacts which best represent 'ME'. (And they can be seen at any time, by any number of staff.)

However, the e-Portfolio also provides the site for a number of e-safe activities, such as peer review, collaboration, surveys and informal formative feedback as well as inputs from parents, carers and mentors.

Where the e-Portfolio is hosted externally and therefore is not limited by the constraints of the VLE, the young child can begin to organise one's site, selecting from various templates, skins, fonts and avatars in order to create a web-presence or 'digital self' which helps to reflect a personal self-image. See this web-page for examples of how the one e-Portfolio can evolve with the child.