Further to a previous post I have added three new discussion questions to use when thinking about some of big underlying themes surrounding eportfolios.

I can’t take credit for the thinking behind these questions as they have stemmed from comments left on this blog or through face to face discussions when visiting schools.

So here is the first one:

Thanks to Jamin Lietze, who left this comment:

…what measures is the school going to put in place so that there are consistencies between classroom ePortfolios? Parents will compare and complain if one teacher is not perceived as doing much.

I don’t know if my question reflects exactly the point Jamin is making, mine is more related to surface features but will recraft it at some stage. Jamin refers to the content and makes a valid point. Often in schools we ask for consistency and commonalities in ‘school-wide’ approaches to teaching and learning. There are core values and beliefs that guide what we do. At a different level schools may develop guidelines that describe expectations for such areas as planning and assessment. Is it therefore necessary to develop guidelines for eportfolios, what goes in them and how often? Or would this defeat the purpose of a student directed, student owned eportfolio that supports the learner and instead become a prescriptive teacher directed product?

Question 2:

A conversation with Deidre Alderson, principal of Willowbank School prompted this question. We were discussing eportfolios and getting parents online and involved in leaving comments and giving feedback to their children in these online spaces. I outlined how in my research parents of year 3 and 4 students showed a much higher involvement than those at year 5 and 6. We discussed a number of reasons why this may be which I also discussed in my research. Deidre had a new perspective on this. She suggests that how students want to get feedback and the form that feedback takes changes over time. For example, a younger student may really respond to and deliberately seek out feedback yet an older student may only want feedback when they specifically ask for it and perhaps not from you as a teacher or parent at all. While the eportfolio is only one of many ways to give feedback to students, is the feedback we are giving online inline with what they want, regardless of whether it is technically correct (purposeful, specific, related to criteria, includes next steps etc).

Question 3:

Thanks to Kathy Paterson and Carol Brieseman who both felt this question was worthy to be mentioned.Kathy asks:

perhaps there could be a question directed at the use and management of eportfolios for staff journeys?

Supported by Carol:

Staff documenting their own learning as an e-portfolio would help build confidence that may not be there at present.

I agree. As simple as the saying ‘walk the talk’ is, no more could it be truer here. And what a rich authentic alternative to an appraisal checklist type approach to teaching competency. Not to mention the reflective practice involved in an eportfolio that sits hand in hand with the teaching as inquiry approach to knowledge building. Why wouldn’t you want staff to have their own?

So there we go. Three more questions to discuss if you intend heading down the eportfolio route or if you are in the process of review how you are implementing them currently.

Once again, would love to hear of any questions or areas that I have not considered!

Special thanks to:

Photo 1: http://www.flickr.com/photos/cobalt/
Photo 2: http://www.flickr.com/photos/raigverd/
Photo 3: http://www.flickr.com/photos/torres21/

ePortfolio presentation given at a CORE Education Breakfast Seminar.

Some of the main points from the presentation:

• clarify your purpose (pedagogy) before your technology (eportfolio tool)
• the eportfolio becomes the vehicle for drawing in the components of effective pedagogy and assessment
• engage all stakeholders in discussion about the purpose and expectations surrounding eportfolios
• the eportfolio learning process is complex and cyclic, mirroring our expectation of teachers engaging in teaching as inquiry
• quality feedback, reflection and next steps are integral for eportfolios to support learning and attainment of goals

I have got a lot of time for Graham Attwell’s thoughts around eportfolios. I referenced his article e-Portfolios – the DNA of the Personal Learning Environment? in my ePortfolio research. He also contributed to the MOSEP (More Self-Esteem with my ePortfolio) project which is well worth a look.

Hot off the wire is his current thoughts around eportfolios, discussing such questions as these:

Is an e-Portfolio intended as a space for learners to record all their learning – that which takes place in the home or in the workplace as well as in a course environment or is it a place or responding to prescribed outcomes for a course or learning programme?

How much should an e-Portfolio be considered a tool for assessment and how much for reflection on learning?

Can one environment encompass all of these functions?

And such technologies as OSPI, Elgg and Mahara. Further discussion involves Mash Up Personal Learning Environments and research looking at the value of light weight widgets for promoting reflection that can be embedded in existing e-learning programmes.

All interesting stuff and worth a couple of minutes of your time.

TEDx Talk. Dr. Helen Barrett on Social Networks and Interactive Portfolios: Blurring the Boundaries.

Electronic Portfolios have been with us for more almost two decades, used primarily in education to store documents and reflect on learning, provide feedback for improvement, and showcase achievement for accountability or employment. Social networks have emerged over the last five years, used by individuals and groups to store documents and share experiences, showcase accomplishments, communicate and collaborate with friends and family, and, in some cases, facilitate employment searches. The boundaries between these two processes are gradually blurring. As we consider the potential of lifelong e-portfolios, will they resemble the structured accountability systems that are currently being implemented in many higher education institutions? Or are we beginning to see lifelong interactive portfolios emerging as mash-ups in the cloud?

If you are interested in ePortfolios then the annual Learning@School conference in Rotorua should suit you well.

There are 11 breakouts that have a major focus or have reference to the use of eportfolios:

• Earlybird: ePortfolio’s made easy! Brendon Muir
• Earlybird: Dancing on the Same Page. Chrissie Butler
• Breakout 1: e-Portfolios: A Case Study. Belinda Johnston
• Breakout 3: ePortfolios 101. Nick Rate
• Breakout 3: The Three aspects of an effective School Website that increase 21st Century Pedagogy. Tim Berends
• Breakout 4: ePortfolios – A Showcase of Practice. Nick Rate
• Breakout 4: Powerful Learning Journeys – Using Digital Story Telling within an ePortfolio to show the learning process. Ian Fox & Lenva Shearing
• Breakout 5: Room 17 Voices: Eportfolios and the Online Classroom. Erin Freeman
• Breakout 5: The LMS Gateway to learning and Assessment. Mark Treadwell
• Breakout 5: The Open Source School. Mark Osbourne
• Breakout 6: Laying the Groundwork: producing a realistic and relevant strategy for online learning. Stuart Armistead

Doing a bit of self promotion, I am really excited about the ePortfolios – A Showcase of Practice breakout. I have managed to bring together 5 current practitioners of eportfolios who will be sharing their experiences, beliefs and examples of implementing eportfolios in their schools. They are:

1. Deb Cowan. Director of eLearning & Teacher, Russell St School, Palmerston North.Chrissie Butler
2. Ministry of Research, Science and Technology Teacher Fellow 2010, and former BLENNZ (Blind and Low Vision Education Network NZ) cluster facilitator.
3. Sharron Eagle. Teacher, Rotorua Girls High School Childcare Trust.
4. Belinda Johnston. Facilitator/Director, EastNet ICTPD Cluster, Elm Park School
5. Jamin Lietz. ICT Lead Teacher, Bethlehem College, Tauranga

You guys are awesome! Thanks for agreeing to share your experiences!

The aim was to represent a cross section of schools, tools and beliefs. Unfortunatley, was not able to get a high school represented but am aiming to repeat this breakout or one very similar at ULearn10 so here is a call out to a high school who would be willing to show and tell! All suggestions welcome.

I was motivated to try and visually represent what I had written in a post in the ePortfolios in NZ Google Group thread. Here’s some of what I said:

“…Your example of scanning learning and now moving towards HTML templates illustrates this. Over time you also want or need to readdress your criteria, purpose and vision, especially if you are in a scenario where other classes are using paper. It is more than likely that your views and thoughts are expanding at the same time as your understanding grows due to an increased awareness of the technology capability, student/teacher capability and allignment to learning, and much more rapidly than for those with paper based portfolios…”

The attempt to visualise this into another eportfolio graph is below. The basic idea being that the more experienced you are in implementing eportfolios the more dynamic they are due to the teacher continually refining and developing the implementation.

Not rocket science really. The second graph below includes a reference to paper based portfolios. There are probably a few people who don’t agree with my view here that there are generally a static document in terms of how they change over time…

The graphs aren’t perfect and the terminology is not quite right. As with most posts in this blog I am just unpacking and reflecting on ideas running around in my head.

It is pretty full at the moment as there are two more graphs brewing. One is to try and show the relationship between the ownership and formative nature of an eportfolio and the other the place of feedback in a portfolio within the bigger picture of learning.

I get a lot of inspiration from Jessica Hagy who’s site thisisindexed.com is full of great visual representations of life and thinking relationally. I would love to be able to create such simple graphs that are yet so informative. Here’s an example:

Jamin Lietz has initiated a thread in the MLE Google Group entitled ePortfolios in NZ.

He notes the purpose of the group:

It is my desire to establish a network with those who are using ePortfolios this year as a tool to enhance teaching and learning. I hope that together we can share good practice, research findings, our  journey, etc.

I would encourage anyone to dive on in there and participate in the ongoing discussions.

Some notable eportfolio personnel have participated already including Dr Helen Barrett, the global eportfolio guru, and Ian Fox the local NZ portfolio legend.

Thanks Jamin!

Anyone in NZ investigating eportfolios will know the name Lenva Shearing, DP at Bucklands Beach Intermediate School.

Watch her discussing the eportfolio as a personal space for learning on Edtalks:

More eportfolio Edtalks can be found below:

• Ewan McIntosh
• Nick Rate
• Ian Fox
• Sue Genefaas

It is all go exploring the best mPortfolio (Mobile ePortfolio) option for the iPhone.

Tumblr has jumped to the top of the list with the announcement of Tumblr Backup, a desktop application that allows you to backup your Tumblr blog as a self-contained folder complete with content including posts, movies and images. While this is not directly related to the Tumblr iPhone app, which is fantastically easy to use, Tumblr as a complete eportfolio package is shaping up nicely…

If regular blogs are journals, Tumblr blogs are scrapbooks.

The application is in beta and available now for Mac OS X and very simply to use.

Why is this potentially a good thing?

• It enables you to capture the content of a blog/eportfolio and archive or burn it to a disc.
• Parents not wanting to let go of the hard copy of a portfolio can now receive a copy of a child’s portfolio to keep.
• Students moving on to a new school or leaving at the end of year 6, 8 or 13 can receive their learning journey as a momento or pass it on to their new school.

The whole point of using an online space for an eportfolio is to have it available anytime and anywhere enabling the participation of others. While this new Tumblr desktop app does not facilitate this process and is not designed to, it is great to know you can backup and store your blog, in simple HTML format, for whatever reason you have.