- language development via the collection of speaking and writing samples
- IT development via the production and assembly of evidence and in the design of the eportfolio to hold them
- global citizenship realized via the use of ICT tools to facilitate constructive dialogue with people from other cultures around the world
- leadership skill development via documentation of reflection on community based issues and their choice of actions
To support this we should expect to provide students with an eportfolio strategy that addresses the following four key points.
promoting reflection
Fundamental to any strategy's selection will be its ability to promote more than the collection of evidence but a reflection activity cycle (Richards) and host the lifelong and lifewide benefits that it brings (Moon, Richards). To realize this, students may need templates with guided focus questions that encourage them to inter relate concepts learned across their courses of study and to revist these themes throughout their undergrad studies.
flexibility vs structure
It should be flexibile enough to address changing student needs, levels of competency and choice. Undergraduates collecting evidence for the first time may require the highly structured environment as noted above(Stefani, 2005). Yet as students progress, they may wish to customize or even opt out of this structured environment to use the eportfolio strategy to meet other needs as they prepare to move on from their undergrad studies (Jafari).
Ease of Use
During their stay, students may differ widely in their interest in IT skills development. Note they may also need to communicate in both Arabic (L1) and English (L2) . Thus to support the portfolio strategy's development, it needs to facilitate the use of IT at these varying levels of interest and it must do so in two languages (Jafari) Thus the chosen eportfolio strategy needs to be easy enough to master and realizable in such a manner that it does not draw the student away from its prime purpose - to support documentation of evidence and to facilitate reflection.
collaboration
Per work by Vuorikari and Batson, the eportfolio strategy should facilitate interaction and sharing of knowledge with ones peers, advisors and instructors. To do so provides students with both immediate support and learning opportunites via the exchanges with peers. These have also been found to encourage the much sought after higher order learning, thinking and knowledge construction (Richards).
The current review of "off the shelf" eportfolio products leads me to conclude that few come close to addressing the mix of needs listed above. Many provide forms of structure but without much room for student customization at later stages of development (i.e. graduation). Little or no mention is also made of their ability to support the use of languages other than English.
In lieu of these shortcomings, I recommend investigating the use of the growing prevelance of web 2.0 tools such as blogs, wikis and aggregators. All such utilities are readily available and often for free. Some like blogs inherently support reflection, others like wikis support easy editing, high degrees of customization and personalization. Yet can be readily supported via the use of the same strategies noted above. Via the use of aggregators, mashups of these various tools and their contents are also possible (Batson, 2008) thus making them a much more attractive proposition.
Sources
Batson, Trent (2008) ‘ePortfolios: Hot Once Again’, Campus Technology, [online] Available from: http://campustechnology.com/articles/60933/ (Accessed 26 September 2008).
Jafari, Ali (2004) ‘The “Sticky” ePortfolio System: Tackling Challenges and Identifying Attribute’, Educause Review, [online] Available from: http://connect.educause.edu/Library/EDUCAUSE+Review/TheStickyePortfolioSystem/40485?time=1222282897 (Accessed 24 September 2008).
Moon, Jenny (2001) ‘PDP working paper 4: reflection in higher education learning’, document, [online] Available from: http://www.heacademy.ac.uk/assets/York/documents/resources/resourcedatabase/id72_Reflection_in_Higher_Education_Learning.rtf (Accessed 2 October 2008).
Richards, Cameron (2005) ‘Activity-reflection e-portfolios: An approach to the problem of effectively integrating ICTs in teaching and learning’, Murdoch University - Teaching & Learning Forum 2005, [online] Available from: http://lsn.curtin.edu.au/tlf/tlf2005/refereed/richards.html (Accessed 5 October 2008).
Stefani, Lorraine (2005) ‘The Role of CPD in Teaching Quality Enhancement’, pdf, Auckland, New Zealand , [online] Available from: http://64.233.183.104/u/LearningTechnology?q=cache:YRY_ajTIbh0J:www.alt.ac.uk/docs/lorraine_stefani_paper.doc+Stefani&hl=en&ct=clnk&cd=2&ie=UTF-8 (Accessed 30 September 2008).
Vuorikari , R. (2006) ‘‘National policies and case studies on the use of portfolios in teacher training' - European Schoolnet 2006’, [online] Available from: http://insight.eun.org/shared/data/insight/documents/e_portfolio_teacher_training_final_10_05.pdf (Accessed 28 September 2008).
Posts
