Which ePortfolio tool for staff and students?

I recently picked up on a post, typical of many, that suggested a list of requirements of an ePortfolio.  In response to the author I wrote the following but have added a few more points here:

Although I think that in principle your response is logical, it is also both introspective and contradictory. For instance, you list Lifelong Access (or rather ownership?) as being a requirement and yet you apparently require an institutional repository. Will the Nursery or Primary school maintain the lifelong support?  Or multiple repositories as one moves through life? You require integration with Moodle - but what about the other 50+ VLEs?

And what of the learner?  Every person is different and has different skills and ways of representing themselves.  I fear that an institutionally based assessment tool will not allow the individual freedoms of self-representation that I support with eFolio.

You do not clarify if your hypothetical ePortfolio system is for institutional use with all the facilities required for rubrics, submission dates, overdue flagging, assessments and sign-offs etc and therefore institutionally owned or is it for ownership, collaboration and self representation etc?

You suggest that it should be free and at the same time lifelong. I am amused as to what support a 5-year old or ancient granny will get from a system that is free. Are you assuming that there is no on-line staffing to support maintenance, monitoring, upgrading and technical help. These are all significant costs that have to be paid for by someone, somewhere.

Wikipedia unfortunately gives a really out-dated and rigid definition of three distinct types of ePortfolio. We are now in the age of the cloud and should see our ePortfolio tools in this light.

Another requirement of the personally owned ePortfolio is that of the ability to present different 'views' or personas to different audiences. This is essential when presenting one's ePortfolio to different clients or potential employers whereby the learner is able to represent (or re-present) themselves as having different characteristics according to the job-specification etc.

I recently attended a conference which was purported to address the cost benefits of ePortfolios. It was an excellent conference but focussed specifically on a range of institutionally owned and operated assessment tools. These related to specific courses of study for a particular type of student and possibly where assessments may support a learner taking a number of qualifications by different examination boards.

Until such time as we are able to contain all the aspects of assessment within the VLE we will continue to have this confusion as to what an ePortfolio really is. For me I would argue that the ePortfolio is NOT an institutional tool, although it may be encouraged by the institution. Just think, do we only advise one form of mobile device? Do we only demand one form of note-taking? Or research method?... etc etc.

The ePortfolio, I suggest, is a tool that can provide and support evidences of rich-media artefacts, dialogues, evidences of collaboration and blogs etc which the student uses to supplement the in-house assessment system. This way the conundrum of ownership is resolved.

Lifewide? What do you mean?

Recently I was asked this very question, 'What do you mean by Lifewide?' I have noticed before that others have used the term 'Lifewide' without really defining what it means.

There are at least three different aspects whereby I would describe an ePortfolio as being Lifewide:

1. All learners have multiple personas and should be able to display differing aspects to different audiences concurrently. For instance, I may be applying for two different jobs, one requiring a very professional format as an educator and yet another side of me, that of a bearded environmentalist wanting to escape academia and work for a charitable organisation. The two are not very compatible!
   



2. Secondly, the software itself should be capable of moving with the steadily maturing young learner, ‘through multiple metamorphoses’. This requires a simple easy-to-use tool which even the youngest student can use and yet has the capability of highly professional or complex multi-media presentation. Some years ago I attempted to illustrate this as on my website: http://www.maximise-ict.co.uk/eFolio-01.htm
   



3. Even within one persona, there are many different facets to that learner. Eg a college student does not just follow one course of study – his tutors want to know something of other aspects of his life, what clubs he attends, his out of college activities, his family circumstances, his part-time job. All of these go to make up the whole ‘width’ of the person.

I have also put together a random collection of sample ePortfolios for discussion purposes which might help the thoughtful reader: http://www.scoop.it/t/eportfolios-examples How many of the 'examples' that I list are capable of showing different 'views' to different audiences.