Archives For eportfolio
Have you every had a situation where you thought something would only take a few minutes to complete but ended up taking a couple of hours? To make sure this post doesn’t turn out this same way I will get to the point. This morning my co-instructor and I needed to send out the announcement to our new group of students. No problem…I have an announcement script in my trusty Evernote so I told my colleague this will just take a few minutes; I just needed to update the script to reflect the fact we are co-teaching, change the dates and then I can post it. Or so I thought.
Rather than explain in full detail the challenges that arose and how they were addressed I will summarize my experience in the following list:
- IT folks didn’t give me access to my own course – sent IT a message but got no response so after a series of Google Hangout messages with my co-teacher we explored other options to add me to the course.
- Noticed I needed to add the latest two chapters and the most recent article my colleague and I have recently written to the list. Only one of the articles has been “officially” released so I added the URL to the publication and then went to the other 3 publication to create “In Press Draft” PDF files for our students.
- Noticed that each of the files was formatting differently and while the double-spaced text is required for the publisher and their proofing the documents are much more readable with 1.5 spacing so I changed the formatting on all 3 document. OOPS… this also lead to changing some tables, adding page breaks and many other formatting issues that could have been avoided if we were using the full power of Word. Make note….need to talk to colleague out standardizing our writing formats.
- Uploaded the 3 draft publications to the course storage and updated the reading list, linked to the draft documents and linked to the published article on the Journal site. Also uploaded the files and made the same updates to the Master Course.
- Finally got to updating that course announcement script and created the new announcement with updated information.On the final proof read I noticed that there were some formatting and spacing issues with the announcement in the BlackBoard (BB) editor and pulled the HTML formatted content from BB editor and put it into my text editor to scan for and remove the extra “” and “” formatting that BB adds to the file when you save it. Did the search and replace and cleaned up the HTML content and pasted it back into the BB editor and FINALLY got an announcement message that I could post/send to our students.
- While I was pulling together the draft documents I also realized that I needed to move these documents and related research files and folders to the same location in on my drives and then add these draft documents to my website so before I forgot and rather than add this to my ToDo list I re-organized some of my research files and related articles and chapters for publication.
By the time I went through the above process which included many other smaller steps too tedious to mention the few minutes to update the announcement message took just under two hours to complete. The authors of 4DX point to the day to day whirlwind of just getting your work done as one of the major factors that prevent significant change from taking place in most organizations. Most people are very busy just doing their work so adding anything new or looking to innovate is very challenging in the busy work that we live in. While this is true I also believe that we can add to that whirlwind by being reactive rather than being proactive. Let me explain. The steps above detail one reactive measure after another and if I would have been more proactive I could have eliminated or limited most of these steps and saved myself some time and frustration. Consider how I could have been more proactive:
- When I emailed back and forth with the IT person who was involved in managing my course copy I informed him that even though I was not “officially” listed as the instructor on the course I was going to be co-teaching the course and needed to be added to the course as an instructor once it was copied. He said sure, no problem. In my second email exchange, I asked him to confirm that I was added and IF I needed to jump through the new formal request process. I was willing to fill out the necessary forms and jump through all the hoops but still hoped I didn’t have to. He said it wasn’t needed. Mistake two was when I didn’t check the course site until this morning rather than the night before—I wasn’t added to the course.
Proactive countermeasure – don’t trust IT, jump through their time-consuming processes and check and double check to see if they have actually done what they say they will do. - Rather than wait until documents accumulate and pile up it makes better sense to format your documents for your specific audience right at the point where you are also submitting them for publication. It takes months for articles, chapters and books to be published so there will always be a need to create an “In Press Draft”.
Proactive countermeasure – while the current document is being worked on for publication use page breaks, spacing, and all other formatting features that are built into the word processor that will enable you easily move the document from one format to another.
Proactive countermeasure two – while the current document is being worked on creating and format the“In Press Draft” PDF that you can share with your students and the rest of your audience.
Proactive countermeasure three – move that document to where it needs to reside so that you can easily share it. This includes uploading it to your website, master course, or wherever else it needs to go. - Dealing with the BB editing issue will take too much time to address so I will leave that to another post.
I must acknowledge that even though being proactive will help you save some time you still need to actually spend the 2, 5, or 10 minutes here and there doing what needs to be done. You can save same some time but more importantly, you can save frustration and anxiety. Human’s don’t function very well in a heightened state of anxiety. Frustration and anxiety will cause adrenaline to flow and will turn on our flight or fight response which redirects our blood flow from our brains to our extremities. When things aren’t going well we don’t need blood being redirected from our brains to our limbs so this flight or fight state makes us even more unproductive. Ever noticed how the frustration just seems to build and it can take some time to calm down. This is just our physiology doing what it is supposed to do — get us ready to react and fight or take flight.
By being proactive we can not only save time but we can prevent moving into these states of growing frustration which we all know just kill our productivity. Being proactive will also mean that we can be much more purposeful and add to our work/website/ePortfolio on a consistent basis. The making of meaningful connections which are the essence of learning and growth are much more effective if we approach them incrementally. Creation, reflection, and revision and more reflection and revision require time… lots of time. If we are proactive we can leverage the hours we have and learn and grow more effectively.
More of my thoughts on being proactive:
The Paradox of Being Proactive
Why Create Significant Learning Environments
Sense of Urgency: Create It Now or React to It Later
How to Change Before You Have To
Pick Two – Innovation, Change or Stability
Practice Change by Living It
The minimalist definition of an eportfolio:
a learner’s digital evidence of meaningful connections
Can portfolios really be defined so simply and succinctly as a learner’s digital evidence of meaningful connections? I think they have to be considering the following:
- Learning is the making of meaningful connections (see related posts meaningful connections).
- Eportfolios are a learner’s digital evidence of learning.
- Therefore eportfolios are a learner’s digital evidence of meaningful connections.
I have also been reviewing the literature on eportfolios ever since the term has been developed over 20 years ago and there is no shortage of definitions and debates on what constitutes an eportfolio. Furthermore, the literature is filled with obtuse (see post Our work doesnt’ have to be obtuse to be important ) academic writing that is all too often challenging to read and detracts for the usefulness of the eportfolio discussion and process. It is my hope to reduce or simplify the definition of an eportfolio and not add any unnecessary complexity.
However, if my minimalist definition doesn’t offer enough substance, then I suggest that you refer to a 2007 CETIS SIG mailing list discussion between Sutherland and Powell where they ratified the following definition before the mailing list audience:
An e-portfolio is a purposeful aggregation of digital items – ideas, evidence, reflections, feedback etc, which ‘presents’ a selected audience with evidence of a person’s learning and/or ability.
While this definition is somewhat expanded it really doesn’t say that much more or offer any more significance than the proposed minimalist definition. The more we add to the definition the more we start moving into a discussion of the why, or purpose, of portfolios and how we create them. I will be writing about the Why and the How of eportfolios in future posts.
For those who need to know more or see a more thorough handling of the definition of eportfolios please refer to the following links:
Dr. Helen Barrett, the most renowned proponent of portfolios/eportfolios offers the following definition and links to supporting essays on her Frequently-Asked Questions about Electronic Portfolios page. Barrett argues that there are two types of portfolios, the working and presentation portfolio, and that we need to combine both types to be most effective. While she is correct, she unfortunately overlooks the fact that modern tools like WordPress enable the learner to do both the working and presentation portfolio into one site.
http://electronicportfolios.com/faq.html
University of British Columbia (UBC) Eportfolios – What is it? UBC has been working with eportfolios for several years and their toolkit approach to using eportfolios provides a useful and pragmatic starting point.
http://elearning.ubc.ca/toolkit/eportfolios/
University of Waterloo – ePortfolios Explained. Another good starting point for learning about the eportfolio process.
https://uwaterloo.ca/centre-for-teaching-excellence/teaching-resources/teaching-tips/educational-technologies/all/eportfolios
JISC eportfolio – Perhaps on the most compressive sites on the eportfolio.
https://www.jisc.ac.uk/full-guide/e-portfolios
Alverno College has one of the longest traditions (since the 70’s) of using a portfolio as part of their assessment-as-learning process. They currently use the Diagnostic Digital Portfolio (DPP) which enables the learner to follow their learning progress throughout their student career at Alverno.
http://www.alverno.edu/ddp/
References:
Barrett, H. C. (2000). Electronic Portfolios–A chapter in Educational Technology; An Encyclopedia to be published by ABC-CLIO, 2001. Retrieved from http://electronicportfolios.com/portfolios/aahe2000.html
Barrett, H. (2000). Electronic Teaching Portfolios: Multimedia Skills+ Portfolio Development= Powerful Professional Development. Retrieved from http://electronicportfolios.com/portfolios/encyclopediaentry.htm
Sutherland, S. and Powell, A. (2007), CETIS SIG mailing list discussions. Retrieved from https://www.jiscmail.ac.uk/cgi-bin/webadmin?A1=ind0707&L=CETIS-PORTFOLIO#3
With more than 60% of websites still NOT using a CMS the 24.1% of all the websites that do, use WordPress. This gives the WordPress 60.2% of the market share.
One more reason why WordPress should be considered as an excellent platform for a learning eportfolio.
In his most recent book, What To Do When It’s Your Turn, Seth Godin laments that many people who apply to his seminars or for internships have no hard skills to brag about and that:
They’re happy to check off boxes like “business development” and “making a rukus” but they rarely say that they know how to code or to use CSS or even InDesign. They’ve spent so many years following instructions, fitting in, and getting good grades that they have failed to learn to do anything that independent.
The side effect of a lack of hard skills is that these very same people almost never have much to show for themselves in the way of a project portfolio, online or off. They can’t point to something and say, “I made that.”
Other than a degree or certificate these people all too often have nothing tangible to show for their many years in education. It isn’t just the evidence of being able to create something that is lacking, many of these young graduates are not able to tangibly show that they can think critically and solve problems. Godin has been pointing to this inability of many students not being able to make meaningful connections for the past several years – see my blog posts Connecting Dots vs Collecting Dots and Experts Connect Dots not Just Collect Dots. His fundamental argument bares repeating:
Without a doubt, the ability to connect the dots is rare, prized and valuable. Connecting dots, solving the problem that hasn’t been solved before, seeing the pattern before it is made obvious, is more essential than ever before.
Why then, do we spend so much time collecting dots instead? More facts, more tests, more need for data, even when we have no clue (and no practice) in doing anything with it.
Their big bag of dots isn’t worth nearly as much as your handful of insight, is it?
It isn’t just the likes of Seth Godin who is concerned about the plight of our young graduates. Generation Jobless, a Doc Zone documentary by CBC points to the crisis of an increasing number of university and college grads who are underemployed – scraping by on low-paid, part-time jobs that don’t require a degree. The documentary reveals that while there “there are no official statistics in Canada, it’s estimated that after graduating, one in three 25 to 29 year olds with a college or university degree end up in a low-skilled job.
While there many systemic ways of addressing this issue that may include more co-op programs in higher education and resolving the embarrassing fact that Canada is the only country in the world without a national body responsible for education there is a very simple and effective way for students to show everyone what they have made, the problems they have solved and the insights they have gained.
A purposefully designed learning portfolio, ideally in the form of an electronic portfolio or eportfolio, would give students a platform that they could show future employers what they have done, what they are capable of doing and perhaps most importantly how they learned how to learn. I have been very explicit in calling for a purposefully design learning portfolio because the typical assessment portfolio that too many institutions purchase separately or as an add on to their Learning Management Systems (LMS) are simply glorified digital filing cabinets where students dump artifacts (assignment documents).
These LMS add-ons or other assessment portfolio tools are not useful eportfolios because they miss the primary point of creating a portfolio. An eportfolio is not just a digital file cabinet where one show how many dots they have collected– it is domain of one’s own where the student reveals their learning journey and shows through reflection, speculation and documentation all the meaningful connections that they have made. The eportfolio itself is a space that the student creates. Perhaps most importantly, an eportfolio can be used to show a students growth and how they have matured over time and how they have made a connection between their schoolwork and their personal and professional lives.
An eportfolio developed over the span of high school to the end of undergraduate or even graduate studies is a tangible asset that can explicitly show what a student has made and who they have become. Why aren’t we striving to give all our student this type of learning and growth experience?
