Be Very Afraid

I don’t know what ‘blind spot’ has caused me to pay less attention than I should have done on this work by Prof Stephen Heppell. Perhaps it was an assumption on my part that it was all about an emphasis on the video community.

However, the BVA website provides an immense number of exemplars of what young people can do, given the chance. This ‘short’ gives a brief summary of what BVA is all about. http://www.heppell.net/bva/bva6/reflections.htm

It will take a number of hours to work through all the excellent material found here!

But I have included reference to BVA for one particular reason. The examples shown reveal good supervision, often in smaller groups and with plenty of technical support. However, in the real world children are often left to their own devices. Yes, OK for the more able and responsible student, but what of those who may be more vulnerable or careless about revealing their personal identity?

The one thing that struck me about all of the work illustrated is that it could be so safely contained and developed within the bounds of an ePortfolio system such as eFolio that allows materials to be shared within closed groups until such time as it may be made public. Being hosted externally, ie not within the confines of an institutional VLE, students may have access to their work 24/7 and not just within the classroom.

Multimedia and ePortfolios

I have just read an excellent article by Barbara Schroeder extolling the virtues of using multimedia in the classroom. But why the empasis on the 'Classroom'? Why not everywhere? Why not at home? Why not on a long car journey or on the bus to school? And certainly why not in their ePortfolios?

Many of the features of Multiple Intelligences, motivation, collaboration and peer-review etc hinted at in her post I have previously attempted to address in this blog. As I have said elsewhere, "If a picture is worth a thousand words, what value can we put on a video!" - Or for that matter any other graphical or aural media?

Thank you, Barbara, and GGfL for an excellent promotion of all that is so educationally apposite about using multimedia in ePortfolios as well as the classroom.