Tagxedo

A new 'Wordle-type' toy but an analysis of my work over the last three years.  Obviously many words we would expect to see on a blog dedicated to ePortfolios and eFolio in particular.  It would be a good exercise to check up on the more obvious words, using the search function at the top of this blog.

A welcome to new readers from several countries who have joined us, particularly from some of the smaller islands off the east coast of the USA.  Over 14,000 readers from 141 countries at the last count. - Check out your country (bottom right of the blog).

Engineers talking about ePortfolios

Nice one!  From LaGuardia, a good clear report on ePortfolios in college, as far as it goes.

Those of you that follow this blog will note that I haven't made any comments about their ePortfolios coming with them from Junior High, or for that matter taking their ePortfolios on with them throughout life.

ePIC 2012, the 10th ePortfolio and Identity Conference

Should everybody have an ePortfolio? How do ePortfolios contribute to the identity construction process? How do ePortfolios support the acquisition of 21st century skills? How do ePortfolios support lifelong learning, orientation and employability? How can we make ePortfolios fully interoperable? To find the answers to these questions, and more, join us at ePIC 2012, the 10th ePortfolio and Identity Conference, 9-10-11 July 2012, at the IET, Savoy Place, London. 

ePIC 2012, London 9-10-11 July 2012, will mark the 10th anniversary of the International ePortfolio and Identity Conference. We would be delighted to celebrate this special event with you and all those who have contributed to the success of previous conferences. It would be a great honour and pleasure for us if you accepted to submit a contribution or simply join us next July in London. It will be a wonderful opportunity to meet colleagues of a truly international community to, one more time, move forward the "state of the art" in the field of ePortfolio and identity construction. EPIC 2012 will also host the second ePortfolio World Summit (after Boston in 2011).

 

If you cannot attend ePIC 2012, please keep us posted on the latest developments in your area and forward the information about ePIC 2012 to people who might be interested to join our ePortfolio and Identity Community.

You will find below the information relative to the ePIC 2012 call for contributions

 (http://www.epforum.eu/2012/).

We look forward to hearing from you and your projects!

Serge and Esther, Europortfolio
    

A Profoundly Disruptive Technology

The AAEEBL conference was a most challenging experience. Held in Boston (MA), meeting so many of the world's leading experts in ePortfolio thinking and from all aspects of education was quite moving. The venue was great and, running concurrently with another more general exhibition 'Campus 2010 Technology', made for some fabulous catering!

Perhaps one of the most challenging messages that I took home with me was the overwhelming feeling that throughout the world educators were all at different stages and opinions about ePortfolios.

Trent was quite right to say of ePortfolio adoption that, "It is gradual because it depends on turning teaching and learning upside down." In my opinion this is a four-way process: For some teachers (and college/HE lecturers) the very provision of these tools will provoke discovery of teaching and learning techniques never tried before. For others who have had a desire to implement new perspectives of teaching and learning, ePortfolio tools are the very answers to their anguished prayers. Thirdly, of concern to ICT managers and accountants, the ePortfolio can provide a low-cost solution to long-term file storage and curation. But fourthly, the ePortfolio can become truly learner-owned and thus supporting lifelong learning.

Whole essays could be written on each of the above four groups and, yes, agreed, this must surely be a disruptive technology for all of them.

I finish this note with some sense of encouragement. Before the conference I had prepared my presentation with the title, 'The Need for NOW!' In it I wanted to express the challenge that both clarification of terminologies and a convergence of practice was urgently necessary. I feel that the whole conference only confirmed my passion.

Adult ICT users

You may or may not have been aware that John Denham recently asked Baroness Estelle Morris to carry out an independent review of ICT user skills. She has now published her report.

The BIS website gives a synopsis which may be worth reading first.

Even at a cursory glance it appears to be saying all the right things. However, I am flabberghasted in that although written by the highest authorities in the land it makes no mention of e-Portfolios!

Is there nobody who actually advises these lofty oracles who knows anything about the value of e-Portfolios in any form of learning, however old the learner or whatever their previous abilities?

Surely, the motivation to get on and learn anything to do with ICT starts by having some sense of pride of ownership and self-representation. What tool is better able to provide planning, collaboration, peer-review, formative assessment and the final showcasing of a student's work than the e-Portfolio?

Having marked adult learners' paper-based portfolios before I cannot understand why anyone can even dream of not using a simple e-Portfolio system. eFolio, for instance, is a low-cost product, simple to use and maintain and, what's more, can be kept with pride, for life!

eFolio v 2 has arrived!

Well, we've been waiting quietly but excitedly for the arrival of our new baby! Well, not new as such and not so much of a 'baby' - it's really very big once you get to know it! The 'new' eFolio might on the surface look very much like it did before BUT the whole of the 'back office' working has been revamped to meet the needs of the new web 2.0 generation.

Everything you thought you knew about eFolio is about to change… and it is not only because the look and feel of the interface are different.

Electronic portfolio users have often focused on the eFolio tools and resulting portfolio sites. This has, in the past, created a gap in development and process. Unfortunately that gap has directly impacted the value portfolios can play in the assessment of learning. We often refer to the gap as “portfolio thinking”…representing elements of design and planning needed by both educators and learners. I look forward to what users will experience in filling that gap as they discover what the new version of eFolio tools are positioned to contribute to learning communities, social learning, and teaching strategies.

Start now by thinking about content as discrete objects that can be used in many ways within a single portfolio. The simplest example may be found in the data fields identifying self, a peer or professional contact. Change your thinking that those “contact-related” fields create items about a person that contribute only to a “Contact Me” or “References” page.

A contact may now be identified as someone who contributed to your work on a project or was a mentor in an activity. A contact might be identified as an employer associated with a past job or a professor who evaluated your class work. As such, the contact can be linked to an artifact, event, or affiliation. Resulting content combinations will, in turn, be available as items posted on the pages of your portfolio site.

The difference is that each content object (such as a contact) also remains uniquely available for re-use in a different context on a different page or within the pages of an alternative site. The possibilities are endless when expanded to address the advantage of owning multiple personal portfolio sites as part of one account (e.g., Personal, Career, Coursework, Work Experience) or the existence of shared sites available to members of defined groups and learning cohorts.

Perhaps this is what excites me most, that objects can be re-used for different audiences and for different purposes - and all at the same time!

Join us over the next several weeks as we begin to discover how eFolio’s expanded toolset will promote your experience with the power of portfolio thinking in a content/object-oriented interface.

Thanks to Lynne Groves at Minnesota for much of this text.

Will Technology change us?

I was very disturbed to note the articulate writings of David Jones who proposes, Technology will *not* change the way we teach - an example why we’re an amnesiac field It seems to me that universities are still replicating the research model of the 19th century whereby students replicate the selected thinking of previous generations without respecting any learning from what is going on in the here and now.

David quotes various dated authors in suggesting that learning is still dominated by the teacher's delivery, rather than the concept of the learner being encouraged to map out his/her own learning strategies.

Perhaps he is dominated by professors who know no better, who only deliver according to lesson plans set in stone decades ago? Perhaps those professors are frightened to stand back and see what can happen with learner-owned learning? Perhaps he is surrounded by 'techies' who invent pseudo e-Portfolios without the embedded structures and support that is needed? Teaching and Learning has come a long way in the last 50 years. It seems unfortunate to me that some institutions might still be repeating the mantras of a previous age.

In my post on formative assessment I try to give a simple understanding of how teaching and learning can be transformed in a way that is only possible through the advances in e-Portfolio development.

Again, in response to David Jones' post, the combination of e-Portfolios with other technologies as in Becta's article by John Traxler, 'Learners – Should We Leave Them To Their Own Devices?' points up the real potential of the combination of different technologies such as accessing my eFolio on my iTouch.

But until such time as e-Portfolios are properly embedded in the Teaching of all institutions and until such time as ALL learners have their own e-Portfolios I suppose that there will be those who get left behind?

Well, wa de yer want?

Those that know it all don't ask, and those that don't know what to ask for don't ask. The curious may ask but don't often recognise nor understand the answer. It is the wise who ask, listen to the answers and ask again. As I have said to my students many times, 'If you don't ask, you don't get!'

In the world of academia it seems to me that often students are not asking the right questions and wondering why the answers obtained do not meet their needs.

Nowhere is this more apparent than in the area of e-Portfolios. It appears that far too often technicians appear not to understand what teachers and learners actually want. Furthermore, those responsible for teaching and learning are often not aware of what they should be asking for.

As I have often said, we are in a situation where we use new technologies only to replicate previous forms of delivery. This scenario is typically illustrated by those who use digital projectors and Interactive WhiteBoards in as clumsy a delivery as when using OHPs.

Nowhere is this more clearly expressed than in a recent blog that I came across, I quote:

"It is sometimes difficult to see past the technology and remember that it is used for particular purposes, in especially, for reflective practice - which is why e-portfolios seem especially popular on courses such as PGCE, nursing and medicine, where reflective practice is part of professional requirements. It seems to be a little more difficult to find a true purpose for the technology in other areas..."

My response to such sentiments will be obvious to some readers:

On reflection and why other disciplines don't use it:

Perhaps it is because other disciplines are still working by 19th Century methods?

Teaching and Learning has moved a long way since some of our Professors went to school. Even 5 year-olds are now taught to reflect on their activities. Certainly much GCSE and 'A'-level coursework requires 'evaluation'. Here is another point, 'reflection' is often taught as being about the artefact whereas the most significant parts are probably about the process and the person. I have taught for many years that the reflection or evaluation must substantively deal with 5 aspects:

• The Product
• The Process
• The Person
• The Problems, and
• The Potential.

And I expect any user to be enabled by the e-Portfolio to demonstrate all of these. The technology should be transparent and as intuitive as any wordprocessor, spreadsheet or blog.

An end to Grades?

I recently saw a post which caught my imagination from The Daily Collegian. This is an area which has troubled me for a long time. How, exactly, will Teaching, Learning and Assessment change with the use of e-Portfolios?

I quote a section from the article:

"O’Brien added that the growing use of e-portfolios have dramatized the potential for tools other than grades to convey what students have learned.

"Other concerns with letter grades, according to O’Brien, include to potential for grade inflation to take away from the reliability of grades and the concern of consistency with grading as more students are taking courses at multiple colleges, including colleges overseas.

"Maribeth Clark, Provost of the New College of Florida, offers a system in which students must work out a contract with a faculty adviser each semester.

"The contract outlines which courses should be taught and how success will be measured. Professors contribute to a record of the student’s success, without using grades. According to Clark, at New College, dislike of the traditional student transcript is so great that the college does not even send them out. Students are in charge of sending out their own records when applying to graduate school.

"At Fairhaven College, students don’t receive grades either. They participate in a two-way evaluation process with professors for every course, and for their major and degree programs. The students evaluate their own work first, then their professors follow with their own evaluation and then the two have a much involved discussion. Many assignments also feature self-evaluation, as students complete a paper and also write about what they learned from the process of writing the paper or how the assignment did or did not work for them."

So what is happening in the UK or elsewhere?

1. Will e-Portfolios encourage the use of the Project approach?
   
2. Will we see students having to plan their own work schedules?
   
3. Will collaboration actually help learning?
   
4. Will 'anytime access' to teachers by pupils increase their workload?
   
5. Will formative inputs from staff help in sumative assessments?

If you have any opinions or suggestions please comment!

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.

Well, what do you want for an e-Portfolio?

I am aware that people from all over the world (54 countries at the last count) are watching this blog and my demo eFolio site. However, I would like to hear more from you all.

Jamin Lietze has produced an excellent 'wish-list' of what he would like to see in his perfect e-Portfolio system for his school. His list raises some interesting but conflicting challenges:

• Can a 'free' system provide user-support, upgrades and maintenance?
  
• Can one system meet the needs of the pupils in an 'all-age' school, and the needs of staff PDP etc?
  
• What about parental access?
  
• What issues need to be addressed concerning an externally hosted system?
  

Please respond - what issues do you see as needing to be resolved?

Are you ready for Digital Storytelling?

One of the most powerful uses of an e-Portfolio is that of collecting and collating snippets of rich media that will, probably or possibly be used in various presentations. The e-Portfolio has the capacity to 'Save Once, Show Many' times (or SOSM) and for different purposes.

A link (first on the list below) forcibly reminded me that I had not addressed this use of the e-Portfolio within this blog. Of course Dr Helen Barrett has been shouting this from the rooftops for ages as her pages clearly announce.

This use of the e-Portfolio, possibly as a sort of private confessional, supports a powerful form reflection, organisation of though, reviewing of expressions used according to selected audinces. I therefore commend this list to educators as illustrations of how we can use rich media to help students in writing for a purpose.

For students, I commend reviewing many of the presentations in order to absorb something of the rich culture of Digital Storytelling. Above all, do not worry about the technicalities. To begin with just write from the heart and use a few still photographs, or add a bit of 'mood music'. If you have a simple video-camera or mobile phone, just record some short clips and then dub with your voice-over. Some of these stories are very sophisticated, others are technically more simple, but remember, it is the combination of the story that you are telling and your choice of supporting media that can tell so much about you. If 'a picture is worth a thousand words', how much more powerul a whole Digital Story?

The following list shows a diverse range of materials and support:

The Educational Uses of Digital Storytelling

Center for Digital Storytelling

Digital Stories – Wales

DigiStories

BBC – Telling lives

Dr Helen Barrett

Bournemouth University

If you have other examples that I should add to this list, please let me know!

What does your e-Portfolio look like?

Following Dr Helen Barrett's blog it worried me that her graphical representation of all of the various aspects of an e-Portfolio was beginning to get a bit too complex to be of any practical use - apart from provoking some intense discussion. In her discussion forum it soon became apparent that there are many contrasting elements both linear and cyclical. Maria lists some of the essential contrasts:

"The key concepts: process vs product, formative vs summative evaluation, internal vs external audience, inmediate vs retrospective reflection, learning experiences vs learning outcomes/standards is a welldefined framework."

I therefore attempted to create my 'Radar Diagram' and thus presenting a useful representation. I soon realised that this could be used by tutors to discuss with their students such things as learning styles or areas needing more attention etc. Students, too, could use this as a personal self-assessment exercise, comparing their results with 'ideal' results at stages throughout the course.

The obvious input for this was to create a set of questions where an individual might give a '1-10' response. Similarly, this approach could also be used to identify a whole class's or cohort's general position on this learning diagram.

I attach the spreadsheet used to generate the Radar Diagram or Map. I do not claim that this is a perfect solution and would therefore appreciate your feedback. Thinking in terms of formative assessment, the same spreadsheet could obviously be developed to assess the general understanding of the uses of an e-Portfolio for a whole class and thus meet Popham's first level, ie that of adjusting one's lesson plans to suit the needs of the class.

e-Safety and e-Portfolios

Today I was challenged by one of the blogs that I regularly read, that of John Pallister's e-Portfolios and PLTS. John has done an exceptional job in developing e-Portfolios both within his own school and in the recent MOSEP publication. I quote his item in full, for those who do not usually see his group's blog, in order to encourage some debate about e-Safety on this blog:

"While preparing for an eSafety meeting I found that I was motivated to; I wanted to; I was driven to, write this post. But that does not really make sense; I need to get all of the issues sorted out/ organised for my meeting, so why, at this stage should I share my thinking with others?

"Over the years I have read a lot about eSafety. A lot of the advice/ articles/Blogs have been brought to my attention via Twitter and the numerous on-line discussions that have taken place in a wide range of communities. I think that I have a fair handle on eSafety, so if I do a bit of research and a bit of reading, I should have something to offer the meeting. But again something is telling me to write, to Blog, to share!

"It must be because I have not really got all of the issues sorted out in my head and so feel the need to go through the writing/Blogging process to help me to sort out my thinking.

"I need to decide where I sit along the continuum of eSafety that at one end, has the walled garden, where learners are protected by a rabbit proof, giraffe proof and social software proof ‘fence’, while at the other end learners are allowed open access to all of the available resources and tools.

"Looking at the extremes; the walled garden is an attractive proposition for schools. Learners only have access to what (the opportunities) that the gardener (the teacher) thinks that the learners (the plants) need to grow (learn) and thrive. So long as the ‘fence’ is designed to keep out all of the nasty experiences, all should be well. The school (teacher) defines what should be allowed to get through the fence; the learners are safe and get on and, hopefully learn, in a ‘safe’ place. Duty of care fulfilled. Philosophy, if you do not understand it, or you are not ‘told’ to provide learners with access to specific tools, applications or experiences, do not do it, fence against it.

"3.30pm arrives, the learners are let out to roam their Personal, home based, Learning environment. There are fewer fences in sight; they have access to tools and applications that provide a wide range of opportunities and experiences. Many experiences will be positive and support their learning; some could be detractors and some could put the learner at risk. So we cannot rely on ‘fencing’ systems to protect out learners 24 hours of the day, 7 days of the week.

"Historically we have educated/taught our learners how to survive, that is, what they need to do, or not do, to stay safe in the big, bad world. We teach them the Green Cross code; we promote Cycling Proficiency; we provide information about the risks of alcohol and drug abuse and we advise them not to talk to strangers. We do not have fences along all of the pavements that run along the side of every road, we do not have footbridges over, or under-passes under, all major roads. We educate young learner to behave in a safe fashion.

"So thinking about the other end of the continuum, would it be better to provide learners with access to ‘everything’ and then ‘educate’ them in eSafety?

"If that was the chosen strategy, one challenge would be to make sure that every teacher fully ‘understood’ the potential, for learning, of the current and evolving Web 2/social tools, and that they appreciated the risks. Without this background and understanding we could not expect teachers to teach the skills and understanding that our current generation of learners will need if they are to stay safe. Somehow we would need to spend a lot of time working with teachers before we could begin to move towards ‘un-fenced’ personal learning environments. How can we do this?"

My first question would be, 'How is this done in other countries?' Does anyone have a magic pill?

What's an e-Portfolio?

Perhaps one of the best introductory descriptions of the functionality of an e-Portfolio that I have ever read caught my attention today. It comes from Macaulay Honors College at CUNY. I quote the opening paragraph:

Think of all the work you do while you’re a student at Macaulay. Assignments for classes, projects, a thesis, essays, photography, videos, musical performances, websites, blogs, wikis, mathematical formulae, scientific research or experiments, short stories, poetry…even more. Then think beyond that. Think of the other kinds of work you also do, that might be less formal, or less “official.” Conversations with friends, interesting websites that have influenced your thinking and learning, books you’ve read on your own, places you’ve visited, souvenirs, emails…and even more than that, too.

Unfortunately, yet again, this article reinforces the approach of 'this is an HE thing'. It does not promise continuity in the big bad worlds to come, it does not question whether students have been using e-Portfolios in their previous educational institutions, pre-school or (with their parents) from birth.

A Teacher's Questions

Recently, through a blog that I came across, some searching questions were asked to which I have attempted to give some answers.

Could an e-Portfolio be used by educators and learners as an enabler towards education and learning?

Very much so! I appreciate that teaching and learning varies around the world. For instance, the Americans often refer to ‘instruction’ whereas that grates a bit as sounding too didactic for UK teachers. Have a look at my slideshow for something of how education is moving in the UK.

But even with a ‘liberated’ teaching and learning environment, accessing work remotely through the VLE and having laptops at home through the Home Access programme, this sort of work can still be seen by the learner as belonging to the school – the very interface and organisation of files is ‘school’.

The use of the e-Portfolio firstly underlines the ‘ownership’ of the learning as belonging to the learner. The look of the interface in terms of colour schemes, fonts, colours, avatars and rich media etc along with web 2.0 tools and widgets all go to a representation of ‘ME’.

Secondly, the style of learning, anytime, anywhere and anyhow (ie what devices are used) lends itself to a spontaneity as opposed to the regimentation of most school timetables. In contrast to the formal classroom situation, the e-Portfolio allows for collaboration between peers from different classrooms or even different schools. So often, schoolwork has to be produced to preferred grammatical standards and layout whereas through the e-Portfolio it is possible to collaborate quickly and creatively in their own patois.

But thirdly, and perhaps most importantly, the teacher or other mentors can communicate privately through the e-Portfolio at a time convenient to the teacher and is more able to provide considered formative comments which is not always possible during the hurly-burly of a busy class.

Fourthly, because the e-Portfolio is seen as owned by the learner and representing their own perspectives, it is inevitable that the teacher will understand things about the child’s home life, their informal learning and experiences, their relationships etc, all of which help the teacher to better appreciate the learner’s needs and expectations.

How could one integrate e-Portfolio as evidence and records of competency and as a learning reflection tool to ensure its aims towards the achievement of life long and life wide learning goals?

I view the e-Portfolio as sitting alongside the institution’s VLE. The user’s own area on the VLE will inevitably contain a large amount of incomplete work, the ‘debris’ from short tests, work in progress etc as well as completed exercises which have been assessed and from which the learner has moved on. Within that VLE will also be a number of assessment tools and capstone assessments which will be recorded by the MIS providing support to both Real Time and end of term reporting. However, the e-Portfolio is that place in which the learner can place selected artefacts from the VLE as representing evidences of significant achievements. As W.J. Popham clearly explains in his book, Transformative Assessment, both the teacher and the learner need to understand which items are to be assessed and their significance within the learning processes. Again, reflection should not just be a matter of introspection but one of peer assessment, collaboration and reference to mentors.

Your second part to the above question, that of Lifelong and Lifewide learning, almost requires a thesis by itself. No one can predict the future so well as to be able to identify beforehand which artefacts will be significant in later life as milestones of one’s learning. As much as one might have kept old exercise books in a tin box and photographs in an album, I think that in this digital age we still need to archive ‘unwanted’ artefacts on CD ROMs or similar storage devices ‘for posterity’.

I do not see the e-Portfolio as being the ‘pantechnicon’ of all of ones learning and life-experiences but rather an open home for the time and ‘place’ one’s life has got to. Certain ‘childish’ things might be put away when other adults are our audience and yet, in another setting, time or place, it is right and proper to share our reflections with others. The whole beauty of a well constructed e-Portfolio system is that these different audiences could all be seeing different views of the same e-Portfolio all at the same time!

For some novice educators and adult learners, preparation of e-portfolio requires mentoring and development. It also takes consideration time and efforts for the learner to appreciate the importance and application of e-Portfolio.

Again, you have two implicit questions here. Yes, there are some complicated e-Portfolio systems out there that might not let you do what you want or others that require an advanced knowledge of Macromedia or others that are downright expensive which cause people to go down the DIY route. There is no need for this. A simple system such as I promote is all that is needed to present even the most mature and technical of e-Portfolio presentations.

Again, I do not think that there is any problem with learners wanting to represent themselves to a variety of discrete audiences. I believe that experience in schools has proved that even the 5yr-old can select artefacts for showcasing, for discussion, reflection and planning for future activities.


Given the emergent knowledge and complex nature of learning and the dynamic changes in the learning ecology, does it also require a continuous planning, implementation and review cycle in the e-portfolio to ensure its successful implementation and sustainability?

Yes, but that is the whole principle of teaching as I see it. We often refer to the Plan-Do-Review cycle or enhanced versions of it. The e-Portfolio is the perfect vehicle to demonstrate a collation of artefacts, including initial drafting of ideas, research questionnaires, MP3/4 recordings, photographs, a team blog, transcripts of interviews, brainstormed concept maps, along with a final report etc all dragged from a variety of sources into the e-Portfolio.

What do employers think?

Electronic portfolios can help applicants stand out.

This was the title of a blog that Google found for me today. Short and sweet, it's worth looking at, but then... it set me thinking. How many employers in the UK have even heard of an e-Portfolio?

I've already referred to the fact in other posts that the very institutions that might be using e-Portfolios (ie HE) in general have not even considered requesting the e-Portfolios of potential entrants.

As much as I believe that the Government should be explaining to all parents what the benefits to their child(ren)'s learning are concerning VLEs, Home Access, Real Time Reporting and e-Portfolios, surely it is time for Government to get off its backside and explain to employers what are the benefits of e-Portfolios?

We have a real chicken and egg or push/pull scenario here. Schools don't even begin to see the point of e-Portfolios if employers don't demand them. As long as employers don't see the point why should schools begin to demand them - and in the process discover the real educational benefits as well?

If anyone can suggest employers' organisations that might be willing to discuss this, please let me know!

Future-Gazing: Subjective or Objective?

This last week has been a tumultuous time of opposites. My reading has been taken up with a completion of W.J. Popham's book, 'Transformative Assessment' and T.D. Green et al's 'Making the most of the Web in your Classroom'.

The first I found to be an outstanding analysis of four different aspects of formative assessment - a real eye-opener. The second I personally found to be a real disappointment in that it assumed that the students all wanted to be expert html programmers. It was certainly not about USING the web in the classroom but merely about how to create websites and blogs. Apart from quoting Hebert's book, the only reference to e-Portfolios was a single reference to using a blog as an e-Portfolio.

In summary, Popham's book MUST be read by all teachers; on the other hand Green et al's book might be commended for youngsters wishing to become teachers of ICT, but not much else!

Before Christmas I also read the OfSTED Report 'Virtual learning environments: an evaluation of their development in a sample of educational settings.' Technically, as the publication of research findings I found it to be a very poor document, having no statisitcal integrity, full of weak subjective statements and offering no real advice or commending good practice. I shot off several strongly worded comments about the use of only two ordinary comprehensive Secondary schools as the basis for judging the whole of Secondary education. Others joined me in this criticism and yet others pointed out that this was a good report insofar as it pointed up the issues. Rather, I would say, 'Washing dirty laundry in public.'

Many good things have happened this week in terms of blogging. Contacts in New Zealand are looking at eFolio. Jamin, in particular, illustrates the present level of intelligent thinking about e-Portfolios. Allison Lee writes intelligently and has a lot of depth to her insights, well worth a read. However, Leigh Blackall speaks forthrightly but with apparently little sensitivity towards those of us who are trying to understand the benefits of e-Portfolios. Sarah Horrigan in her article 'e-Portfolios are not just for Christmas...' again is trying to understand if there is any value in e-Portfolios but appears unwilling to step outside her comfort zone. Perhaps my most encouraging discovery of the week is the blog run by Colin Becker and his thread on Emerging Readers. Echoes of the past and 'Video Diaries' come back in fresh guise using an e-Portfolio. Helen Whitehead in her blog 'Periodic Fables' gives a refreshingly concise perspective on e-Portfolios. David at St Paul's (Barnes) lays down a marker for ICT teaching and learning that all should study. Perhaps OfSTED could include St Paul's in a real set of Case Studies?

By the end of this week I hope to have published some simple videos explaining the setting up of the new version of eFolio. So, 'back to the grindstone!'

Why so many confusions re e-Portfolios?

Two recent blogs got me going. In essence both questioned why there was so much confusion, and even in-fighting, about what purposes an e-Portfolio should serve. I repeat some of my responses here:

I wrote a paper, Who's Hijacking my e-Portfolio? almost two years ago, identifying this situation and asking that e-Portfolio users and designers should not hijack the e-Portfolio concept for their own individualistic purposes.

It all depends on where an organisation is starting from. The universities have generally started from a content delivery system, a tool for PDP and job-searching or a minor mandatory course in ICT competencies. Careers counsellors use their versions of an e-Portfolio specifically for just the one subject of 'Careers'. The 14-19 Diploma portfolio concept has evolved out of the paper-based portfolios of work in Design and Technology and ICT classes, many of which still produce a ‘digital portfolio’ as a PowerPoint or web-page presentation with none of the security features or control of audience that a proper e-Portfolio can provide. Many Primary schools have appreciated the immense value of a paper-based portfolio as a tool for teaching and learning and some have moved on to encouraging their pupils to ‘collect’ samples of best practice and present the same on their VLE. At the other extreme, and possibly coming to a state near you, is the concept being developed in some European countries that the e-portfolio should be a tool expected of all adults to assist in data-mining by the state in order to manage skills training in areas of deprivation.

There is one other ingredient to add to this boiling pot of confusions, that of the function of an e-Portfolio when contained within a VLE or close-coupled to an institution's MIS. Here in England Becta has clearly mandated that all schools should have a VLE installed by last year ie Spring 2008. Some VLE vendors have provided some form of e-Portfolio with their VLE which apparently ignores any possibility of transition or portability beyond the institution.

That said, it has always been my contention that we should all step back from our immediate situation and look at the concept of Lifelong, Lifewide Learning and Leisure:

IF Lifelong Learning, ie from ‘5-95’ and thus owned for life, then it must be simple to use and transportable through all the transitions of compulsory schooling and the ‘Seven Ages of Man’

IF Lifewide, then the e-Portfolio should be capable of configuring, by the learner as owner, to represent the image of ‘ME’ that the learner chooses to express at that time as I attempted to illustrate through the five learning phases of an imaginary student.

IF Learning is the prime focus of the e-Portfolio then why not include ALL aspects of learning, including a space for every different subject, access for collaboration by permitted peers and mentors, places for planning, reflection, collaboration, formative assessment etc etc. Again, one page from a popular SlideShare must suffice.

IF Leisure is a recognised part of learning, of doing and sharing, then the e-Portfolio should be able to recognise all the extra-curricular, informal and experiential forms of learning that are not normally included in one’s credentials. The present work in Recognition and Assessment of Prior Experience and Learning (RAPEL) begs the use of this sort of e-Portfolio.

Perhaps one of my first documents, trying to explore what are the fundamentals of any e-Portfolio system were defined some two years ago in my ‘Ten Prime Directives’

Concerning interoperability my immediate reaction is, “Don’t hold your breath!” I am a member (well, fringe member) of some of the interoperability groups – and they all have different agendas and appear not to be talking to each other! We just cannot wait another 10 years before interoperability between e-Portfolio could become a reality. I am also a member of two suppliers’ groups SALTIS (schools) and ‘The Information Authority'(FE). The problem is that all the different parties have not agreed exactly what interoperability is. Is it about passing data from one VLE to another? Is it about passing data from a VLE to an e-Portfolio? Is it about e-Portfolio-based assessments being passed back to the MIS? Is it about translating the learner’s e-Portfolio from one system to another? Is it about exporting and importing content? And without degradation????

Quite simply, if the e-Portfolio is to retain all the features, including the tools that the learner prefers, the cosmetic image, templates and accessibility functions, the audience controls, access to on-line support etc, if the hosting service is to be maintained (not just archived), if it is to ‘transition’ from institution to institution, if it is to be ‘portable’ anywhere throughout the European Union, never-mind the world, then an independent hosting service is essential.

I know that I’ve quoted it before, but one further piece of reading might help, notes supporting a presentation that I gave almost a year ago, my Paris Thesis.

Also some 12 Slideshare presentations at:

http://www.slideshare.net/maximise/slideshows

A proliferation of e-Portfolios?

I was recently impressed by an article written by an American academic who had certainly got a good understanding of the present confusing situation. See his article.
However, I thought it worthwhile to repeat my response here:

Trent,

Thank you for an erudite and provocative article, much appreciated. However, There are several points with which I would disagree.

Yes, you are right to question whether an e-Portfolio should be modelled on a system several hundred years old. So my first question is 'Why not go back to basics and question what are the overriding requirements of an electronic Portfolio?'

Secondly, Yes, you are right to suggest that education is about process, so, 'Why not devise a system that supports and encourages an understanding and identification of the processes involved in any assignment?'

Again, I agree that the e-Portfolio is not the right place for the repository of all of one's life-works - a 'pantechnicon' of all that we own. So, 'Why not encourage students to present only 'work in progress' and selected 'showcase' items that are relevant to any phase or capstone?'

Reflection is a transient thing. The reflections of a 5-yr old may be very different to those of a PhD student or Senior Citizen. However, in order to support reflection one should be capable of re-presenting some evidences that might have been removed from the e-Portfolio and archived on a DVD or memory-stick. My point here is that the e-Portfolio should be learner-owned and easily managed by the owner, whatever their age. Chameleon-like, the e-Portfolio should be capable of adapting to its background so as to be equally presentable to a whole range of audiences - and ALL at the same time.

Finally, you opened by referring to the wide variety of e-Portfolios available. Perhaps one of the main causes for this is that they have short-sightedly established institutionally-based systems that do not truly support transition through all of life's stages or across territorial boundaries?

For more on my ideas please see www.maximise-ict.co.uk/eFolio-01.htm or efoliointheuk.blogspot.com or my demonstration portfolio at:

http://www.raytolley1.xfolioworld.com/