What does it look like?

I am a member of a BSI (British Standards Institute) SIG working on ePortfolio specifications to include issues of interoperability and much more. On face value, as the Sth.Koreans presented it, the ePortfolio problem is all about interoperability and how far we are off coming to consensus. But, the further we get in discussing the details, the further away we depart from each other. There is no doubt that institutions around the world have all defined their own perceptions of what an ePortfolio is, what its purpose is, who should be using an ePortfolio, compulsory or voluntary, institutionally owned or learner owned, what does it feel like, what does it look like. Many of these issues I attempted to address several years ago. See ‘Who is hijacking our ePortfolios.’

However, one of the outcomes of the BSI SIG was to identify ‘Use Cases’ of which each country, and even institutions within any country had different opinions as to how an ePortfolio should be used. Can I ask you, therefore, if you would respond by completing the following headings as a comment or emailing to support@maximise-ict.co.uk

Age Range:
Institution:
Location:
Contact:
Application: (name of software)
Function: (30 – 100 words)
URL:

The USP of an ePortfolio

I was recently asked what I found, within my experience, to be the USP (unique selling point) of an ePortfolio. The next day I was asked if I could crystalise my paper on 'Attraction and Retention' (see previous post) into some 6 bullet points. Well, below I attempt to do just that. The above illustration clarifies my message: there are many players in the field, most, in my mind are relatively boring and unattractive. To me, only one stands out as being unique. But perhaps you would be kind enough to comment on my selection of 'six of the best' criteria:

1. The learner should be able to make their ePortfolio stand out as different, a 'must read'.


2. The ePortfolio must be learner-owned and therefore laid-out as the learner chooses.


3. It must be completely and repeatedly portable from one institution to another.


4. It cannot be laden with inbuilt assessment tools if it is to be accessed by mobile devices.


5. It is not static - but must be capable of continuous upgrade as the learner matures.


6. It should be capable of displaying multiple concurrent 'personas' to different audiences.

My original list of 'Ten Prime Directives' can be seen here.

Comments, please?

A few questions...

Well, the full title should be, A few questions before you launch into implementing ePortfolios at your education institution.

For some time now, I have been following the adventures of Sarah Stewart and her application of ePortfolios to the work of midwives in New Zealand and Australia. Recently she posted some 10 questions which potential implementers of ePortfolios should ask themselves before taking such a leap of faith. With her permission I have duplicated her questions and provided some answers:

1. What are you wanting to achieve?
Does an ePortfolio system allow you to achieve that aim or would something else be more appropriate? For example, you would like to use an ePortfolio to allow a seamless submission of assignments by students...do you need an ePortfolio to do this, or can you achieve that function via your current learning/student management system?

Answer:
Any half-legitimate institution for teaching and learning should have its own VLE with a good range of resources including rubrics, rich media, archived materials, and powerful tools much broader than the standard syllabus in order to allow students to develop their own personalised learning environment. So, what we should be doing is looking at those aspects of an ePortfolio that a VLE cannot easily deliver.

2. Is what you are wanting to achieve pedagogically sound?
In other words, do you have a sound educational reason for implementing ePortfolio or are you attracted by the technology with all the latest bells and whistles?

Answer:
Introducing an ePortfolio system will not suddenly change teaching and learning strategies. Rather, a student-focussed approach should inevitably suggest that an ePortfolio is the best medium to manage a range of learning activities where peer-review, feedback in all its forms, use of alternative media, supplementary information about students etc is possible. Above all the ePortfolio should allow the ability to present selected artefacts to a variety of audiences, under controlled access.

3. What is the evidence about ePortfolio in your context?
Is there solid evidence that ePortfolio makes a difference to students' learning or is ePortfolio another fad you are following for the sake of it?

Answer:
There is a growing body of evidence from both students, teachers and administrative staff that ePortfolios have a demonstrable impact on both teaching and learning. However, this takes time for new-start institutions. It takes several years for most institutions to settle down to ePortfolio thinking. Until teachers have discovered what works/does not work for them, until exemplar materials related to ePortfolio processes are tried and tested, until an institution has a good body of alumni who understand ePortfolios, until a good cohort of mentors can advise from their own previous experiences, that evidence will be slow to materialise. Administrators, too, have noticed a significant increase in retention rates.

4. What ePortfolio tools best suit your students' needs?
Before you sign off on an expensive proprietary ePortfolio platform, is there an online tool already available that will better suit your students' needs? For instance, if you want your business students to be prepared to find a job, would they be better off developing a LinkedIn account? Would your carpentry students be better off uploading photos of their work to Flickr? Would a blog suit students' needs for a reflective ePortfolio?

Answer:
This question suggests a restrictive view of teaching and learning. All students should have access to a wide range of tools, such as they prefer to work with, such as Flickr, Prezie, PhotoPeach, Issuu or Audacity to name just a few. But these are NOT ePortfolio tools as such. ePortfolio tools consist of facilities such as making individual artefacts private, shareable or public. Tools such as polls, surveys or Likart scales as well as pre-set forms which can be ‘switched’ on or off all allow different methods of providing feedback. Similarly, blogs or wikis can be contained within the ePortfolio so as to create a private but collaborative community where students can work together with some confidence that their efforts and mistakes will not be seen by ‘outsiders’. - Anyway, who says a proprietary system has to be expensive? - eFolio certainly is not!

5. Who is in control of the ePortfolio?
If you dictate the ePortfolio to the students they are far less likely to engage with it than if they have total control over it. The ePortfolio must belong totally to the students so it can be developed to meet their needs, as opposed to your needs as lecturer and that of the institution.

Answer:
In many cases it might be better for the institution to provide the ePortfolio with some level of scaffolding to help students get off to a good start rather than having to build from a blank canvas. A range of good support features will enable the student to identify what things can be changed immediately and what things can be modified at a later date. It is up to the teacher to decide how much ePortfolio support each student may need, but, as when encouraging a baby to walk, there comes a time when hand-holding is not necessary. Control is a matter of gradual release.

6. Will the ePortfolio be integrated into the curriculum?
If the ePortfolio is an extra add-on to the students' work, they are unlikely to engage with it. Thus, you need to consider how you will integrate it into the curriculum and assessment. This may require a lot of work for faculty staff, so you have to decide if this effort is "worth it".

Answer:
This might create a bit of strain for those educators who have not made the transition to collaborative teaching and learning. However, having access 24/7 to a student’s ePortfolio means that monitoring progress is easier, particularly if you have a few students who need ‘prodding’ to get going. Similarly early intervention if a student is beginning to veer off course actually saves the teacher considerable work when students begin to get towards the date of submission. As mentioned previously, this can help retention rates.

7. How portable will the ePortfolio be?
What will happen to the ePortfolio when the students leave the institution? Portability is one argument for using the cloud such as Google Apps, as opposed to a platform that is restricted to student use only.

Answer:
Portability is a fundamental question and although questions about teaching and learning MUST come first, the issue of portability will actually influence teaching and learning strategies. I have heard too many HE students say “Why should I bother, I can’t take it with me!” If the ePortfolio is to be both Lifelong and Lifewide it MUST be capable of full portability without the destructive influences of extant interoperability systems. However, the rush to use cloud solutions is not without its drawbacks. A secure externally hosted system provides the best of both worlds. eFolio, for instance, is hosted externally in the UK and Europe. One of the significant drawbacks of a cloud-based solution is that of the lack of educational support whereas eFolio is provided primarily as a tool for learners.

8. Can the ePortfolio be integrated into the students' life as a professional tool once they have left university/college?
This is an especially important question for nurses and midwives who are required to have an ePortfolio as part of their statuary requirements for practice. There's little point in developing an ePortfolio platform that is different from one they will use once they are qualified. On the other hand, is this an opportunity to collaborate with hospitals and professional bodies to ensure there is a seamless integration of ePortfolio from life as a student into professional practice?

Answer:
Yes, it is ESSENTIAL that the principle of the ePortfolio as being Lifelong should enable the newly qualified professional, for instance, to use the ePortfolio for the continuation of one’s career and other interests and to share with new colleagues etc. In a new situation, the cosmetic display and layout of pages, the selection of relevant artefacts should be capable of matching one’s new image.

9. How will you evaluate the ePortfolio?
You must have a process for measuring the impact of the ePortfolio as opposed to implementing it without further follow up.

Answer:
Perhaps the most significant feature of evaluation is not that of the presentation of the ePortfolio nor of the artefacts contained within it and the temptation to think summatively, but rather to look at the reflections, the benefits of collaboration and the learning processes the student experienced that demonstrate an increased maturity of understanding rather than just a completed project.

10. Do you walk the talk?
Do you have an ePortfolio that models the process to both colleagues and students? How can you know the value of a pedagogical process if you do not engage with it yourself?

Answer:
Yes, every teacher is a learner, a collaborator, and, where necessary a bit of an exhibitionist. The ePortfolio should be seen as a tool for learners, teachers, departments and institutions. The same tool can be used for many different purposes and all sections of society.

E-Portfolios: The Joys of Disruption

Darren Cambridge is a well known voice in the ePortfolio world and has authored or co-authored several helpful books. The YouTube Recording, of his presentation on 23rd August, at one 1hr and 40 mins takes some dedication to follow - I just feel for the people in the audience! What he said was good if not new to many who regularly read this blog.

Early on in his presentation Darren claimed that ePortfolios evolved from paper-based 'Writing Programs' and the need to teach writing skills in the 80's. This flies in the face of the work of Dr Helen Barrett and her identification of portfolio practice based on young children's 'shoeboxes' in the 70's or my own experience of presenting portfolios of work in the 60's for Design and Technology courses.

The presentation was frank and at times honestly brutal in terms of the 'extra' work that staff would need to undertake. What he did not mention, as far as I could detect, was the fact that the ePortfolio system actually helps staff to save time: having access when convenient, being able to provide feedback before a student might find himself 'up a blind alley', being able to quickly route to areas of particular interest, etc. On the other hand, Darren did point out the fact that the ePortfolio allows teachers to see the whole picture of the learner, their interests and background.

As a 'stand alone' presentation I just felt that he presented too many negatives. However, within the context of a larger workshop conference I hope that delegates found more things that excited them and where they could see how the ePortfolio can actually enhance Teaching and Learning.

The term ‘Disruptive Technology’ is only true where it is an indictment of outmoded pedagogies. For institutions that have emerged from the dark ages and have been using Web2.0 technologies and liberated Teaching & Learning styles the introduction of an ePortfolio facility could rather be seen as an ‘answer to a maiden’s prayer’. I’m trying to think of the best antonym to ‘disruptive’ – we need a word that combines supportive, energising, and challenging or provocative.

The Complexity of Implementing e-Portfolios

The title of this post is taken from the post written by Vic Jenkins at the University of Bath reporting on the recent Keynote presented by Lisa Gray (JISC) and Gordon Joyes (University of Nottingham). I found the title challenging enough, but the actual post is even more challenging and needs some careful understanding. The video was well put together (despite the audio feedback!) - and I found myself viewing it over and over again.

Some five 'Threshold Concepts' are listed, each followed by a number of claimed 'preconceptions'. However, as I commented on Vic's post, I suspect that many (but not all) of the issues raised by the 'preconceptions' are nothing to do with ePortfolio design or lack of it, but rather echoes of traditional teaching and learning styles which need to be thrown out before ePortfolios can be introduced.

One thing that continues to worry me, as reflected in the Presentation, is the belief that an ePortfolio system is the sole tenure of HEIs, as this again colours much of the published ePortfolio thinking. I really do wish that more ePortfolio evangelists would look beyond the silos within which they work or that they might look beyond the remit of a constraining research grant.

If an ePortfolio is really 'for life' then it cannot be weighed down with built-in assessment tools, whole schemes of work, every artefact generated over four years, every blog-post and feedback or made so technically complex that a 5yr-old or aged granny cannot use it.

Don't get me wrong, I have every praise for the work that JISC in particular does do. But I really do hope that we can come to some sort of consensus as to the simplicity that an ePortfolio such as eFolio can offer.

ePortfolios – still trialling? Why?

Darren Lott recently raised the above question in his blog. Funnily enough, the questions that he raises are very similar to the issues that I tried to address at both the EIfEL and AAEEBL conferences earlier this month.

However, Darren's enthusiasm for wanting to get going highlights a recurring issue, that of individual organisations 'doing their own thing'. It is essential that if a true Lifelong and Lifewide ePortfolio is to continue throughout life, 'From cradle to grave' then the practicalities of how that ePortfolio can evolve with the maturing lifestyle and interests of the learner need to be explored.

Firstly, all of the ePortfolio 'pages', the welcome page in particular, should be capable of repeated re-formatting with appropriate graphics, colour schemes, fonts and widgets etc. As I have said before, the immediate impact that an 11yr-old (or even a 5yr-old) may wish to convey will be quite different to that of a young professional trying to get on in the world. It is similarly true for the teenager whose overriding passion is for a particular football team or pop group - and what happens when they change their loyalties?

Secondly, and following on from the first point, I believe that a good ePortfolio should be capable of presenting different views or 'personas' to different audiences. Using the one ePortfolio and dipping into a common set of artefacts, which have been stored once, the owner can represent him/herself in different ways to different audiences. How I represent myself to my pupils at school or to my professional colleagues, to my church group or to a charitable organisation might all be very different. Should I therefore be using four or more different ePortfolios in order to present each persona?

Thirdly, as I have said many times before, the ePortfolio is Learner Owned. It is appreciated that initially the ePortfolio may be provided by an institution and even fitted out with some appropriate level of scaffolding. However, like an exercise book, once the learner has used the exercise book, or decided to use a ring-file etc, it inherently becomes the property of the learner and is kept for perpetuity. (How many of us still have some of our old exercise books stored away in the attic?)

Fourthly, the question of 'transition' must be addressed. One of the reasons for so many pilots and reports of mixed feelings towards adoption arises when the student leaves their school or college to join another academic institution. It is a common experience that the 'new' school will have a different ePortfolio system. They get to the new institution only to find that the promised 'interoperability' does not deliver the student's anticipated ePortfolio intact but rather find it 'broken' into a number of separate files, some unrecogniseable. The student is then faced with the unenviable task of having to re-build their lovingly crafted ePortfolio all over again. I can just imagine the feelings of rebellion that some of my more rebellious teenagers or 'neets' would think! But even worse still, what would happen to the child's work when moving from Primary school to Secondary school? Who would do the exporting and who would do the importing? Who would do the re-building and having to learn a new ePortfolio system?

Following on from the above is the slightly different aspect of 'portability', ie where the learner has possession of their ePortfolio and wishes to show it to others. Many institutions are not willing to host their alumnis' ePortfolios for perpetuity and thus the whole arguments concerning PDP and showcasing fall down. Many graduates, for instance, may not move seemlesly from University straight into employment, they may choose a 'gap-year' or take on some part-time work whilst they get their social life sorted out. Others may be 'between jobs' for a considerable period of time - all when they might want to work on their ePortfolios but not be part of an academic institution willing to host their work. Please see the example of an eFolio student who graduated several years ago. Her eFolio remains intact and up-to-date as it is hosted externally to any institution and certainly external to her present place of work. It is completely 'mobile' and is accessible from anywhere in the world.

Finally, there is the whole question of Assessment. There are a number of good assessment tools that work very well when attached to the MIS of the VLE or LMS - and that, in my opinion is where they should be kept. Unfortuanately there has become established a tradition that particular subject-specific training organisations provide their students with an on-line learning pack which is a combination of a course management tool, a personal log, a collaboration tool, a sophisticated testing and assessment tool, all rolled into one and called an 'ePortfolio'. Such a tool is hardly 'learner owned' and has little value as a showcasing or reflection tool for lifelong learning.

So, in response to Darren's enthusiasm, I would suggest that we look more carefully at the long-term expectations one may have of an ePortfolio before committing to a product which is bound to fail several criteria.

It's a Job Interview, Not a Beauty Pageant

I've been intending posting on this topic, but an article on BNET UK prompted me to 'get going'. For years I have taught Desk Top Publishing and one of my first principles can be summed up in the simple question, "Who is my audience?" And never is this as important as when designing one's e-Portfolio. The first impression that an employer, potential college admissions officer or mentor gets from accessing one's e-Portfolio is a lasting one.

Far too many blogs and wikis are no more than a friendly chatting place, full of patois, clumsy grammatical conjugations or plain self-opinion. On the other hand some DIY web-pages show an astounding expertise in html and PhotoShop but hardly say a thing about one's learning, the benefits of working in teams or show a reflection on one's progress.

So, my advice is simple:

1. Make introductions short and to the point;
2. Ensure that navigation is simple for your visitor;
3. Only use illustrations that are relevant;

4. Be careful in the use of colour schemes and fonts;

5. Explain why you have chosen an artefact;
6. Describe the process of crafting your artefact;
7. Give credit for all sources used;
8. Above all, make sure that the reader understands what you have learnt from this exercise - otherwise do not include it in your e-Portfolio.

Evaluation of an e-Portfolio system

I've recently received a copy of the report, 'Assessing the Efficacy and Effectiveness of an E-Portfolio Used for Summative Assessment '. - A very clear and well written document!

As regular readers will appreciate, I disagree with some aspects of the report such as the decision to use the embedded e-Portfolio tool within Blackboard. The authors also recognise a serious limitation of the report in not having any pre-implementation rubric results with which to compare findings. Again, I would disagree with the emphasis on evaluating implementation skills. I think that in terms of e-Portfolios we should be well passed that stage by now and just use the e-Portfolio to assess learning outcomes.

As the title of the report indicates, this implementation was being used to assess SUMMATIVELY. NO reference is made to the use of the e-Portfolio for enabling teachers to provide FORMATIVE feedback. However, the report is well worth reading in terms of the research methodology and the lessons learnt. People considering implementing e-Portfolio systems or even developing existing systems would do well to carefully study this document.

home-school relationships - 1

The FuturLab report, 'Developing the home-school relationship using digital technologies', published a few weeks ago, is a useful statement of the present situation, warts 'n all. Illustrated profusely throughout its 68 .pdf pages and well documented, I wonder just how brief FutureLab's message really is.

For me, I get a similar sense when reading the document as when I see other publications by Becta on Parental Engagement - 'It all seems a bit one-sided'. It all seems to be about telling parents what the school does and what the parents should be doing. Yes, there are occasional statements about listening to 'pupil voice' but generally the data-flow all seems a bit one-sided. Again, although I believe in on-line reporting in its full and wholesome potential, many fear that the term relates only to the dreaded 'REPORT' mentality which usually tends to highlight a pupil's failings (eg times late, detentions etc) rather than their merits.

Obviously, I tend to look at any report in terms of its references to e-Portfolios, again, only one brief reference in passing to something that might be implemented in the future. As regular readers will recognise, I see the e-Portfolio as being the tool par excellence for communicating to parents both the progress of their child(ren) in real time and the apposite place for formative feedback.

What I do not see in this report, as with other Becta publications, is any mention of the facility for TEACHERS to take notice of what learning takes place outside of school which is NOT school directed. The e-Portfolio is very much a two-way process as opposed to Becta's uni-directional approach of TELLING the parents. The e-Portfolio can resolve a very real dilema - that of parents not knowing how children are taught, but also that schools should be aware of what happens in the home, in the ballet class, the Saturday morning football fixture or the additional private tuition.

e-Portfolios under the microscope

Jamin Lietze has produced an excellent and concise summary of his recent presentation. Well worth checking out, once one gets used to the Prezi format - best seen in Full-Screen mode.

I have know of Jamin's work in New Zealand for almost two years now. A credit to his school and nation!

The details of his document on 'Set your criteria...' must be taken seriously. I hope that we can soon have an audio transcription of the presentation or perhaps an extended article as a backup to this work.

Jamin, Congratulations on an excellent show!