Ewan MacIntosh on 'sharing'

Ewan neatly presents the argument for pupils collaborating in their learning. This is an excellent video and at less than 4 minutes expresses concisely what in my view an ePortfolio is all about.

However, before teachers new to ePortfolios start clamouring for full openness we need to think of some of the preconditions. Ewan identifies three possible sharing scenarios, ie within the whole class, within the whole school or the ultimate sharing scenario of the whole world. This might be OK for adult learners, but I would put in a plea for establishing proper safeguards.

With eFolio, of course there is a better solution, that of steadily expanding one's audience as situations demand and even allowing different audiences to see only selected items.

Children need to be taught about what I call 'Digital Responsibility'. Firstly this involves understanding how to ensure that personal information is not given gratuitously to strangers. But secondly, information posted on one's ePortfolio should be legitimately presented and not defamatory of any third person or their works. And thirdly, and most importantly, if legal action is not to be incurred, that sources should always be properly quoted.

Even recognising the above, I feel that there is still firstly a place for teaching about Digital Responsibility, including some form of contractual AUP and secondly, an obligation for schools to have in place an appropriate level of filtering and monitoring which will vary from school to school.

And lastly, parents should be seen to have a clear understanding of what their offspring are up to, at school, at home and elsewhere when not directly supervised. A recent post on 'The Declaration of Digital Citizenship' makes interesting reading.

Crystal ball gazing?

Serge Ravet posts some tough lines of enquiry as to the future of e-Portfolios. The question therefore comes to mind, quite simply, where shall we be in ten years time? The answer does not come from Doris Day's rendering of 'que sera, sera - whatever will be will be'. Rather, the future of e-Portfolios is what we make it. We are now well passed the position of 'This looks like a good idea.' It's now time to get down to some serious business!

Serge writes a post entitled '10 ePortfolio Challenges' the opening paragraph sets the scene for some hard questioning:

"For the 7th ePortfolio conference, and in order to give directions to our work towards our 2010 goal (ePortfolio for all), EIfEL decided to address a number of challenges to the ePortfolio community and beyond —many of the problems the ePortfolio community faces today will not be resolved if they are not addressed beyond the ePortfolio silo. The goal of these challenges is to move beyond the current state of ePortfolio development, in particular in the field of interoperability as interoperability is not just a technical issue, but a means to enable new practices and the emergence of truly lifelong and life wide ePortfolios."

Another challenging paper by Serge must be studied: 'What is the problem with personal data today?' I quote the opening paragraph:

"Digitised personal data records now play a central role in our life, from the record of a birth at a hospital (and the photos of the new born!) to the delivery of a death certificate at the registrar. The increasing number of digital data, by and about ourselves, lead to the emergence of what is now referred to as 'digital identity', i.e. all the attributes and digital production by and about a person —school records, health records, employment records, business records, credit records, surveillance records etc."