My ePortfolio Journey – where to next?
August 4, 2008
Since 2000 I have been dabbling in the use of digital portfolios with my primary school aged students. Back in 2000, the teachers at my school experimented with dubbing school events, such as excursions and special days, onto video tapes. Wow, was that an effort! Video recorders, banked on top of each other in order to save time. Argh!
We then started to redefine the purpose of the digital portfolios and develop some thinking about how to implement them. We wanted them to be a vehicle to not only showcase student digital work, but a place for students to reflect on their new understandings and challenges.
These were some of the important considerations. We wanted them to be -
- personalised
- student-created
- reflective
- focused on learning process not just product
- digital (not scanned worksheets)
- negotiated
- fluid
- complementing paper portfolios (not replicating)
- used during 3 Way Conferences
- part of the assessment schedule
- celebration of milestones
- authentic and purposeful
With my class we had five main headings -
- Investigative Me
- Organised Me
- Creative Me
- Social Me
- About Me
These headings were loosely associated with the Whole Brain Model by Hermann.
With each of these headings we brainstormed some of the possibilities for adding to the digital portfolio. What I found really interesting, and so did the students, was that the same topic/activity could be grouped under different headings. For example, a claymation about ‘Acid Rain’ could be added to the Creative Me, Organised Me or Investigative Me. Therefore, the students needed to justify why they were adding it to a particular section. Now that was powerful! Students would say things like -
‘Well, I had look up the information and find out things.” Investigative Me
“I had to make sure I was organised and on time.” Organised Me
The digital portfolios were are big part of the ongoing learning for the students, and built into the weekly planning by teachers. The students took great pride in their portfolios and were burned to CD for them to take home.
I wonder now how the Web 2.0 will impact on the purpose and implementation of the digital or e-portfolio?
- Greater audience? Global?
- Collaborative?
- Accessible? Anytime, anywhere?
- Ongoing?
- Greater networking?
Interesting times ahead I think.
Entry Filed under: ICT, Web2.0, learning, pedagogy. Tags: digital_portfolios, e-portfolios, ICT, learning, online.
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1.
iPhone News » Blog &hellip | August 4th, 2008 at 10:52 pm
[...] Blogosfere Sport e Motori added an interesting post on My ePortfolio Journey – where to next?Here’s a small teaser Since 2000 I have been dabbling in the use of digital portfolios with my primary school aged students. Back in 2000, the teachers at my school experimented with dubbing school events, such as excursions and special days, onto video tapes. Wow, was that an effort! Video recorders, banked on top of each other in order to save time. Argh! We then started to redefine the purpose of the digital portfolios and develop some thinking about how to implement them. We wanted them to be a vehicle to not o [...]
2.
Colin | August 11th, 2008 at 9:12 am
Looks like you have a well developed plan helen. I appreciate that you’ve provided an outline of the structure and rationale for your use of ePortfolios with your students. I like the model you’ve developed with the ‘five me’s”, and see this as useful for getting students to think about how they make decisions regarding the categorisation of their work/material as they add it to their collection.
I’m hoping that we can do similar things at tertiary level and wonder about the same things as you with regard to the extent to which the ePortfolios might be exploited. I’ve come see that there may be competing demand for ’space’ in a portfolio with students wanting to record their attainment of graduate attributes, professional attributes (in the discipline they’re studying), learning artifacts that have been produced (reports, assignments, projects & presentations), life/work skills and reflections of their learning journey. I’m still thinking about how to scaffold and provide guidance (use a template?), as well as how to allow for some freedom to be able to make an individual representation of their ’stuff’.
I’m also hoping that we’ll be able to provide an appropriate format/structure so that students can develop an educational portfolio at uni and once they’ve graduated turn it into a professional one. This will depend on making the tool available to students as alumni and we’ve got a way to go before that happens. There’s another issue to work out – do we also provide the software platform? Would love to have something smart that could help people ‘package’ their content according to need (eg. job application, bio, presentation etc.). All good fun.
3.
helenotway | August 11th, 2008 at 11:59 pm
Colin,
There is so much to take into consideration and certainly ’space’ was an issue for us. I would imagine now with online spaces this may be an answer, but like you said finding the right solution will be the fun part.
What did you think of iTunes U?
4.
Colin | August 12th, 2008 at 12:15 am
Helen, We use Lectopia which does the recording and procesing so students can access/download the lectures the next day (can include video and powerpoints). It does the same as Apple’s “podcast capture” without the ‘top & tail’ (intro & watermark). The applications they demo’d defenitely make it easy to create/ produce good resources. We’re (Deakin) talking to Apple next week I believe. If iTunes U can integrate with out LMS it could be useful. We’ll wait and see…
5.
John Turner | August 12th, 2008 at 9:28 am
Thanks for the message Helen.
Great site here.
My comments come from experience.
For example, the reason I work in WordPress and not eduBlogs is that the blocking/filtering system put in place has made edublogs educationally unviable at the present.
The Web2 revolution though is going to happen whether we teachers choose to be in or out. It is good to see your work as indicative of in.
6.
Rhordan | August 13th, 2008 at 12:00 pm
Hello This is Rhordan from Wedderburn College. Mrs Baird is typing this for me. Thanks for commenting on my blog. W e have been looking at how to do comments and things on blogs. I was very happy when you commented on mine.
7.
Lenva Shearing | November 12th, 2008 at 7:55 am
Thanks for this helpful post. I too, have been using eportfolios in a primary school and have a structure that the students use. Are you using a commercial platform for your eportfolios or have you set up something of your own? Do you host all the media on your server or on the web?