Summary - eFolio Minnesota for Lifewide & Lifelong Learning

eFolio article from Minnesota was very informative.. I had a sense that the H808 course was modelling its approach on the Univ of Minnesota's eFolio initiative AND drawing on the research findings to improve upon it.

Key items that stood out for me?

Process of efolio development
experimentation / living document / archiving

In short, experimentation on what can be added, what should be added, in what form should it should take, and what structure might it take... but also key to it is having a chance to share ideas with peers (getting feedback, learning about other approaches, etc.) to sort out what its purpose is (and it can be multiple). Once this has been sorted out, the portfolio becomes a living document .. something to be added to.

Realizing Integrity
Ties into audience and projecting authenticity. An integration of both the professional & personal really helps realize this. I read this to mean displaying one's underlying values & how they come out in both one's professional / personal worlds. Perhaps best realized through the selection / display of diverse forms of evidence from all spheres of one's life.

Variety of uses
Impressive variety of common uses
- six main functions
* educational planning
* documenting knowledge, skills & abilities
* tracking development
* finding a job
* evaluating a course

Changing roles for users
How these roles can switch over time and even be concurrent. For example one can be a student (studying something) and a teacher (working in the day time) at the same time... which means being able / encouraged to draw in volunteer / community development work as well as one's professional work into the portfolio.

The concept of lifelong AND lifewide learning
I was aware of lifelong learning but I had never heard of the concept of "lifewide" learning. I interpret this to mean a holistic review of all aspects of my life - personal and professional development.

Critical need for Institutional Support
Research outlined the important need for the institution to promote collaboration between students in the development of their portfolios (something that most students found invaluable to their development). and to also support the "presentation" of the portfolio concept. It also needed to provide some sort of framework to make the task easier for learners to manage. Curiously enough, the eFolio made no effort to promote planning with it (which led to a suggestion that it should review this).

Good source of sample eportfolios
Especially useful for modelling how three different "users" could shape eportfolios using the same fundamental structure - students / educators / career (example - http://www.jasonschoch.efoliomn1.com/ )