I am pleased to release the consultation draft of 'ePortfolios -
Celebrating Learning' a report on the use by NZ schools of e-
portfolios and recommendations on how best to cultivate more and
better use.
I am sure many of you will want to comment, so for now all I have to
say is thanks to the schools, writers and vendor involved. Please read
and post your thoughts.
The report is in the files area of the MLE Reference Google Group.
Either navigate there yourself or try the following link:
Paul, thanks for the link, the document makes interesting reading.
However, I have four areas of concern:
1. Interoperability, I quote:
'An ePortfolio with interoperability between systems is essential in
maintaining ownership integrity.'
I'm not sure what you mean by this - are you refering to the integrity
of the data or the layout and formatting of the whole e-Portfolio?
Because this is the crux of my philosophy, that as a learner moves
from one institution (or country even) to another the whole
composition, layout and formatting of *their* e-Portfolio should
remain intact. As far as I understand it, and I know something Simon
Grant and his work, LEAP2A will only export certain elements of data
and some document types. Until interoperability includes full WYSIWYG
transference I'm not sure if any students will want to re-craft their
e-Portfolio to the style and colour-schemes they prefer.
2. 'Longevity': As you rightly comment, the Mahara solution might be
right for Secondary school students or above but not for the rest. I
am obviously thinking of younger children eg 5+, for adult learners
who might not be so ICT savy, for the elderly, for those with special
needs etc. My argument is that if you believe in a Lifelong and
Lifewide solution it must be capable of adapting, chameleon-like, as
the learner matures or takes up different interests. Further, for the
Lifewide element we should also be looking at aspects of accessibility
eg for the Visually Impaired.
3. Embedded tools: with respect to e-safety, particularly with school
children, I would want to see in any system those tools which support
feedback, polls or surveys embedded within the tool and not external
as with the average wiki or blog. Reflection, for instance, is often
limited to personal introspection whereas I would expect the e-
Portfolio to support the collaboration of multiple closed groups. For
example, any student might be a member of one collaborative group in
Science lessons and yet a different group for English or Geography etc
etc.
4. Diversity of approaches: The diversity of approaches is surely an
institutional thing and not part of the e-Portfolio construction. But
even then I would argue that a good e-Portfolio implementation should
accomodate all approaches. Different teachers might look for different
artefacts and justifications within identified areas of the e-
Portfolio. Again, even an individual student might prefer different
learning styles for different subjects and choose to showcase
different media according to those different subject areas.
> I am pleased to release the consultation draft of 'ePortfolios -
> Celebrating Learning' a report on the use by NZ schools of e-
> portfolios and recommendations on how best to cultivate more and
> better use.
> I am sure many of you will want to comment, so for now all I have to
> say is thanks to the schools, writers and vendor involved. Please read
> and post your thoughts.
> The report is in the files area of the MLE Reference Google Group.
> Either navigate there yourself or try the following link:
Firstly I want to say thank you for commissioning the research paper
into ePortfolios. It is a timely paper and has encouraged and informed
me (and other teachers I am sure) in our schools pilot use of
ePortfolios for the purpose of enhancing teaching and learning.
I also wish to thank Ian, Sandy and Viv in the fact that they carried
this research out with the following principle in mind: "ePortfolios
are not about technology; they are about pedagogy and learning. They
are about life-long learning." (Pg 17 of the paper) This I believe has
kept the report rooted where it should be; on learning.
I do wish to support the report findings and the development of one
national ePortfolio tool because there is more to it than just reasons
of efficiency, user familiarity, access through schooling and learner
ownership. I had a conversation with Lenva Shearing a few weeks ago
and she referred to the desire of having an ePortfolio tool that was
"an empty box" (I hope I have quoted her correctly). I liked this
analogy. So from here I would like to share a few more thoughts and
add these to the discussion.
If we all used one tool then schools/teachers will have:
1) Flexibility (They can use this one tool to add what they like into
it to meet the individual needs and while maintaining student choice,
voice and ownership.)
2) Better communication (Students/Teachers would use "one language"
and so work together easier across levels and ages developing their
ePortfolios.)
3) Efficencey (Professional development is made easier because we are
all using the same language and focusing on the one tool.)
4) Better consistency (One school or teacher will not be considered
lower than another because they did not have the expertise or
financial support to develop superior ePortfolios. Everyone will have
the same building blocks.)
Please don't get me wrong; I am not advocating for a "straight jacket"
type of tool. This one tool would have to be cleverly developed so
that it did support different learning styles, user choice, offer
flexiblitiy, etc.
Well there is my initial response to the report. I hope my two cents
is helpful in the discussion :+)
I totally agree with the observations "the report (on e-portfolios) is rooted where it should be; on learning" and commend the authors on keeping this in mind. However, I am not sure, at this point in the debate, if I am able to fully support "the development of one national e-Portfolio tool".
My rationale for caution is based around my somewhat "hazy" thoughts on the "authorship" of portfolios by the individual and (for the want of a better term) the socialization of the portfolio by sharing it with others.
# I am of the view the authorship of a portfolios can, and often does, take place in non-connected environments (for example, I create word documents, slideshows, videos on my computer (non-connected client) and review/refine them).
# When authors feel the portfolio is of sufficient quality to be "shared" they want to use portfolio tools hosted externally (connected server-systems?) to connect with others. (Note the plural, they may want to socialise in multiple environments).
# As they mature and progress they will want the ability to "remove" the portfolio from the public gaze (remove from the server-system) and refine/review on their computer (client).
In reality I have these "hazy" thoughts on the use of "client-applications" to create and publish work in desired formats (heading, colours, images ... .... ) and the use of "server-systems" in socialising the formatted portfolios published for a perceived purpose.
In a very primitive/clunky/unrefined way this has been investigated with the Moodle portfolio block Exabis (http://www.moodlekurse.org/). In this scenario the rudimentary portfolios created can be exported as SCORM Packets (Yes I can hear the groans as you read :)) and these packets can be refined and reviewed using an editor such as RELOAD (http://www.reload.ac.uk/editor.html). By stretching the imagination a little I could argue a client-based tool such as eXe editor (http://sourceforge.net/apps/trac/exe/wiki) could also be used to create "SCORM" Packets (I have no idea why I am focused on SCORM but I am sure you will forgive this obsession) for uploading formatted work to the "portfolio box".
In essence what I am trying to argue for is development of an integrated client-server portfolio approach. I wonder if this is where google gears is going??
Ray, thanks for your contribution. I have benefited often from reading
your postings in other groups and material from your website (and
encourage readers with an interest in portfolios to do likewise)
Always happy to hear of concerns and yours are of course grounded in
experience. It is even better to also read of solutions or examples of
answers to these concerns and I am sure you could share some of these
with the NZ audience of this group.
I will take one of your concerns (well, one for tonight, but also
because it is not my report and all readers can reflect and shape your
posting), that of interoperability.
IMHO there are no silver bullets, or none that I have seen While LEAP2
may have more demonstrable progress than some other approaches there
is a huge amount of work going on in this field all over the world (as
you know but not all reader do). We monitor this (read, speak to
others, etc), and investigate promising paths.
However, I wanted to add two reasons why interoperability is important
so readers can appreciate what is at stake. The first is student
transfer between schools and in this case not only retaining the work
they have done (if they want to keep it) but also the access to a
suitable tool/suite of tools. In NZ it is quite likely that the next
school has no tool at all, so even if the first supported an
interoperability standard it would be of little use. While portfolio
interoperability standards (however imperfect) might allow movement of
the content them can not improve the likelihood of the next school
having a tool/suite.
The second is a guarantee or exit clause should a school/education
system ever wish to change tool. Although far from perfect, standards
like LEAP2 can reduce the exit costs. Whereas use of one portfolio
tool within a jurisdiction could reduce the need for an
interoperability specification for transfer between schools it could
still form a part of an exit contingency.
Maybe other readers would like to comment on the other three, equally
valuable concerns you have raised.
Paul.
On Jul 16, 9:49 pm, Ray Tolley <maximise...@googlemail.com> wrote:
> Paul, thanks for the link, the document makes interesting reading.
> However, I have four areas of concern:
> 1. Interoperability, I quote:
> 'An ePortfolio with interoperability between systems is essential in
> maintaining ownership integrity.'
> I'm not sure what you mean by this - are you refering to the integrity
> of the data or the layout and formatting of the whole e-Portfolio?
> Because this is the crux of my philosophy, that as a learner moves
> from one institution (or country even) to another the whole
> composition, layout and formatting of *their* e-Portfolio should
> remain intact. As far as I understand it, and I know something Simon
> Grant and his work, LEAP2A will only export certain elements of data
> and some document types. Until interoperability includes full WYSIWYG
> transference I'm not sure if any students will want to re-craft their
> e-Portfolio to the style and colour-schemes they prefer.
> 2. 'Longevity': As you rightly comment, the Mahara solution might be
> right for Secondary school students or above but not for the rest. I
> am obviously thinking of younger children eg 5+, for adult learners
> who might not be so ICT savy, for the elderly, for those with special
> needs etc. My argument is that if you believe in a Lifelong and
> Lifewide solution it must be capable of adapting, chameleon-like, as
> the learner matures or takes up different interests. Further, for the
> Lifewide element we should also be looking at aspects of accessibility
> eg for the Visually Impaired.
> 3. Embedded tools: with respect to e-safety, particularly with school
> children, I would want to see in any system those tools which support
> feedback, polls or surveys embedded within the tool and not external
> as with the average wiki or blog. Reflection, for instance, is often
> limited to personal introspection whereas I would expect the e-
> Portfolio to support the collaboration of multiple closed groups. For
> example, any student might be a member of one collaborative group in
> Science lessons and yet a different group for English or Geography etc
> etc.
> 4. Diversity of approaches: The diversity of approaches is surely an
> institutional thing and not part of the e-Portfolio construction. But
> even then I would argue that a good e-Portfolio implementation should
> accomodate all approaches. Different teachers might look for different
> artefacts and justifications within identified areas of the e-
> Portfolio. Again, even an individual student might prefer different
> learning styles for different subjects and choose to showcase
> different media according to those different subject areas.
> On Jul 16, 4:40 am, Paul Seiler <paul.sei...@minedu.govt.nz> wrote:
> > I am pleased to release the consultation draft of 'ePortfolios -
> > Celebrating Learning' a report on the use by NZ schools of e-
> > portfolios and recommendations on how best to cultivate more and
> > better use.
> > I am sure many of you will want to comment, so for now all I have to
> > say is thanks to the schools, writers and vendor involved. Please read
> > and post your thoughts.
> > The report is in the files area of the MLE Reference Google Group.
> > Either navigate there yourself or try the following link:
Thank you for your thoughts, you add something concerning a commonality of
approach that the UK scene needs to think through. You have certainly added
to my thinking and perhaps I may quote you in my blog?
[mailto:mle-reference-group@googlegroups.com] On Behalf Of j_lietze
Sent: 17 July 2009 00:21
To: MLE Reference Group
Subject: Re: ePortfolios in NZ schools
Hi Paul
Firstly I want to say thank you for commissioning the research paper
into ePortfolios. It is a timely paper and has encouraged and informed
me (and other teachers I am sure) in our schools pilot use of
ePortfolios for the purpose of enhancing teaching and learning.
I also wish to thank Ian, Sandy and Viv in the fact that they carried
this research out with the following principle in mind: "ePortfolios
are not about technology; they are about pedagogy and learning. They
are about life-long learning." (Pg 17 of the paper) This I believe has
kept the report rooted where it should be; on learning.
I do wish to support the report findings and the development of one
national ePortfolio tool because there is more to it than just reasons
of efficiency, user familiarity, access through schooling and learner
ownership. I had a conversation with Lenva Shearing a few weeks ago
and she referred to the desire of having an ePortfolio tool that was
"an empty box" (I hope I have quoted her correctly). I liked this
analogy. So from here I would like to share a few more thoughts and
add these to the discussion.
If we all used one tool then schools/teachers will have:
1) Flexibility (They can use this one tool to add what they like into
it to meet the individual needs and while maintaining student choice,
voice and ownership.)
2) Better communication (Students/Teachers would use "one language"
and so work together easier across levels and ages developing their
ePortfolios.)
3) Efficencey (Professional development is made easier because we are
all using the same language and focusing on the one tool.)
4) Better consistency (One school or teacher will not be considered
lower than another because they did not have the expertise or
financial support to develop superior ePortfolios. Everyone will have
the same building blocks.)
Please don't get me wrong; I am not advocating for a "straight jacket"
type of tool. This one tool would have to be cleverly developed so
that it did support different learning styles, user choice, offer
flexiblitiy, etc.
Well there is my initial response to the report. I hope my two cents
is helpful in the discussion :+)
I have a huge interest in this area and we have been trialling a number of
different approaches in this area over the last 2-3 years. So I'm very
thankful for the thoughtful responses to the e-portfolio doc to from a
number of informed perspectives. The crux of the issue is, as has been
suggestd, is the tension between wanting open styles, options and
opportunities within portfolios and the need for that data (including the
unique layout of the data) to move from one system to another when a student
moves from one school to another.
If we want full interoperability and have all the data to move seamlessly
then there is probably only one solution and that would be, regrettably, a
single solution. However, the single solution could be quite open-ended and
include the capacity for schools to add additional tools which would allow
for the creativity that schools are renowned for. A set of "compulsory"
tools from within that pen set would be required in order to to have a
degree of conformity of data transfer but I don't see a particular need to
limit the number of tools that schools could implement within this
framework. If these tools become very popular the MoE ay wish to (at some
later point) "encourage" all schools to take on these additional tools.
The other issue and we need to look at in this regard is the fact that we
would like the learner, once they leave school altogether, to be able to
continue to manage and make available to possible to employers and even
family and friends some or all of the content of their portfolio. The
"portfolio for learning" approach could work in extremely well with the
international trend towards governments mandating portfolios for every
citizen which has gained considerable headway over the last 10 years.
Whatever approach we choose, the transition between where we start and where
we end up requires sufficient "looseness" to allow the creativity to develop
needs ideas and new approaches to portfolios, as new ideas service as well
as new technologies becoming available; e.g. could twitter have a role in
assessment and reporting from a parent, learner, management, MoE or educator
perspective?
ka kite ano (farewell)
Mark Treadwell
"Whatever!: The Revolution of School v2.0 http://www.schoolv2.net (the book
on how everything is changing for educators)
[mailto:mle-reference-group@googlegroups.com] On Behalf Of Ray Tolley
Sent: Thursday, 16 July 2009 9:50 p.m.
To: MLE Reference Group
Subject: Re: ePortfolios in NZ schools
Paul, thanks for the link, the document makes interesting reading.
However, I have four areas of concern:
1. Interoperability, I quote:
'An ePortfolio with interoperability between systems is essential in
maintaining ownership integrity.'
I'm not sure what you mean by this - are you refering to the integrity
of the data or the layout and formatting of the whole e-Portfolio?
Because this is the crux of my philosophy, that as a learner moves
from one institution (or country even) to another the whole
composition, layout and formatting of *their* e-Portfolio should
remain intact. As far as I understand it, and I know something Simon
Grant and his work, LEAP2A will only export certain elements of data
and some document types. Until interoperability includes full WYSIWYG
transference I'm not sure if any students will want to re-craft their
e-Portfolio to the style and colour-schemes they prefer.
2. 'Longevity': As you rightly comment, the Mahara solution might be
right for Secondary school students or above but not for the rest. I
am obviously thinking of younger children eg 5+, for adult learners
who might not be so ICT savy, for the elderly, for those with special
needs etc. My argument is that if you believe in a Lifelong and
Lifewide solution it must be capable of adapting, chameleon-like, as
the learner matures or takes up different interests. Further, for the
Lifewide element we should also be looking at aspects of accessibility
eg for the Visually Impaired.
3. Embedded tools: with respect to e-safety, particularly with school
children, I would want to see in any system those tools which support
feedback, polls or surveys embedded within the tool and not external
as with the average wiki or blog. Reflection, for instance, is often
limited to personal introspection whereas I would expect the e-
Portfolio to support the collaboration of multiple closed groups. For
example, any student might be a member of one collaborative group in
Science lessons and yet a different group for English or Geography etc
etc.
4. Diversity of approaches: The diversity of approaches is surely an
institutional thing and not part of the e-Portfolio construction. But
even then I would argue that a good e-Portfolio implementation should
accomodate all approaches. Different teachers might look for different
artefacts and justifications within identified areas of the e-
Portfolio. Again, even an individual student might prefer different
learning styles for different subjects and choose to showcase
different media according to those different subject areas.
For starters - a learner never stops learning. Whether a less-able juvenile
or a PhD graduate we all continue to develop. As we all know, job-hunting
is not a once-in-a-lifetime experience, we all collect experiences and
artefacts worth recording which we may want to use in all sorts of contexts
and with a variety of different audiences - some even concurrently. On my
blog I refer to the multiple transitions of learners.
There are three issues here:
Who owns the e-Portfolio, the learner or the state?
Where is the e-Portfolio hosted, within an institution or externally?
Who pays for its lifelong maintenance, the state or the individual?
However, Mark does also refer to the issue of State control. Where
e-Portfolios are mandated eg in parts of Holland, data-mining is of real
concern - the potential for the State to abuse its powers needs to be
watched.
Perhaps the issue about which there is the most confusion is that of the
tools to be contained WITHIN the e-Portfolio. I would strongly suggest that
these should be kept to a minimum. When a learner moves from one
institution to another or leaves full-time education to take up employment,
surely they do not want the discarded remnants of a host of previous and now
unwanted tools cluttering up their e-Portfolios? And from the hosting
managers' perspective there is no sane reason for sophisticated tools to be
repeatedly updated and maintained when they will never be used again. These
tools, particularly for curriculum delivery and assessment are better
retained within the institution's learning platform or VLE. Other more
lightweight tools will inevitably be down to the preference of the
individual institution or even individual teachers - unless the State really
wants to direct how we think or represent ourselves?
From: mle-reference-group@googlegroups.com
[mailto:mle-reference-group@googlegroups.com] On Behalf Of Mark Treadwell
Sent: 17 July 2009 23:22
To: mle-reference-group@googlegroups.com
Subject: RE: ePortfolios in NZ schools
kia ora (greetings)
I have a huge interest in this area and we have been trialling a number of
different approaches in this area over the last 2-3 years. So I'm very
thankful for the thoughtful responses to the e-portfolio doc to from a
number of informed perspectives. The crux of the issue is, as has been
suggestd, is the tension between wanting open styles, options and
opportunities within portfolios and the need for that data (including the
unique layout of the data) to move from one system to another when a student
moves from one school to another.
If we want full interoperability and have all the data to move seamlessly
then there is probably only one solution and that would be, regrettably, a
single solution. However, the single solution could be quite open-ended and
include the capacity for schools to add additional tools which would allow
for the creativity that schools are renowned for. A set of "compulsory"
tools from within that pen set would be required in order to to have a
degree of conformity of data transfer but I don't see a particular need to
limit the number of tools that schools could implement within this
framework. If these tools become very popular the MoE ay wish to (at some
later point) "encourage" all schools to take on these additional tools.
The other issue and we need to look at in this regard is the fact that we
would like the learner, once they leave school altogether, to be able to
continue to manage and make available to possible to employers and even
family and friends some or all of the content of their portfolio. The
"portfolio for learning" approach could work in extremely well with the
international trend towards governments mandating portfolios for every
citizen which has gained considerable headway over the last 10 years.
Whatever approach we choose, the transition between where we start and where
we end up requires sufficient "looseness" to allow the creativity to develop
needs ideas and new approaches to portfolios, as new ideas service as well
as new technologies becoming available; e.g. could twitter have a role in
assessment and reporting from a parent, learner, management, MoE or educator
perspective?
ka kite ano (farewell)
Mark Treadwell
"Whatever!: The Revolution of School v2.0 http://www.schoolv2.net (the book
on how everything is changing for educators)
[mailto:mle-reference-group@googlegroups.com] On Behalf Of Ray Tolley
Sent: Thursday, 16 July 2009 9:50 p.m.
To: MLE Reference Group
Subject: Re: ePortfolios in NZ schools
Paul, thanks for the link, the document makes interesting reading.
However, I have four areas of concern:
1. Interoperability, I quote:
'An ePortfolio with interoperability between systems is essential in
maintaining ownership integrity.'
I'm not sure what you mean by this - are you refering to the integrity
of the data or the layout and formatting of the whole e-Portfolio?
Because this is the crux of my philosophy, that as a learner moves
from one institution (or country even) to another the whole
composition, layout and formatting of *their* e-Portfolio should
remain intact. As far as I understand it, and I know something Simon
Grant and his work, LEAP2A will only export certain elements of data
and some document types. Until interoperability includes full WYSIWYG
transference I'm not sure if any students will want to re-craft their
e-Portfolio to the style and colour-schemes they prefer.
2. 'Longevity': As you rightly comment, the Mahara solution might be
right for Secondary school students or above but not for the rest. I
am obviously thinking of younger children eg 5+, for adult learners
who might not be so ICT savy, for the elderly, for those with special
needs etc. My argument is that if you believe in a Lifelong and
Lifewide solution it must be capable of adapting, chameleon-like, as
the learner matures or takes up different interests. Further, for the
Lifewide element we should also be looking at aspects of accessibility
eg for the Visually Impaired.
3. Embedded tools: with respect to e-safety, particularly with school
children, I would want to see in any system those tools which support
feedback, polls or surveys embedded within the tool and not external
as with the average wiki or blog. Reflection, for instance, is often
limited to personal introspection whereas I would expect the e-
Portfolio to support the collaboration of multiple closed groups. For
example, any student might be a member of one collaborative group in
Science lessons and yet a different group for English or Geography etc
etc.
4. Diversity of approaches: The diversity of approaches is surely an
institutional thing and not part of the e-Portfolio construction. But
even then I would argue that a good e-Portfolio implementation should
accomodate all approaches. Different teachers might look for different
artefacts and justifications within identified areas of the e-
Portfolio. Again, even an individual student might prefer different
learning styles for different subjects and choose to showcase
different media according to those different subject areas.
At all times the user should have access to their "stuff" and the institution should have the ability to use the institution gathered data. Data should be transferable and available to the stakeholders at each stage - and should be "free" to the user. This data will be on the web, so internet connectivity, data storage, IM are the biggest issues and the tools must fit around this.
So - education needs to
1 get internet access sorted for education
2 bulk purchase storage (or accept google and Microsoft type offerings)
3 deal to IM across all areas
4 support access tools that fit 1 2 3 (until 1 2 3 we will get a smorgasboard)
Thanks
Peter H
From: mle-reference-group@googlegroups.com [mailto:mle-reference-group@googlegroups.com] On Behalf Of Ray Tolley
Sent: Sunday, July 19, 2009 2:09 AM
To: mle-reference-group@googlegroups.com
Subject: RE: ePortfolios in NZ schools
In response to Mark Tredwell,
For starters - a learner never stops learning. Whether a less-able juvenile or a PhD graduate we all continue to develop. As we all know, job-hunting is not a once-in-a-lifetime experience, we all collect experiences and artefacts worth recording which we may want to use in all sorts of contexts and with a variety of different audiences - some even concurrently. On my blog I refer to the multiple transitions of learners.
There are three issues here:
Who owns the e-Portfolio, the learner or the state?
Where is the e-Portfolio hosted, within an institution or externally?
Who pays for its lifelong maintenance, the state or the individual?
However, Mark does also refer to the issue of State control. Where e-Portfolios are mandated eg in parts of Holland, data-mining is of real concern - the potential for the State to abuse its powers needs to be watched.
Perhaps the issue about which there is the most confusion is that of the tools to be contained WITHIN the e-Portfolio. I would strongly suggest that these should be kept to a minimum. When a learner moves from one institution to another or leaves full-time education to take up employment, surely they do not want the discarded remnants of a host of previous and now unwanted tools cluttering up their e-Portfolios? And from the hosting managers' perspective there is no sane reason for sophisticated tools to be repeatedly updated and maintained when they will never be used again. These tools, particularly for curriculum delivery and assessment are better retained within the institution's learning platform or VLE. Other more lightweight tools will inevitably be down to the preference of the individual institution or even individual teachers - unless the State really wants to direct how we think or represent ourselves?
From: mle-reference-group@googlegroups.com [mailto:mle-reference-group@googlegroups.com] On Behalf Of Mark Treadwell
Sent: 17 July 2009 23:22
To: mle-reference-group@googlegroups.com
Subject: RE: ePortfolios in NZ schools
kia ora (greetings)
I have a huge interest in this area and we have been trialling a number of different approaches in this area over the last 2-3 years. So I'm very thankful for the thoughtful responses to the e-portfolio doc to from a number of informed perspectives. The crux of the issue is, as has been suggestd, is the tension between wanting open styles, options and opportunities within portfolios and the need for that data (including the unique layout of the data) to move from one system to another when a student moves from one school to another.
If we want full interoperability and have all the data to move seamlessly then there is probably only one solution and that would be, regrettably, a single solution. However, the single solution could be quite open-ended and include the capacity for schools to add additional tools which would allow for the creativity that schools are renowned for. A set of "compulsory" tools from within that pen set would be required in order to to have a degree of conformity of data transfer but I don't see a particular need to limit the number of tools that schools could implement within this framework. If these tools become very popular the MoE ay wish to (at some later point) "encourage" all schools to take on these additional tools.
The other issue and we need to look at in this regard is the fact that we would like the learner, once they leave school altogether, to be able to continue to manage and make available to possible to employers and even family and friends some or all of the content of their portfolio. The "portfolio for learning" approach could work in extremely well with the international trend towards governments mandating portfolios for every citizen which has gained considerable headway over the last 10 years.
Whatever approach we choose, the transition between where we start and where we end up requires sufficient "looseness" to allow the creativity to develop needs ideas and new approaches to portfolios, as new ideas service as well as new technologies becoming available; e.g. could twitter have a role in assessment and reporting from a parent, learner, management, MoE or educator perspective?
ka kite ano (farewell)
Mark Treadwell
"Whatever!: The Revolution of School v2.0 http://www.schoolv2.net (the book on how everything is changing for educators)
-----Original Message-----
From: mle-reference-group@googlegroups.com [mailto:mle-reference-group@googlegroups.com] On Behalf Of Ray Tolley
Sent: Thursday, 16 July 2009 9:50 p.m.
To: MLE Reference Group
Subject: Re: ePortfolios in NZ schools
Paul, thanks for the link, the document makes interesting reading.
However, I have four areas of concern:
1. Interoperability, I quote:
'An ePortfolio with interoperability between systems is essential in
maintaining ownership integrity.'
I'm not sure what you mean by this - are you refering to the integrity
of the data or the layout and formatting of the whole e-Portfolio?
Because this is the crux of my philosophy, that as a learner moves
from one institution (or country even) to another the whole
composition, layout and formatting of *their* e-Portfolio should
remain intact. As far as I understand it, and I know something Simon
Grant and his work, LEAP2A will only export certain elements of data
and some document types. Until interoperability includes full WYSIWYG
transference I'm not sure if any students will want to re-craft their
e-Portfolio to the style and colour-schemes they prefer.
2. 'Longevity': As you rightly comment, the Mahara solution might be
right for Secondary school students or above but not for the rest. I
am obviously thinking of younger children eg 5+, for adult learners
who might not be so ICT savy, for the elderly, for those with special
needs etc. My argument is that if you believe in a Lifelong and
Lifewide solution it must be capable of adapting, chameleon-like, as
the learner matures or takes up different interests. Further, for the
Lifewide element we should also be looking at aspects of accessibility
eg for the Visually Impaired.
3. Embedded tools: with respect to e-safety, particularly with school
children, I would want to see in any system those tools which support
feedback, polls or surveys embedded within the tool and not external
as with the average wiki or blog. Reflection, for instance, is often
limited to personal introspection whereas I would expect the e-
Portfolio to support the collaboration of multiple closed groups. For
example, any student might be a member of one collaborative group in
Science lessons and yet a different group for English or Geography etc
etc.
4. Diversity of approaches: The diversity of approaches is surely an
institutional thing and not part of the e-Portfolio construction. But
even then I would argue that a good e-Portfolio implementation should
accomodate all approaches. Different teachers might look for different
artefacts and justifications within identified areas of the e-
Portfolio. Again, even an individual student might prefer different
learning styles for different subjects and choose to showcase
different media according to those different subject areas.
mle-reference-group@googlegroups.com writes: >When a learner moves from one institution to another or leaves full-time >education to take up employment, surely they do not want the discarded >remnants of a host of previous and now unwanted tools cluttering up their >e-Portfolios??
When presenting a CV for a purpose, great care is often taken as to what aspects of your life you wish to portray, and what emphasis you give to them. The ability for an individual to control this content should be imperative. If potential employers are aware of a "lifelong" trail of information, the expectation would be to make it available. How is access to this informantion to be governed?
----------------------------------------------------- Adrian Gray Teacher - IT Administrator Phone 027 228 1101
Quite simple, within an e-safe portfolio environment all the various
artefacts that one may choose to upload to the e-Portfolio are controlled by
the learner. Only those items which the learner chooses to reveal, which
could be different from one audience to another, will the prospective
employer see.
Perhaps for a youngster the impression might be that we would deliver the
same CV to a variety of potential employers. Those of us who have been
around for some time know that we tailor our CVs according to employer. One
of the beauties of the e-Portfolio is that it can provide time-controlled
access along with who is permitted to see the various artefacts including
the CV and different 'letters of application'.
By now most people (well too late for some) have discovered that it is
foolhardy to leave identifiable personal data out in the clouds, open for
anyone to see. Soon more and more people will be discovering the benefits
of an e-Portfolio as an alternative and convenient organiser and central
location for all of one's artefacts whether within the e-Portfolio or linked
to external repositories.
[mailto:mle-reference-group@googlegroups.com] On Behalf Of Adrian Gray
Sent: 18 July 2009 23:01
To: mle-reference-group@googlegroups.com
Subject: Re: ePortfolios in NZ schools
mle-reference-group@googlegroups.com writes:
>When a learner moves from one institution to another or leaves full-time
>education to take up employment, surely they do not want the discarded
>remnants of a host of previous and now unwanted tools cluttering up their
>e-Portfolios??
When presenting a CV for a purpose, great care is often taken as to what
aspects of your life you wish to portray, and what emphasis you give to
them. The ability for an individual to control this content should be
imperative. If potential employers are aware of a "lifelong" trail of
information, the expectation would be to make it available. How is access
to this informantion to be governed?
-----------------------------------------------------
Adrian Gray
Teacher - IT Administrator
Phone 027 228 1101
Yes, I'm quite happy with your first three points. However, as an
experienced teacher and manager of technicians I would not want to foist the
admin burden and help-desking on an already over-burdened staff - especially
as students increasingly will expect 24/7/365 support. That is why, for
just a few $ per year we provide external hosting, on-line support at
several levels and an in-depth experience and understanding of the
e-Portfolio tool that few teachers would be expected to have. Or, do your
teachers not go away on holiday and like taking on extra tasks for free? ;-)
From: mle-reference-group@googlegroups.com
[mailto:mle-reference-group@googlegroups.com] On Behalf Of Peter Hills
Sent: 18 July 2009 23:02
To: mle-reference-group@googlegroups.com
Subject: RE: ePortfolios in NZ schools
My simplistic view
At all times the user should have access to their "stuff" and the
institution should have the ability to use the institution gathered data.
Data should be transferable and available to the stakeholders at each stage
- and should be "free" to the user. This data will be on the web, so
internet connectivity, data storage, IM are the biggest issues and the tools
must fit around this.
So - education needs to
1 get internet access sorted for education
2 bulk purchase storage (or accept google and Microsoft
type offerings)
3 deal to IM across all areas
4 support access tools that fit 1 2 3 (until 1 2 3 we
will get a smorgasboard)
Thanks
Peter H
From: mle-reference-group@googlegroups.com
[mailto:mle-reference-group@googlegroups.com] On Behalf Of Ray Tolley
Sent: Sunday, July 19, 2009 2:09 AM
To: mle-reference-group@googlegroups.com
Subject: RE: ePortfolios in NZ schools
In response to Mark Tredwell,
For starters - a learner never stops learning. Whether a less-able juvenile
or a PhD graduate we all continue to develop. As we all know, job-hunting
is not a once-in-a-lifetime experience, we all collect experiences and
artefacts worth recording which we may want to use in all sorts of contexts
and with a variety of different audiences - some even concurrently. On my
blog I refer to the multiple transitions of learners.
There are three issues here:
Who owns the e-Portfolio, the learner or the state?
Where is the e-Portfolio hosted, within an institution or externally?
Who pays for its lifelong maintenance, the state or the individual?
However, Mark does also refer to the issue of State control. Where
e-Portfolios are mandated eg in parts of Holland, data-mining is of real
concern - the potential for the State to abuse its powers needs to be
watched.
Perhaps the issue about which there is the most confusion is that of the
tools to be contained WITHIN the e-Portfolio. I would strongly suggest that
these should be kept to a minimum. When a learner moves from one
institution to another or leaves full-time education to take up employment,
surely they do not want the discarded remnants of a host of previous and now
unwanted tools cluttering up their e-Portfolios? And from the hosting
managers' perspective there is no sane reason for sophisticated tools to be
repeatedly updated and maintained when they will never be used again. These
tools, particularly for curriculum delivery and assessment are better
retained within the institution's learning platform or VLE. Other more
lightweight tools will inevitably be down to the preference of the
individual institution or even individual teachers - unless the State really
wants to direct how we think or represent ourselves?
From: mle-reference-group@googlegroups.com
[mailto:mle-reference-group@googlegroups.com] On Behalf Of Mark Treadwell
Sent: 17 July 2009 23:22
To: mle-reference-group@googlegroups.com
Subject: RE: ePortfolios in NZ schools
kia ora (greetings)
I have a huge interest in this area and we have been trialling a number of
different approaches in this area over the last 2-3 years. So I'm very
thankful for the thoughtful responses to the e-portfolio doc to from a
number of informed perspectives. The crux of the issue is, as has been
suggestd, is the tension between wanting open styles, options and
opportunities within portfolios and the need for that data (including the
unique layout of the data) to move from one system to another when a student
moves from one school to another.
If we want full interoperability and have all the data to move seamlessly
then there is probably only one solution and that would be, regrettably, a
single solution. However, the single solution could be quite open-ended and
include the capacity for schools to add additional tools which would allow
for the creativity that schools are renowned for. A set of "compulsory"
tools from within that pen set would be required in order to to have a
degree of conformity of data transfer but I don't see a particular need to
limit the number of tools that schools could implement within this
framework. If these tools become very popular the MoE ay wish to (at some
later point) "encourage" all schools to take on these additional tools.
The other issue and we need to look at in this regard is the fact that we
would like the learner, once they leave school altogether, to be able to
continue to manage and make available to possible to employers and even
family and friends some or all of the content of their portfolio. The
"portfolio for learning" approach could work in extremely well with the
international trend towards governments mandating portfolios for every
citizen which has gained considerable headway over the last 10 years.
Whatever approach we choose, the transition between where we start and where
we end up requires sufficient "looseness" to allow the creativity to develop
needs ideas and new approaches to portfolios, as new ideas service as well
as new technologies becoming available; e.g. could twitter have a role in
assessment and reporting from a parent, learner, management, MoE or educator
perspective?
ka kite ano (farewell)
Mark Treadwell
"Whatever!: The Revolution of School v2.0 http://www.schoolv2.net (the book
on how everything is changing for educators)
[mailto:mle-reference-group@googlegroups.com] On Behalf Of Ray Tolley
Sent: Thursday, 16 July 2009 9:50 p.m.
To: MLE Reference Group
Subject: Re: ePortfolios in NZ schools
Paul, thanks for the link, the document makes interesting reading.
However, I have four areas of concern:
1. Interoperability, I quote:
'An ePortfolio with interoperability between systems is essential in
maintaining ownership integrity.'
I'm not sure what you mean by this - are you refering to the integrity
of the data or the layout and formatting of the whole e-Portfolio?
Because this is the crux of my philosophy, that as a learner moves
from one institution (or country even) to another the whole
composition, layout and formatting of *their* e-Portfolio should
remain intact. As far as I understand it, and I know something Simon
Grant and his work, LEAP2A will only export certain elements of data
and some document types. Until interoperability includes full WYSIWYG
transference I'm not sure if any students will want to re-craft their
e-Portfolio to the style and colour-schemes they prefer.
2. 'Longevity': As you rightly comment, the Mahara solution might be
right for Secondary school students or above but not for the rest. I
am obviously thinking of younger children eg 5+, for adult learners
who might not be so ICT savy, for the elderly, for those with special
needs etc. My argument is that if you believe in a Lifelong and
Lifewide solution it must be capable of adapting, chameleon-like, as
the learner matures or takes up different interests. Further, for the
Lifewide element we should also be looking at aspects of accessibility
eg for the Visually Impaired.
3. Embedded tools: with respect to e-safety, particularly with school
children, I would want to see in any system those tools which support
feedback, polls or surveys embedded within the tool and not external
as with the average wiki or blog. Reflection, for instance, is often
limited to personal introspection whereas I would expect the e-
Portfolio to support the collaboration of multiple closed groups. For
example, any student might be a member of one collaborative group in
Science lessons and yet a different group for English or Geography etc
etc.
4. Diversity of approaches: The diversity of approaches is surely
External infrastructure (none at school)
External hosting (no servers at our place)
External support (0800 ...)
Teacher and student focused. Our staff/students are on holiday and will access stuff when they want - even if they are flu bound. Anytime anywhere anyhow ...
From: mle-reference-group@googlegroups.com [mailto:mle-reference-group@googlegroups.com] On Behalf Of Ray Tolley
Sent: Sunday, July 19, 2009 10:37 AM
To: mle-reference-group@googlegroups.com
Subject: RE: ePortfolios in NZ schools
@Peter,
Yes, I'm quite happy with your first three points. However, as an experienced teacher and manager of technicians I would not want to foist the admin burden and help-desking on an already over-burdened staff - especially as students increasingly will expect 24/7/365 support. That is why, for just a few $ per year we provide external hosting, on-line support at several levels and an in-depth experience and understanding of the e-Portfolio tool that few teachers would be expected to have. Or, do your teachers not go away on holiday and like taking on extra tasks for free? ;-)
From: mle-reference-group@googlegroups.com [mailto:mle-reference-group@googlegroups.com] On Behalf Of Peter Hills
Sent: 18 July 2009 23:02
To: mle-reference-group@googlegroups.com
Subject: RE: ePortfolios in NZ schools
My simplistic view
At all times the user should have access to their "stuff" and the institution should have the ability to use the institution gathered data. Data should be transferable and available to the stakeholders at each stage - and should be "free" to the user. This data will be on the web, so internet connectivity, data storage, IM are the biggest issues and the tools must fit around this.
So - education needs to
1 get internet access sorted for education
2 bulk purchase storage (or accept google and Microsoft type offerings)
3 deal to IM across all areas
4 support access tools that fit 1 2 3 (until 1 2 3 we will get a smorgasboard)
Thanks
Peter H
From: mle-reference-group@googlegroups.com [mailto:mle-reference-group@googlegroups.com] On Behalf Of Ray Tolley
Sent: Sunday, July 19, 2009 2:09 AM
To: mle-reference-group@googlegroups.com
Subject: RE: ePortfolios in NZ schools
In response to Mark Tredwell,
For starters - a learner never stops learning. Whether a less-able juvenile or a PhD graduate we all continue to develop. As we all know, job-hunting is not a once-in-a-lifetime experience, we all collect experiences and artefacts worth recording which we may want to use in all sorts of contexts and with a variety of different audiences - some even concurrently. On my blog I refer to the multiple transitions of learners.
There are three issues here:
Who owns the e-Portfolio, the learner or the state?
Where is the e-Portfolio hosted, within an institution or externally?
Who pays for its lifelong maintenance, the state or the individual?
However, Mark does also refer to the issue of State control. Where e-Portfolios are mandated eg in parts of Holland, data-mining is of real concern - the potential for the State to abuse its powers needs to be watched.
Perhaps the issue about which there is the most confusion is that of the tools to be contained WITHIN the e-Portfolio. I would strongly suggest that these should be kept to a minimum. When a learner moves from one institution to another or leaves full-time education to take up employment, surely they do not want the discarded remnants of a host of previous and now unwanted tools cluttering up their e-Portfolios? And from the hosting managers' perspective there is no sane reason for sophisticated tools to be repeatedly updated and maintained when they will never be used again. These tools, particularly for curriculum delivery and assessment are better retained within the institution's learning platform or VLE. Other more lightweight tools will inevitably be down to the preference of the individual institution or even individual teachers - unless the State really wants to direct how we think or represent ourselves?
From: mle-reference-group@googlegroups.com [mailto:mle-reference-group@googlegroups.com] On Behalf Of Mark Treadwell
Sent: 17 July 2009 23:22
To: mle-reference-group@googlegroups.com
Subject: RE: ePortfolios in NZ schools
kia ora (greetings)
I have a huge interest in this area and we have been trialling a number of different approaches in this area over the last 2-3 years. So I'm very thankful for the thoughtful responses to the e-portfolio doc to from a number of informed perspectives. The crux of the issue is, as has been suggestd, is the tension between wanting open styles, options and opportunities within portfolios and the need for that data (including the unique layout of the data) to move from one system to another when a student moves from one school to another.
If we want full interoperability and have all the data to move seamlessly then there is probably only one solution and that would be, regrettably, a single solution. However, the single solution could be quite open-ended and include the capacity for schools to add additional tools which would allow for the creativity that schools are renowned for. A set of "compulsory" tools from within that pen set would be required in order to to have a degree of conformity of data transfer but I don't see a particular need to limit the number of tools that schools could implement within this framework. If these tools become very popular the MoE ay wish to (at some later point) "encourage" all schools to take on these additional tools.
The other issue and we need to look at in this regard is the fact that we would like the learner, once they leave school altogether, to be able to continue to manage and make available to possible to employers and even family and friends some or all of the content of their portfolio. The "portfolio for learning" approach could work in extremely well with the international trend towards governments mandating portfolios for every citizen which has gained considerable headway over the last 10 years.
Whatever approach we choose, the transition between where we start and where we end up requires sufficient "looseness" to allow the creativity to develop needs ideas and new approaches to portfolios, as new ideas service as well as new technologies becoming available; e.g. could twitter have a role in assessment and reporting from a parent, learner, management, MoE or educator perspective?
ka kite ano (farewell)
Mark Treadwell
"Whatever!: The Revolution of School v2.0 http://www.schoolv2.net (the book on how everything is changing for educators)
-----Original Message-----
From: mle-reference-group@googlegroups.com [mailto:mle-reference-group@googlegroups.com] On Behalf Of Ray Tolley
Sent: Thursday, 16 July 2009 9:50 p.m.
To: MLE Reference Group
Subject: Re: ePortfolios in NZ schools
Paul, thanks for the link, the document makes interesting reading.
However, I have four areas of concern:
1. Interoperability, I quote:
'An ePortfolio with interoperability between systems is essential in
maintaining ownership integrity.'
I'm not sure what you mean by this - are you refering to the integrity
of the data or the layout and formatting of the whole e-Portfolio?
Because this is the crux of my philosophy, that as a learner moves
from one institution (or country even) to another the whole
composition, layout and formatting of *their* e-Portfolio should
remain intact. As far as I understand it, and I know something Simon
Grant and his work, LEAP2A will only export certain elements of data
and some document types. Until interoperability includes full WYSIWYG
transference I'm not sure if any students will want to re-craft their
e-Portfolio to the style and colour-schemes they prefer.
2. 'Longevity': As you rightly comment, the Mahara solution might be
right for Secondary school students or above but not for the rest. I
am obviously thinking of younger children eg 5+, for adult learners
who might not be so ICT savy, for the elderly, for those with special
needs etc. My argument is that if you believe in a Lifelong and
Lifewide solution it must be capable of adapting, chameleon-like, as
the learner matures or takes up different interests. Further, for the
Lifewide element we should also be looking at aspects of accessibility
eg for the Visually Impaired.
3. Embedded tools: with respect to e-safety, particularly with school
children, I would want to see in any system those tools which support
feedback, polls or surveys embedded within the tool and not external
as with the average wiki or blog. Reflection, for instance, is often
one thing that we may want to consider regarding interoperability, is
that interoperability does not of necessity imply the need for
portability. Lets assume that we have a national data store for our
ePortfolio Applications (note the 's'). Different ePortfolios would
access the data store (I could imagine at least one funding model for
this). Now if the data store was a simple database that could be mapped
to open ePortfolio standards then the data would easily be used by
different applications with little user intervention.
The benefit of this approach is that to use the national ePortfolio
data store vendors will have to map the database to whatever standard
they choose. Secondly, the problem of portability (at a user level) is
avoided. Finally, as standards evolve, database fields can be mapped to
match the standard.
In summary: the data does not have to move between ePortfolio
applications if applications are able to access a single data store that
can be mapped to the relevant standard(s).
There's bound to be holes in this -it sounds too simple!
On Fri, 2009-07-17 at 00:26 -0700, Paul Seiler wrote:
> Ray, thanks for your contribution. I have benefited often from reading
> your postings in other groups and material from your website (and
> encourage readers with an interest in portfolios to do likewise)
> Always happy to hear of concerns and yours are of course grounded in
> experience. It is even better to also read of solutions or examples of
> answers to these concerns and I am sure you could share some of these
> with the NZ audience of this group.
> I will take one of your concerns (well, one for tonight, but also
> because it is not my report and all readers can reflect and shape your
> posting), that of interoperability.
> IMHO there are no silver bullets, or none that I have seen While LEAP2
> may have more demonstrable progress than some other approaches there
> is a huge amount of work going on in this field all over the world (as
> you know but not all reader do). We monitor this (read, speak to
> others, etc), and investigate promising paths.
> However, I wanted to add two reasons why interoperability is important
> so readers can appreciate what is at stake. The first is student
> transfer between schools and in this case not only retaining the work
> they have done (if they want to keep it) but also the access to a
> suitable tool/suite of tools. In NZ it is quite likely that the next
> school has no tool at all, so even if the first supported an
> interoperability standard it would be of little use. While portfolio
> interoperability standards (however imperfect) might allow movement of
> the content them can not improve the likelihood of the next school
> having a tool/suite.
> The second is a guarantee or exit clause should a school/education
> system ever wish to change tool. Although far from perfect, standards
> like LEAP2 can reduce the exit costs. Whereas use of one portfolio
> tool within a jurisdiction could reduce the need for an
> interoperability specification for transfer between schools it could
> still form a part of an exit contingency.
> Maybe other readers would like to comment on the other three, equally
> valuable concerns you have raised.
> Paul.
> On Jul 16, 9:49 pm, Ray Tolley <maximise...@googlemail.com> wrote:
> > Paul, thanks for the link, the document makes interesting reading.
> > However, I have four areas of concern:
> > 1. Interoperability, I quote:
> > 'An ePortfolio with interoperability between systems is essential in
> > maintaining ownership integrity.'
> > I'm not sure what you mean by this - are you refering to the
integrity
> > of the data or the layout and formatting of the whole e-Portfolio?
> > Because this is the crux of my philosophy, that as a learner moves
> > from one institution (or country even) to another the whole
> > composition, layout and formatting of *their* e-Portfolio should
> > remain intact. As far as I understand it, and I know something
Simon
> > Grant and his work, LEAP2A will only export certain elements of data
> > and some document types. Until interoperability includes full
WYSIWYG
> > transference I'm not sure if any students will want to re-craft
their
> > e-Portfolio to the style and colour-schemes they prefer.
> > 2. 'Longevity': As you rightly comment, the Mahara solution might
be
> > right for Secondary school students or above but not for the rest. I
> > am obviously thinking of younger children eg 5+, for adult learners
> > who might not be so ICT savy, for the elderly, for those with
special
> > needs etc. My argument is that if you believe in a Lifelong and
> > Lifewide solution it must be capable of adapting, chameleon-like, as
> > the learner matures or takes up different interests. Further, for
the
> > Lifewide element we should also be looking at aspects of
accessibility
> > eg for the Visually Impaired.
> > 3. Embedded tools: with respect to e-safety, particularly with
school
> > children, I would want to see in any system those tools which
support
> > feedback, polls or surveys embedded within the tool and not external
> > as with the average wiki or blog. Reflection, for instance, is
often
> > limited to personal introspection whereas I would expect the e-
> > Portfolio to support the collaboration of multiple closed groups.
For
> > example, any student might be a member of one collaborative group in
> > Science lessons and yet a different group for English or Geography
etc
> > etc.
> > 4. Diversity of approaches: The diversity of approaches is surely
an
> > institutional thing and not part of the e-Portfolio construction. But
> > even then I would argue that a good e-Portfolio implementation
should
> > accomodate all approaches. Different teachers might look for
different
> > artefacts and justifications within identified areas of the e-
> > Portfolio. Again, even an individual student might prefer different
> > learning styles for different subjects and choose to showcase
> > different media according to those different subject areas.
> > On Jul 16, 4:40 am, Paul Seiler <paul.sei...@minedu.govt.nz> wrote:
> > > I am pleased to release the consultation draft of 'ePortfolios -
> > > Celebrating Learning' a report on the use by NZ schools of e-
> > > portfolios and recommendations on how best to cultivate more and
> > > better use.
> > > I am sure many of you will want to comment, so for now all I have
to
> > > say is thanks to the schools, writers and vendor involved. Please
read
> > > and post your thoughts.
> > > The report is in the files area of the MLE Reference Google Group.
> > > Either navigate there yourself or try the following link:
I'm with Trevor here,
I don't think interoperability is about where the components of
artefacts/DLO's or artefacts themselves sit or are stored. I think its
about the ability of LMS's/Eportfolio's to aggregate that stuff in a
way that preserves some chronology and preserves a time stamped
example of work. (along with appropriate related assessment)
We're already in an age of mashups where a creative online artefact or
piece of work may be sucking a component out of flickr or animoto and
being combined with text in a blogger type environment. We have a
whole cluster of kids in Tamaki, from Y1 -Y13 already creating content
in this environment. For me, & I think our cluster, an eportfolio
needs to be able to access a set of time stamped artefacts that were
created on or offline, (some of the online ones being multi-sourced
mashups), that the school & student identify as being part of the
student's cumulative record of work. Copies of these artefacts/DLO's
could sit in one central repository (as Trevor suggested) and
individuals ought to be able to rearrange their portfolio's with
different examples of content to suit different purposes over time. I
see the portfolio as an overlay and an organiser for this content. I
see a developmental continuum of teacher organisation gradually giving
way to learner organisation in respect of how this stuff is managed
and owned.
Cheers
Russell
On 19 July, 19:38, "Trevor Storr" <tst...@waimate-high.school.nz>
wrote:
> one thing that we may want to consider regarding interoperability, is
> that interoperability does not of necessity imply the need for
> portability. Lets assume that we have a national data store for our
> ePortfolio Applications (note the 's'). Different ePortfolios would
> access the data store (I could imagine at least one funding model for
> this). Now if the data store was a simple database that could be mapped
> to open ePortfolio standards then the data would easily be used by
> different applications with little user intervention.
> The benefit of this approach is that to use the national ePortfolio
> data store vendors will have to map the database to whatever standard
> they choose. Secondly, the problem of portability (at a user level) is
> avoided. Finally, as standards evolve, database fields can be mapped to
> match the standard.
> In summary: the data does not have to move between ePortfolio
> applications if applications are able to access a single data store that
> can be mapped to the relevant standard(s).
> There's bound to be holes in this -it sounds too simple!
> Cheers
> Trevor
> On Fri, 2009-07-17 at 00:26 -0700, Paul Seiler wrote:
> > Ray, thanks for your contribution. I have benefited often from reading
> > your postings in other groups and material from your website (and
> > encourage readers with an interest in portfolios to do likewise)
> > Always happy to hear of concerns and yours are of course grounded in
> > experience. It is even better to also read of solutions or examples of
> > answers to these concerns and I am sure you could share some of these
> > with the NZ audience of this group.
> > I will take one of your concerns (well, one for tonight, but also
> > because it is not my report and all readers can reflect and shape your
> > posting), that of interoperability.
> > IMHO there are no silver bullets, or none that I have seen While LEAP2
> > may have more demonstrable progress than some other approaches there
> > is a huge amount of work going on in this field all over the world (as
> > you know but not all reader do). We monitor this (read, speak to
> > others, etc), and investigate promising paths.
> > However, I wanted to add two reasons why interoperability is important
> > so readers can appreciate what is at stake. The first is student
> > transfer between schools and in this case not only retaining the work
> > they have done (if they want to keep it) but also the access to a
> > suitable tool/suite of tools. In NZ it is quite likely that the next
> > school has no tool at all, so even if the first supported an
> > interoperability standard it would be of little use. While portfolio
> > interoperability standards (however imperfect) might allow movement of
> > the content them can not improve the likelihood of the next school
> > having a tool/suite.
> > The second is a guarantee or exit clause should a school/education
> > system ever wish to change tool. Although far from perfect, standards
> > like LEAP2 can reduce the exit costs. Whereas use of one portfolio
> > tool within a jurisdiction could reduce the need for an
> > interoperability specification for transfer between schools it could
> > still form a part of an exit contingency.
> > Maybe other readers would like to comment on the other three, equally
> > valuable concerns you have raised.
> > Paul.
> > On Jul 16, 9:49 pm, Ray Tolley <maximise...@googlemail.com> wrote:
> > > Paul, thanks for the link, the document makes interesting reading.
> > > However, I have four areas of concern:
> > > 1. Interoperability, I quote:
> > > 'An ePortfolio with interoperability between systems is essential in
> > > maintaining ownership integrity.'
> > > I'm not sure what you mean by this - are you refering to the
> integrity
> > > of the data or the layout and formatting of the whole e-Portfolio?
> > > Because this is the crux of my philosophy, that as a learner moves
> > > from one institution (or country even) to another the whole
> > > composition, layout and formatting of *their* e-Portfolio should
> > > remain intact. As far as I understand it, and I know something
> Simon
> > > Grant and his work, LEAP2A will only export certain elements of data
> > > and some document types. Until interoperability includes full
> WYSIWYG
> > > transference I'm not sure if any students will want to re-craft
> their
> > > e-Portfolio to the style and colour-schemes they prefer.
> > > 2. 'Longevity': As you rightly comment, the Mahara solution might
> be
> > > right for Secondary school students or above but not for the rest.
> I
> > > am obviously thinking of younger children eg 5+, for adult learners
> > > who might not be so ICT savy, for the elderly, for those with
> special
> > > needs etc. My argument is that if you believe in a Lifelong and
> > > Lifewide solution it must be capable of adapting, chameleon-like, as
> > > the learner matures or takes up different interests. Further, for
> the
> > > Lifewide element we should also be looking at aspects of
> accessibility
> > > eg for the Visually Impaired.
> > > 3. Embedded tools: with respect to e-safety, particularly with
> school
> > > children, I would want to see in any system those tools which
> support
> > > feedback, polls or surveys embedded within the tool and not external
> > > as with the average wiki or blog. Reflection, for instance, is
> often
> > > limited to personal introspection whereas I would expect the e-
> > > Portfolio to support the collaboration of multiple closed groups.
> For
> > > example, any student might be a member of one collaborative group in
> > > Science lessons and yet a different group for English or Geography
> etc
> > > etc.
> > > 4. Diversity of approaches: The diversity of approaches is surely
> an
> > > institutional thing and not part of the e-Portfolio construction.
> But
> > > even then I would argue that a good e-Portfolio implementation
> should
> > > accomodate all approaches. Different teachers might look for
> different
> > > artefacts and justifications within identified areas of the e-
> > > Portfolio. Again, even an individual student might prefer different
> > > learning styles for different subjects and choose to showcase
> > > different media according to those different subject areas.
> > > On Jul 16, 4:40 am, Paul Seiler <paul.sei...@minedu.govt.nz> wrote:
> > > > I am pleased to release the consultation draft of 'ePortfolios -
> > > > Celebrating Learning' a report on the use by NZ schools of e-
> > > > portfolios and recommendations on how best to cultivate more and
> > > > better use.
> > > > I am sure many of you will want to comment, so for now all I have
> to
> > > > say is thanks to the schools, writers and vendor involved. Please
> read
> > > > and post your thoughts.
> > > > The report is in the files area of the MLE Reference Google Group.
> > > > Either navigate there yourself or try the following link:
Hi all
just catching up on this discussion after time away
great to see contributions of Trevor and Russell focusing on a user- centric view of portfolios, rather than a techno-centric one.
Although potentially a more onerous challenge - this approach has the
better chance of sustainability, and truly serving the needs of life- ling learners. I've always held, and still hold, a 'layered' view of
portfolios (see http://blog.core-ed.net/derek/2008/09/conceptualising-eportfolios.html) - that may or may not be incorporated into a single system. If the
storage aspect is a separate entity, then the exposure (portfolio)
aspect can be a case of simply calling on the artefacts from within
the LMS or whatever system you are using.
We need to be thinking about the stuff being created by ECE students
now that may be called upon when they are in high school - for
whatever reason!
As an example - this morning I dug out my school project on the Apollo
11 moon landing to share with my kids - it contained material I'd
written about the event at the time, and clippings from newspapers etc
- will the portfolios we are envisaging be able to deliver that to my
kids in 40 years time?
Cheers
Derek
> I'm with Trevor here,
> I don't think interoperability is about where the components of
> artefacts/DLO's or artefacts themselves sit or are stored. I think its
> about the ability of LMS's/Eportfolio's to aggregate that stuff in a
> way that preserves some chronology and preserves a time stamped
> example of work. (along with appropriate related assessment)
> We're already in an age of mashups where a creative online artefact or
> piece of work may be sucking a component out of flickr or animoto and
> being combined with text in a blogger type environment. We have a
> whole cluster of kids in Tamaki, from Y1 -Y13 already creating content
> in this environment. For me, & I think our cluster, an eportfolio
> needs to be able to access a set of time stamped artefacts that were
> created on or offline, (some of the online ones being multi-sourced
> mashups), that the school & student identify as being part of the
> student's cumulative record of work. Copies of these artefacts/DLO's
> could sit in one central repository (as Trevor suggested) and
> individuals ought to be able to rearrange their portfolio's with
> different examples of content to suit different purposes over time. I
> see the portfolio as an overlay and an organiser for this content. I
> see a developmental continuum of teacher organisation gradually giving
> way to learner organisation in respect of how this stuff is managed
> and owned.
>> one thing that we may want to consider regarding interoperability, is
>> that interoperability does not of necessity imply the need for
>> portability. Lets assume that we have a national data store for our
>> ePortfolio Applications (note the 's'). Different ePortfolios would
>> access the data store (I could imagine at least one funding model for
>> this). Now if the data store was a simple database that could be
>> mapped
>> to open ePortfolio standards then the data would easily be used by
>> different applications with little user intervention.
>> The benefit of this approach is that to use the national ePortfolio
>> data store vendors will have to map the database to whatever standard
>> they choose. Secondly, the problem of portability (at a user
>> level) is
>> avoided. Finally, as standards evolve, database fields can be
>> mapped to
>> match the standard.
>> In summary: the data does not have to move between ePortfolio
>> applications if applications are able to access a single data store
>> that
>> can be mapped to the relevant standard(s).
>> There's bound to be holes in this -it sounds too simple!
>> Cheers
>> Trevor
>> On Fri, 2009-07-17 at 00:26 -0700, Paul Seiler wrote:
>>> Ray, thanks for your contribution. I have benefited often from
>>> reading
>>> your postings in other groups and material from your website (and
>>> encourage readers with an interest in portfolios to do likewise)
>>> Always happy to hear of concerns and yours are of course grounded in
>>> experience. It is even better to also read of solutions or
>>> examples of
>>> answers to these concerns and I am sure you could share some of
>>> these
>>> with the NZ audience of this group.
>>> I will take one of your concerns (well, one for tonight, but also
>>> because it is not my report and all readers can reflect and shape
>>> your
>>> posting), that of interoperability.
>>> IMHO there are no silver bullets, or none that I have seen While
>>> LEAP2
>>> may have more demonstrable progress than some other approaches there
>>> is a huge amount of work going on in this field all over the world
>>> (as
>>> you know but not all reader do). We monitor this (read, speak to
>>> others, etc), and investigate promising paths.
>>> However, I wanted to add two reasons why interoperability is
>>> important
>>> so readers can appreciate what is at stake. The first is student
>>> transfer between schools and in this case not only retaining the
>>> work
>>> they have done (if they want to keep it) but also the access to a
>>> suitable tool/suite of tools. In NZ it is quite likely that the next
>>> school has no tool at all, so even if the first supported an
>>> interoperability standard it would be of little use. While portfolio
>>> interoperability standards (however imperfect) might allow
>>> movement of
>>> the content them can not improve the likelihood of the next school
>>> having a tool/suite.
>>> The second is a guarantee or exit clause should a school/education
>>> system ever wish to change tool. Although far from perfect,
>>> standards
>>> like LEAP2 can reduce the exit costs. Whereas use of one portfolio
>>> tool within a jurisdiction could reduce the need for an
>>> interoperability specification for transfer between schools it could
>>> still form a part of an exit contingency.
>>> Maybe other readers would like to comment on the other three,
>>> equally
>>> valuable concerns you have raised.
>>> Paul.
>>> On Jul 16, 9:49 pm, Ray Tolley <maximise...@googlemail.com> wrote:
>>>> Paul, thanks for the link, the document makes interesting reading.
>>>> However, I have four areas of concern:
>>>> 1. Interoperability, I quote:
>>>> 'An ePortfolio with interoperability between systems is essential
>>>> in
>>>> maintaining ownership integrity.'
>>>> I'm not sure what you mean by this - are you refering to the
>> integrity
>>>> of the data or the layout and formatting of the whole e-Portfolio?
>>>> Because this is the crux of my philosophy, that as a learner moves
>>>> from one institution (or country even) to another the whole
>>>> composition, layout and formatting of *their* e-Portfolio should
>>>> remain intact. As far as I understand it, and I know something
>> Simon
>>>> Grant and his work, LEAP2A will only export certain elements of
>>>> data
>>>> and some document types. Until interoperability includes full
>> WYSIWYG
>>>> transference I'm not sure if any students will want to re-craft
>> their
>>>> e-Portfolio to the style and colour-schemes they prefer.
>>>> 2. 'Longevity': As you rightly comment, the Mahara solution might
>> be
>>>> right for Secondary school students or above but not for the rest.
>> I
>>>> am obviously thinking of younger children eg 5+, for adult learners
>>>> who might not be so ICT savy, for the elderly, for those with
>> special
>>>> needs etc. My argument is that if you believe in a Lifelong and
>>>> Lifewide solution it must be capable of adapting, chameleon-like,
>>>> as
>>>> the learner matures or takes up different interests. Further, for
>> the
>>>> Lifewide element we should also be looking at aspects of
>> accessibility
>>>> eg for the Visually Impaired.
>>>> 3. Embedded tools: with respect to e-safety, particularly with
>> school
>>>> children, I would want to see in any system those tools which
>> support
>>>> feedback, polls or surveys embedded within the tool and not
>>>> external
>>>> as with the average wiki or blog. Reflection, for instance, is
>> often
>>>> limited to personal introspection whereas I would expect the e-
>>>> Portfolio to support the collaboration of multiple closed groups.
>> For
>>>> example, any student might be a member of one collaborative group
>>>> in
>>>> Science lessons and yet a different group for English or Geography
>> etc
>>>> etc.
>>>> 4. Diversity of approaches: The diversity of approaches is surely
>> an
>>>> institutional thing and not part of the e-Portfolio construction.
>> But
>>>> even then I would argue that a good e-Portfolio implementation
>> should
>>>> accomodate all approaches. Different teachers might look for
>> different
>>>> artefacts and justifications within identified areas of the e-
>>>> Portfolio. Again, even an individual student might prefer
>>>> different
>>>> learning styles for different subjects and choose to showcase
>>>> different media according to those different subject areas.
Good to see the debate being generated. As coauthor of the paper I
though I should put a few words in at this stage. I am pleased the
focus on learning was recognised as a key feature within the paper. To
date I think this has been missing in many ePortfolio developments.
Most have arisen from the tertiary sector and have had a primary focus
on demonstrating the outcomes of learning for future employers. (What
I call the CV ePortfolio!) While these are very valid in terms of
purpose there is a whole sector of education where these tools could
be used differently to significantly impact on learning. It is the
'tracking of the learning journey' and the use of the ePortfolio for
'formative assessment' where it can have such value for younger
students in particular.
I agree the issue of interoperablity is one that is fraught with
problems. It is essential however these issue be addressed if we are
really serious about the concept of life-long learners. It would be
ideal if the layout can be taken intact from one system to another but
maybe the integrity of the data is a good starting point. At present
when students move their work is 'lost.' This is totally unacceptable.
I agree with Ray in terms of 'longevity.' The system must be able to
adapt when the needs of students change as they grow and mature
through their schooling. The needs of the 5+ year old will be totally
different from those aged 17+. The purpose of the ePortfolio will also
change significantly as the student matures and moves towards
employment. We should not and would not want them to be the same. So a
simple 'open-box' arrangement is all that is needed. Schools can then
tailor it to meet the needs of their own students. It is a matter of
individual choice. So if there is 'one system' this must allow for a
great deal of flexibility. In my view it is a matter of the developers
including less rather than more. Perhaps a range of simple tools
beginners can use to make it easy for those starting out, or with
limited knowledge as pointed out by Ray. Something for text, audio and
images both still and moving is what is required to get started. It
needs some simple way to set up links and an index so material can be
readily stored and archived. And so on.. I think definitely in terms
of ePortfolios 'less is more!'
So I am not sure whether these views came through strongly enough in
the paper. If not then I have not been clear enough in the views I was
seeking to put down.
To me it is quite straight forward. The ePortfolio can do much to
support the development of 'confident, connected, life-long learners.'
We should be finding simple solutions that support student learning
through the use of the technology increasingly available in schools.
That should not be so difficult?
Keep up the debate. Thanks for that.
Ian Fox
On Jul 16, 9:49 pm, Ray Tolley <maximise...@googlemail.com> wrote:
> Paul, thanks for the link, the document makes interesting reading.
> However, I have four areas of concern:
> 1. Interoperability, I quote:
> 'An ePortfolio with interoperability between systems is essential in
> maintaining ownership integrity.'
> I'm not sure what you mean by this - are you refering to the integrity
> of the data or the layout and formatting of the whole e-Portfolio?
> Because this is the crux of my philosophy, that as a learner moves
> from one institution (or country even) to another the whole
> composition, layout and formatting of *their* e-Portfolio should
> remain intact. As far as I understand it, and I know something Simon
> Grant and his work, LEAP2A will only export certain elements of data
> and some document types. Until interoperability includes full WYSIWYG
> transference I'm not sure if any students will want to re-craft their
> e-Portfolio to the style and colour-schemes they prefer.
> 2. 'Longevity': As you rightly comment, the Mahara solution might be
> right for Secondary school students or above but not for the rest. I
> am obviously thinking of younger children eg 5+, for adult learners
> who might not be so ICT savy, for the elderly, for those with special
> needs etc. My argument is that if you believe in a Lifelong and
> Lifewide solution it must be capable of adapting, chameleon-like, as
> the learner matures or takes up different interests. Further, for the
> Lifewide element we should also be looking at aspects of accessibility
> eg for the Visually Impaired.
> 3. Embedded tools: with respect to e-safety, particularly with school
> children, I would want to see in any system those tools which support
> feedback, polls or surveys embedded within the tool and not external
> as with the average wiki or blog. Reflection, for instance, is often
> limited to personal introspection whereas I would expect the e-
> Portfolio to support the collaboration of multiple closed groups. For
> example, any student might be a member of one collaborative group in
> Science lessons and yet a different group for English or Geography etc
> etc.
> 4. Diversity of approaches: The diversity of approaches is surely an
> institutional thing and not part of the e-Portfolio construction. But
> even then I would argue that a good e-Portfolio implementation should
> accomodate all approaches. Different teachers might look for different
> artefacts and justifications within identified areas of the e-
> Portfolio. Again, even an individual student might prefer different
> learning styles for different subjects and choose to showcase
> different media according to those different subject areas.
> On Jul 16, 4:40 am, Paul Seiler <paul.sei...@minedu.govt.nz> wrote:
> > I am pleased to release the consultation draft of 'ePortfolios -
> > Celebrating Learning' a report on the use by NZ schools of e-
> > portfolios and recommendations on how best to cultivate more and
> > better use.
> > I am sure many of you will want to comment, so for now all I have to
> > say is thanks to the schools, writers and vendor involved. Please read
> > and post your thoughts.
> > The report is in the files area of the MLE Reference Google Group.
> > Either navigate there yourself or try the following link:
Yes, agreed, Focus on Learning is essential, but how and when we learn
perhaps needs more investigation in terms of e-Portfolios. I am convinced
that in mainstream education we should be looking beyond the four walls of
the classroom. Students might wish to take other formal exam-board
qualifications in addition to those delivered by the school. When I was a
pupils at school, for instance, I took three other 'O'-levels in addition to
the measly 12 offered by the school. And then there are the whole host of
extra-curricular qualifications such as cycling proficiency, swimming,
dance, boxing etc, etc. However, there is also a rich vein of informal or
experiential learning that our students may also collect. It may be a real
involvement with an environmental group, or caring for an elderly or
disabled relative or younger siblings. It may be that due to family
movements (eg service personnel) a child has a vast knowledge and experience
of life in other countries. My point here is that all of these can be
'captured' within the e-Portfolio and give a fuller picture of the learner.
Secondly, I really believe that we should be looking more carefully at the
possible audiences of the e-Portfolio. I have a whole page on some 18
different users at: http://maximise-ict.co.uk/eFolio-03.htm If we have a
fuller understanding of who are the possible audiences I am sure that we
encourage our learners to have a much broader perspective of what an
e-Portfolio is. Yes, it is a Life-Story. But not only in linearity but
also in depth and breadth.
Interoperability is, I would suggest, an area for mere mortals to avoid (and
that includes our regular teachers). At the moment, my understanding is
that Interoperability will only deliver limited data-sets and some file
formats. It will not somehow 'teleport' a perfect GUI representation of
one's e-Portfolio from one system to another. At the moment some developers
are working on exporting and importing from one given system to another -
but with some 35-40 LMSs or VLEs available the permutation of the number of
separate one-to-one conversion tools becomes a ridiculous concept. Even if
such systems worked, think of the poor old ICT technician in a feeder school
having to export individuals' e-Portfolios to a wide range of Secondary
schools, all having different VLE systems! It might be different in NZ but
in a recent School that I was working in we had pupils coming to us from 56
different Primary schools! So again, think of the Secondary school
technician having to import from a any combination of the number of formats!
This, I would say is the main argument for an externally hosted system where
no conversions are necessary.
There is, of course, an inherent confusion in some of the concerns expressed
between what is a natural function of the assessment tools which should be
logically embedded within the LMS or VLE. As I have repeatedly said in my
blog, "Let the VLE do what it does best, and leave the e-Portfolio to do
what it can best do."
[mailto:mle-reference-group@googlegroups.com] On Behalf Of Ian Fox
Sent: 20 July 2009 01:01
To: MLE Reference Group
Subject: Re: ePortfolios in NZ schools
Hi all
Good to see the debate being generated. As coauthor of the paper I
though I should put a few words in at this stage. I am pleased the
focus on learning was recognised as a key feature within the paper. To
date I think this has been missing in many ePortfolio developments.
Most have arisen from the tertiary sector and have had a primary focus
on demonstrating the outcomes of learning for future employers. (What
I call the CV ePortfolio!) While these are very valid in terms of
purpose there is a whole sector of education where these tools could
be used differently to significantly impact on learning. It is the
'tracking of the learning journey' and the use of the ePortfolio for
'formative assessment' where it can have such value for younger
students in particular.
I agree the issue of interoperablity is one that is fraught with
problems. It is essential however these issue be addressed if we are
really serious about the concept of life-long learners. It would be
ideal if the layout can be taken intact from one system to another but
maybe the integrity of the data is a good starting point. At present
when students move their work is 'lost.' This is totally unacceptable.
I agree with Ray in terms of 'longevity.' The system must be able to
adapt when the needs of students change as they grow and mature
through their schooling. The needs of the 5+ year old will be totally
different from those aged 17+. The purpose of the ePortfolio will also
change significantly as the student matures and moves towards
employment. We should not and would not want them to be the same. So a
simple 'open-box' arrangement is all that is needed. Schools can then
tailor it to meet the needs of their own students. It is a matter of
individual choice. So if there is 'one system' this must allow for a
great deal of flexibility. In my view it is a matter of the developers
including less rather than more. Perhaps a range of simple tools
beginners can use to make it easy for those starting out, or with
limited knowledge as pointed out by Ray. Something for text, audio and
images both still and moving is what is required to get started. It
needs some simple way to set up links and an index so material can be
readily stored and archived. And so on.. I think definitely in terms
of ePortfolios 'less is more!'
So I am not sure whether these views came through strongly enough in
the paper. If not then I have not been clear enough in the views I was
seeking to put down.
To me it is quite straight forward. The ePortfolio can do much to
support the development of 'confident, connected, life-long learners.'
We should be finding simple solutions that support student learning
through the use of the technology increasingly available in schools.
That should not be so difficult?
Keep up the debate. Thanks for that.
Ian Fox
On Jul 16, 9:49 pm, Ray Tolley <maximise...@googlemail.com> wrote:
> Paul, thanks for the link, the document makes interesting reading.
> However, I have four areas of concern:
> 1. Interoperability, I quote:
> 'An ePortfolio with interoperability between systems is essential in
> maintaining ownership integrity.'
> I'm not sure what you mean by this - are you refering to the integrity
> of the data or the layout and formatting of the whole e-Portfolio?
> Because this is the crux of my philosophy, that as a learner moves
> from one institution (or country even) to another the whole
> composition, layout and formatting of *their* e-Portfolio should
> remain intact. As far as I understand it, and I know something Simon
> Grant and his work, LEAP2A will only export certain elements of data
> and some document types. Until interoperability includes full WYSIWYG
> transference I'm not sure if any students will want to re-craft their
> e-Portfolio to the style and colour-schemes they prefer.
> 2. 'Longevity': As you rightly comment, the Mahara solution might be
> right for Secondary school students or above but not for the rest. I
> am obviously thinking of younger children eg 5+, for adult learners
> who might not be so ICT savy, for the elderly, for those with special
> needs etc. My argument is that if you believe in a Lifelong and
> Lifewide solution it must be capable of adapting, chameleon-like, as
> the learner matures or takes up different interests. Further, for the
> Lifewide element we should also be looking at aspects of accessibility
> eg for the Visually Impaired.
> 3. Embedded tools: with respect to e-safety, particularly with school
> children, I would want to see in any system those tools which support
> feedback, polls or surveys embedded within the tool and not external
> as with the average wiki or blog. Reflection, for instance, is often
> limited to personal introspection whereas I would expect the e-
> Portfolio to support the collaboration of multiple closed groups. For
> example, any student might be a member of one collaborative group in
> Science lessons and yet a different group for English or Geography etc
> etc.
> 4. Diversity of approaches: The diversity of approaches is surely an
> institutional thing and not part of the e-Portfolio construction. But
> even then I would argue that a good e-Portfolio implementation should
> accomodate all approaches. Different teachers might look for different
> artefacts and justifications within identified areas of the e-
> Portfolio. Again, even an individual student might prefer different
> learning styles for different subjects and choose to showcase
> different media according to those different subject areas.
> On Jul 16, 4:40 am, Paul Seiler <paul.sei...@minedu.govt.nz> wrote:
> > I am pleased to release the consultation draft of 'ePortfolios -
> > Celebrating Learning' a report on the use by NZ schools of e-
> > portfolios and recommendations on how best to cultivate more and
> > better use.
> > I am sure many of you will want to comment, so for now all I have to
> > say
thinking a little more about abstracting the data layer from the open
standard (e.g. LEAP2) from the presentation layer (the ePortfolio
application), one striking problem is where to from here? Should our
priority to be to design just for the future, or work with what we have
got now - or is there a middle way that allows both?
This takes the original questions from the report " Should the Ministry
support and encourage the use of only one tool nationally (for reasons
of efficiency, user familiarity, access through schooling, learner
ownership, etc) and integrate other tools (e.g. LMS) into the one
ePortfolio tool, or should we stay out of the tool selection and focus
on portfolio interoperability standards so it is technically possible to
move portfolios between different tools?" and generalises it. I think
there is a middle way.
We need an ePortfolio application for all schools to use now (that is
pedagogically and functionally at least OK at the moment but has a
mapped path to make it great for all - this satisfies the first part of
the original question. ) It needs to be capable of being adapted freely
in the future (no vendor lockin - so almost certainly opensource) to
meet unknown and evolving needs and finally it needs a current data
structure that is capable of being decomposed into a simple database
(the boxes that Ian talks of)to satisfy the part after the 'or'.
>From the learners perspective we have to be certain that work created
today will be capable of being used in the future. We also know that no
current application, at present, suits all and that teacher and learner
PD will be needed to allow effective use of ePortfolios. Yet we have to
start somewhere!
-- cheers
Trevor
Trevor Storr
Aorakinet Director of eLearning
Waimate High School
Paul St
Waimate
New Zealand
c (+64) 027 689 8920
l (+64) 03 689 8920
f (+64) 03 689 8925
e tst...@waimate-high.school.nz
> Good to see the debate being generated. As coauthor of the paper I
> though I should put a few words in at this stage. I am pleased the
> focus on learning was recognised as a key feature within the paper. To
> date I think this has been missing in many ePortfolio developments.
> Most have arisen from the tertiary sector and have had a primary focus
> on demonstrating the outcomes of learning for future employers. (What
> I call the CV ePortfolio!) While these are very valid in terms of
> purpose there is a whole sector of education where these tools could
> be used differently to significantly impact on learning. It is the
> 'tracking of the learning journey' and the use of the ePortfolio for
> 'formative assessment' where it can have such value for younger
> students in particular.
> I agree the issue of interoperablity is one that is fraught with
> problems. It is essential however these issue be addressed if we are
> really serious about the concept of life-long learners. It would be
> ideal if the layout can be taken intact from one system to another but
> maybe the integrity of the data is a good starting point. At present
> when students move their work is 'lost.' This is totally unacceptable.
> I agree with Ray in terms of 'longevity.' The system must be able to
> adapt when the needs of students change as they grow and mature
> through their schooling. The needs of the 5+ year old will be totally
> different from those aged 17+. The purpose of the ePortfolio will also
> change significantly as the student matures and moves towards
> employment. We should not and would not want them to be the same. So a
> simple 'open-box' arrangement is all that is needed. Schools can then
> tailor it to meet the needs of their own students. It is a matter of
> individual choice. So if there is 'one system' this must allow for a
> great deal of flexibility. In my view it is a matter of the developers
> including less rather than more. Perhaps a range of simple tools
> beginners can use to make it easy for those starting out, or with
> limited knowledge as pointed out by Ray. Something for text, audio and
> images both still and moving is what is required to get started. It
> needs some simple way to set up links and an index so material can be
> readily stored and archived. And so on.. I think definitely in terms
> of ePortfolios 'less is more!'
> So I am not sure whether these views came through strongly enough in
> the paper. If not then I have not been clear enough in the views I was
> seeking to put down.
> To me it is quite straight forward. The ePortfolio can do much to
> support the development of 'confident, connected, life-long learners.'
> We should be finding simple solutions that support student learning
> through the use of the technology increasingly available in schools.
> That should not be so difficult?
> Keep up the debate. Thanks for that.
> Ian Fox
> On Jul 16, 9:49 pm, Ray Tolley <maximise...@googlemail.com> wrote:
> > Paul, thanks for the link, the document makes interesting reading.
> > However, I have four areas of concern:
> > 1. Interoperability, I quote:
> > 'An ePortfolio with interoperability between systems is essential in
> > maintaining ownership integrity.'
> > I'm not sure what you mean by this - are you refering to the
integrity
> > of the data or the layout and formatting of the whole e-Portfolio?
> > Because this is the crux of my philosophy, that as a learner moves
> > from one institution (or country even) to another the whole
> > composition, layout and formatting of *their* e-Portfolio should
> > remain intact. As far as I understand it, and I know something
Simon
> > Grant and his work, LEAP2A will only export certain elements of data
> > and some document types. Until interoperability includes full
WYSIWYG
> > transference I'm not sure if any students will want to re-craft
their
> > e-Portfolio to the style and colour-schemes they prefer.
> > 2. 'Longevity': As you rightly comment, the Mahara solution might
be
> > right for Secondary school students or above but not for the rest. I
> > am obviously thinking of younger children eg 5+, for adult learners
> > who might not be so ICT savy, for the elderly, for those with
special
> > needs etc. My argument is that if you believe in a Lifelong and
> > Lifewide solution it must be capable of adapting, chameleon-like, as
> > the learner matures or takes up different interests. Further, for
the
> > Lifewide element we should also be looking at aspects of
accessibility
> > eg for the Visually Impaired.
> > 3. Embedded tools: with respect to e-safety, particularly with
school
> > children, I would want to see in any system those tools which
support
> > feedback, polls or surveys embedded within the tool and not external
> > as with the average wiki or blog. Reflection, for instance, is
often
> > limited to personal introspection whereas I would expect the e-
> > Portfolio to support the collaboration of multiple closed groups.
For
> > example, any student might be a member of one collaborative group in
> > Science lessons and yet a different group for English or Geography
etc
> > etc.
> > 4. Diversity of approaches: The diversity of approaches is surely
an
> > institutional thing and not part of the e-Portfolio construction. But
> > even then I would argue that a good e-Portfolio implementation
should
> > accomodate all approaches. Different teachers might look for
different
> > artefacts and justifications within identified areas of the e-
> > Portfolio. Again, even an individual student might prefer different
> > learning styles for different subjects and choose to showcase
> > different media according to those different subject areas.
> > On Jul 16, 4:40 am, Paul Seiler <paul.sei...@minedu.govt.nz> wrote:
> > > I am pleased to release the consultation draft of 'ePortfolios -
> > > Celebrating Learning' a report on the use by NZ schools of e-
> > > portfolios and recommendations on how best to cultivate more and
> > > better use.
> > > I am sure many of you will want to comment, so for now all I have
to
> > > say is thanks to the schools, writers and vendor involved. Please
read
> > > and post your thoughts.
> > > The report is in the files area of the MLE Reference Google Group.
> > > Either navigate there yourself or try the following link:
Good to see the discussion. I agree with all the first points Ray has
noted regarding looking beyond the classroom Two key points I was
looking to make in the paper were the around the words 'ownership' and
also 'purpose.' If the ownership rests with the student then of course
they would determine to a high degree just what is to be kept in the
ePortfolio. This may vary somewhat with younger students where a
little more teacher direction could be needed, but that does not
exclude the students having opportunities to determine selection for
the collection.
Thanks Trevor for your views on interoperability. Currently there are
real issues with students being unable to take there work when they
move from one school to another. I agree we have to start somewhere
and now is a good time. There is a rapidly growing interest in schools
with respect to ePortfolios so to find a solution now will avoid
greater difficulties at a later stage when many more schools become
locked into particular structures.
Thanks again for the interest.
Ian
On Jul 20, 8:51 pm, "Trevor Storr" <tst...@waimate-high.school.nz>
wrote:
> thinking a little more about abstracting the data layer from the open
> standard (e.g. LEAP2) from the presentation layer (the ePortfolio
> application), one striking problem is where to from here? Should our
> priority to be to design just for the future, or work with what we have
> got now - or is there a middle way that allows both?
> This takes the original questions from the report " Should the Ministry
> support and encourage the use of only one tool nationally (for reasons
> of efficiency, user familiarity, access through schooling, learner
> ownership, etc) and integrate other tools (e.g. LMS) into the one
> ePortfolio tool, or should we stay out of the tool selection and focus
> on portfolio interoperability standards so it is technically possible to
> move portfolios between different tools?" and generalises it. I think
> there is a middle way.
> We need an ePortfolio application for all schools to use now (that is
> pedagogically and functionally at least OK at the moment but has a
> mapped path to make it great for all - this satisfies the first part of
> the original question. ) It needs to be capable of being adapted freely
> in the future (no vendor lockin - so almost certainly opensource) to
> meet unknown and evolving needs and finally it needs a current data
> structure that is capable of being decomposed into a simple database
> (the boxes that Ian talks of)to satisfy the part after the 'or'.
> >From the learners perspective we have to be certain that work created
> today will be capable of being used in the future. We also know that no
> current application, at present, suits all and that teacher and learner
> PD will be needed to allow effective use of ePortfolios. Yet we have to
> start somewhere!
> --
> cheers
> Trevor
> Trevor Storr
> Aorakinet Director of eLearning
> Waimate High School
> Paul St
> Waimate
> New Zealand
> c (+64) 027 689 8920
> l (+64) 03 689 8920
> f (+64) 03 689 8925
> e tst...@waimate-high.school.nz
> n Sun, 2009-07-19 at 17:01 -0700, Ian Fox wrote:
> > Hi all
> > Good to see the debate being generated. As coauthor of the paper I
> > though I should put a few words in at this stage. I am pleased the
> > focus on learning was recognised as a key feature within the paper. To
> > date I think this has been missing in many ePortfolio developments.
> > Most have arisen from the tertiary sector and have had a primary focus
> > on demonstrating the outcomes of learning for future employers. (What
> > I call the CV ePortfolio!) While these are very valid in terms of
> > purpose there is a whole sector of education where these tools could
> > be used differently to significantly impact on learning. It is the
> > 'tracking of the learning journey' and the use of the ePortfolio for
> > 'formative assessment' where it can have such value for younger
> > students in particular.
> > I agree the issue of interoperablity is one that is fraught with
> > problems. It is essential however these issue be addressed if we are
> > really serious about the concept of life-long learners. It would be
> > ideal if the layout can be taken intact from one system to another but
> > maybe the integrity of the data is a good starting point. At present
> > when students move their work is 'lost.' This is totally unacceptable.
> > I agree with Ray in terms of 'longevity.' The system must be able to
> > adapt when the needs of students change as they grow and mature
> > through their schooling. The needs of the 5+ year old will be totally
> > different from those aged 17+. The purpose of the ePortfolio will also
> > change significantly as the student matures and moves towards
> > employment. We should not and would not want them to be the same. So a
> > simple 'open-box' arrangement is all that is needed. Schools can then
> > tailor it to meet the needs of their own students. It is a matter of
> > individual choice. So if there is 'one system' this must allow for a
> > great deal of flexibility. In my view it is a matter of the developers
> > including less rather than more. Perhaps a range of simple tools
> > beginners can use to make it easy for those starting out, or with
> > limited knowledge as pointed out by Ray. Something for text, audio and
> > images both still and moving is what is required to get started. It
> > needs some simple way to set up links and an index so material can be
> > readily stored and archived. And so on.. I think definitely in terms
> > of ePortfolios 'less is more!'
> > So I am not sure whether these views came through strongly enough in
> > the paper. If not then I have not been clear enough in the views I was
> > seeking to put down.
> > To me it is quite straight forward. The ePortfolio can do much to
> > support the development of 'confident, connected, life-long learners.'
> > We should be finding simple solutions that support student learning
> > through the use of the technology increasingly available in schools.
> > That should not be so difficult?
> > Keep up the debate. Thanks for that.
> > Ian Fox
> > On Jul 16, 9:49 pm, Ray Tolley <maximise...@googlemail.com> wrote:
> > > Paul, thanks for the link, the document makes interesting reading.
> > > However, I have four areas of concern:
> > > 1. Interoperability, I quote:
> > > 'An ePortfolio with interoperability between systems is essential in
> > > maintaining ownership integrity.'
> > > I'm not sure what you mean by this - are you refering to the
> integrity
> > > of the data or the layout and formatting of the whole e-Portfolio?
> > > Because this is the crux of my philosophy, that as a learner moves
> > > from one institution (or country even) to another the whole
> > > composition, layout and formatting of *their* e-Portfolio should
> > > remain intact. As far as I understand it, and I know something
> Simon
> > > Grant and his work, LEAP2A will only export certain elements of data
> > > and some document types. Until interoperability includes full
> WYSIWYG
> > > transference I'm not sure if any students will want to re-craft
> their
> > > e-Portfolio to the style and colour-schemes they prefer.
> > > 2. 'Longevity': As you rightly comment, the Mahara solution might
> be
> > > right for Secondary school students or above but not for the rest.
> I
> > > am obviously thinking of younger children eg 5+, for adult learners
> > > who might not be so ICT savy, for the elderly, for those with
> special
> > > needs etc. My argument is that if you believe in a Lifelong and
> > > Lifewide solution it must be capable of adapting, chameleon-like, as
> > > the learner matures or takes up different interests. Further, for
> the
> > > Lifewide element we should also be looking at aspects of
> accessibility
> > > eg for the Visually Impaired.
> > > 3. Embedded tools: with respect to e-safety, particularly with
> school
> > > children, I would want to see in any system those tools which
> support
> > > feedback, polls or surveys embedded within the tool and not external
> > > as with the average wiki or blog. Reflection, for instance, is
> often
> > > limited to personal introspection whereas I would expect the e-
> > > Portfolio to support the collaboration of multiple closed groups.
> For
> > > example, any student might be a member of one collaborative group in
> > > Science lessons and yet a different group for English or Geography
> etc
> > > etc.
> > > 4. Diversity of approaches: The diversity of approaches is surely
> an
> > > institutional thing and not part of the e-Portfolio construction.
> But
> > > even then I would argue that a good e-Portfolio implementation
> should
> > > accomodate all approaches. Different teachers might look for
> different
> > > artefacts and justifications within identified areas of the e-
> > > Portfolio. Again, even an individual student might prefer different
> > > learning styles for different subjects and choose to showcase
> > > different media according to those different subject areas.
> > > On Jul 16, 4:40 am, Paul Seiler <paul.sei...@minedu.govt.nz> wrote:
> > > > I am pleased to release the consultation draft of 'ePortfolios -
> > > > Celebrating Learning' a report on the use by NZ schools of e-
> > > > portfolios and recommendations
Hello Jamin,
I recall our conversation and I do support the 'empty box' concept.
The 'emptiness' of the box could be different for different schools
and students. For instance, some schools may like to use templates
and structures to help their students with the filling of the box, and
others may leave it more open. What I do support is the right of the
schools to choose the concept that suits them best. So by saying I
want an 'empty box' I mean that I don't want to adopt someone else's
concept of an eportfolio and what it should contain and how it should
look. I want these decisions to be made by my school community to
meet their very special needs.
I like the idea of one tool, and I agree with your points. But that
tool must not be restrictive or limiting. It needs to be simple to
use, visually appealing and and able to be manipulated to suit a wide
range of needs.
Lenva
On Jul 17, 11:20 am, j_lietze <j_lie...@yahoo.co.nz> wrote:
> Firstly I want to say thank you for commissioning the research paper
> into ePortfolios. It is a timely paper and has encouraged and informed
> me (and other teachers I am sure) in our schools pilot use of
> ePortfolios for the purpose of enhancing teaching and learning.
> I also wish to thank Ian, Sandy and Viv in the fact that they carried
> this research out with the following principle in mind: "ePortfolios
> are not about technology; they are about pedagogy and learning. They
> are about life-long learning." (Pg 17 of the paper) This I believe has
> kept the report rooted where it should be; on learning.
> I do wish to support the report findings and the development of one
> national ePortfolio tool because there is more to it than just reasons
> of efficiency, user familiarity, access through schooling and learner
> ownership. I had a conversation with Lenva Shearing a few weeks ago
> and she referred to the desire of having an ePortfolio tool that was
> "an empty box" (I hope I have quoted her correctly). I liked this
> analogy. So from here I would like to share a few more thoughts and
> add these to the discussion.
> If we all used one tool then schools/teachers will have:
> 1) Flexibility (They can use this one tool to add what they like into
> it to meet the individual needs and while maintaining student choice,
> voice and ownership.)
> 2) Better communication (Students/Teachers would use "one language"
> and so work together easier across levels and ages developing their
> ePortfolios.)
> 3) Efficencey (Professional development is made easier because we are
> all using the same language and focusing on the one tool.)
> 4) Better consistency (One school or teacher will not be considered
> lower than another because they did not have the expertise or
> financial support to develop superior ePortfolios. Everyone will have
> the same building blocks.)
> Please don't get me wrong; I am not advocating for a "straight jacket"
> type of tool. This one tool would have to be cleverly developed so
> that it did support different learning styles, user choice, offer
> flexiblitiy, etc.
> Well there is my initial response to the report. I hope my two cents
> is helpful in the discussion :+)
Hello Ray,
I'm not sure I agree with the statement 'By now most people (well too
late for some) have discovered that it is foolhardy to leave
identifiable personal data out in the clouds, open for anyone to
see.' I guess it depends on how personal the data is.
Much of the digital content created by our students is not created for
the purpose of their eportfolios. It is created with the purpose of
relating a message or showing a creation to a worldwide audience and
receiving feedback on that work. Often this process is then recorded
in the eportfolio as part of the learning journey, but that was not
the purpose of the exercise.
Our students (and all of us) are going to have a digital footprint.
It is up to us to educate our students to be proud of that digital
footprint and ensure they contribute to it in a safe and meaningful
way.
Lenva
On Jul 19, 10:27 am, "Ray Tolley" <r...@maximise-ict.co.uk> wrote:
> Quite simple, within an e-safe portfolio environment all the various
> artefacts that one may choose to upload to the e-Portfolio are controlled by
> the learner. Only those items which the learner chooses to reveal, which
> could be different from one audience to another, will the prospective
> employer see.
> Perhaps for a youngster the impression might be that we would deliver the
> same CV to a variety of potential employers. Those of us who have been
> around for some time know that we tailor our CVs according to employer. One
> of the beauties of the e-Portfolio is that it can provide time-controlled
> access along with who is permitted to see the various artefacts including
> the CV and different 'letters of application'.
> By now most people (well too late for some) have discovered that it is
> foolhardy to leave identifiable personal data out in the clouds, open for
> anyone to see. Soon more and more people will be discovering the benefits
> of an e-Portfolio as an alternative and convenient organiser and central
> location for all of one's artefacts whether within the e-Portfolio or linked
> to external repositories.
> [mailto:mle-reference-group@googlegroups.com] On Behalf Of Adrian Gray
> Sent: 18 July 2009 23:01
> To: mle-reference-group@googlegroups.com
> Subject: Re: ePortfolios in NZ schools
> mle-reference-group@googlegroups.com writes:
> >When a learner moves from one institution to another or leaves full-time
> >education to take up employment, surely they do not want the discarded
> >remnants of a host of previous and now unwanted tools cluttering up their
> >e-Portfolios??
> When presenting a CV for a purpose, great care is often taken as to what
> aspects of your life you wish to portray, and what emphasis you give to
> them. The ability for an individual to control this content should be
> imperative. If potential employers are aware of a "lifelong" trail of
> information, the expectation would be to make it available. How is access
> to this informantion to be governed?
> -----------------------------------------------------
> Adrian Gray
> Teacher - IT Administrator
> Phone 027 228 1101
> Yes, agreed, Focus on Learning is essential, but how and when we learn > perhaps needs more investigation in terms of e-Portfolios. I am convinced > that in mainstream education we should be looking beyond the four walls of > the classroom. Students might wish to take other formal exam-board > qualifications in addition to those delivered by the school. When I was a > pupils at school, for instance, I took three other 'O'-levels in addition to > the measly 12 offered by the school.
Curiously we've a few classes here doing Cambridge "things" in regular classes. Such students not only acquire NZQA NCEA standards, but GCSE level grades too...
> And then there are the whole host of > extra-curricular qualifications such as cycling proficiency, swimming, > dance, boxing etc, etc. However, there is also a rich vein of informal or > experiential learning that our students may also collect. It may be a real > involvement with an environmental group, or caring for an elderly or > disabled relative or younger siblings. It may be that due to family > movements (eg service personnel) a child has a vast knowledge and experience > of life in other countries. My point here is that all of these can be > 'captured' within the e-Portfolio and give a fuller picture of the learner.
Does any thought need to be given to the authenticity of the information portrayed in such a learner portfolio?
> Interoperability is, I would suggest, an area for mere mortals to avoid (and > that includes our regular teachers). At the moment, my understanding is > that Interoperability will only deliver limited data-sets and some file > formats. It will not somehow 'teleport' a perfect GUI representation of > one's e-Portfolio from one system to another. At the moment some developers > are working on exporting and importing from one given system to another - > but with some 35-40 LMSs or VLEs available the permutation of the number of > separate one-to-one conversion tools becomes a ridiculous concept. Even if > such systems worked, think of the poor old ICT technician in a feeder school > having to export individuals' e-Portfolios to a wide range of Secondary > schools, all having different VLE systems! It might be different in NZ but > in a recent School that I was working in we had pupils coming to us from 56 > different Primary schools! So again, think of the Secondary school > technician having to import from a any combination of the number of formats! > This, I would say is the main argument for an externally hosted system where > no conversions are necessary.
This raises some interesting questions in my head, as I read. It seems to take the view that the portfolio is comprised of a set of self-contained units. The transfer thus requiring the retrival of the unit(s) and then, presumably, the upload of them. Thus the portfolio is a captive object with the available customisation being strongly linked to the system implementing it. What if the eportfolio was more like the "iGoogle" one. Content for your portfolio is (conceptually) hosted elsewhere, brought in by 'gadgets' (to use iGoogle terminology) which can be moved around pages, configured to display things differently etc. This leads to relatively straightforward expansion into multiple views as each view is simply another configuration of gadget display. It should allow separation of the store of the data and the presentation of it, along with the comparative ease of transfer of 'simple' (say) XML to describe the pages. With a central store of the data (I realise I'm glossing over how data gets into this store) moving schools should only require any new data created at the previous one to be sent to the central store (if it isn't already) but will leave it accessible at the new school via their portfolio interface (which may actually be the centrally managed interface, or a local custom one).
" Does any thought need to be given to the authenticity of the information
portrayed in such a learner portfolio? "
YES, very much so. It is important that any claims made by the learner
(however old) can be substantiated by an independent authority. Previously,
in a paper-based world, this has been accepted as the individual institution
or examining board who would confirm by snail-mail. Now that we are moving
towards a paperless society in the UK we have MIAP (http://www.miap.gov.uk/ ) which acts as a central registry of all of each individual learners
qualifications, from all sources. I have had several meeting with MIAP to
hammer out the practical details of linking to them via a student's
e-Portfolio. All it basically needs is a password, disclosed by the student,
for a potential employer to check out the accuracy of the details quoted.
There is also the ability to release only a subset of that information, say
hiding the place of study for instance, if I obtained my BSc degree whilst
studying as an inmate in prison etc.
[mailto:mle-reference-group@googlegroups.com] On Behalf Of Julian Davison
Sent: 22 July 2009 23:28
To: mle-reference-group@googlegroups.com
Subject: Re: ePortfolios in NZ schools
Ray Tolley wrote:
> Hi, Ian et al
> Yes, agreed, Focus on Learning is essential, but how and when we learn
> perhaps needs more investigation in terms of e-Portfolios. I am convinced
> that in mainstream education we should be looking beyond the four walls of
> the classroom. Students might wish to take other formal exam-board
> qualifications in addition to those delivered by the school. When I was a
> pupils at school, for instance, I took three other 'O'-levels in addition
to
> the measly 12 offered by the school.
Curiously we've a few classes here doing Cambridge "things" in regular
classes. Such students not only acquire NZQA NCEA standards, but GCSE
level grades too...
> And then there are the whole host of
> extra-curricular qualifications such as cycling proficiency, swimming,
> dance, boxing etc, etc. However, there is also a rich vein of informal or
> experiential learning that our students may also collect. It may be a
real
> involvement with an environmental group, or caring for an elderly or
> disabled relative or younger siblings. It may be that due to family
> movements (eg service personnel) a child has a vast knowledge and
experience
> of life in other countries. My point here is that all of these can be
> 'captured' within the e-Portfolio and give a fuller picture of the
learner.
Does any thought need to be given to the authenticity of the information
portrayed in such a learner portfolio?
> Interoperability is, I would suggest, an area for mere mortals to avoid
(and
> that includes our regular teachers). At the moment, my understanding is
> that Interoperability will only deliver limited data-sets and some file
> formats. It will not somehow 'teleport' a perfect GUI representation of
> one's e-Portfolio from one system to another. At the moment some
developers
> are working on exporting and importing from one given system to another -
> but with some 35-40 LMSs or VLEs available the permutation of the number
of
> separate one-to-one conversion tools becomes a ridiculous concept. Even
if
> such systems worked, think of the poor old ICT technician in a feeder
school
> having to export individuals' e-Portfolios to a wide range of Secondary
> schools, all having different VLE systems! It might be different in NZ
but
> in a recent School that I was working in we had pupils coming to us from
56
> different Primary schools! So again, think of the Secondary school
> technician having to import from a any combination of the number of
formats!
> This, I would say is the main argument for an externally hosted system
where
> no conversions are necessary.
This raises some interesting questions in my head, as I read.
It seems to take the view that the portfolio is comprised of a set
of self-contained units. The transfer thus requiring the retrival
of the unit(s) and then, presumably, the upload of them. Thus the
portfolio is a captive object with the available customisation
being strongly linked to the system implementing it.
What if the eportfolio was more like the "iGoogle" one. Content
for your portfolio is (conceptually) hosted elsewhere, brought
in by 'gadgets' (to use iGoogle terminology) which can be moved
around pages, configured to display things differently etc.
This leads to relatively straightforward expansion into multiple
views as each view is simply another configuration of gadget
display.
It should allow separation of the store of the data and the
presentation of it, along with the comparative ease of transfer
of 'simple' (say) XML to describe the pages.
With a central store of the data (I realise I'm glossing over
how data gets into this store) moving schools should only require
any new data created at the previous one to be sent to the central
store (if it isn't already) but will leave it accessible at the
new school via their portfolio interface (which may actually
be the centrally managed interface, or a local custom one).
Just when you thought it was safe to ..... - a recent post from Helen Barrett talks about the data store of digital objects as the PLE (personal learning environment) and the presentation layer (views) as the e-portfolio
and a couple of interesting comments on Stephen's Web about this convergence of the e-portfolio and PLE - and that perhaps both of these are just a springboard to PLNs and connectivism.
and if we are really stuck for things to talk about we could pick up on the comments from Roy Williams on Stephen's post and discuss the relative importance of 'Instrumental Reflection' as opposed to 'Ontological reflection' in relation to e-portfolios :-)
|
