E-portfolios: implementation and the learners’ perspective

Neil Currant, lecturer in PDP & e-portfolios

n.currant@bradford.ac.uk

Background context

• 4 years experience of using e-portfolios; personally, with staff & with learners

• Involved in JISC e-portfolio project in 2005 (Enhancing Learner Progression, www.elp.ac.uk)

• In charge of implementation / roll out of university wide e-portfolio since 2007.

The key message

• E-portfolios need to be driven by pedagogy, e.g. learning outcomes, assessment & purpose, e.g. PDP, personal tutoring.

The lessons from students about rolling out the e-portfolio

• Multimedia

• Students as ambassadors

• Ongoing engagement

• Tracking & Monitoring

• Learning takes time

• Part of holistic learning

Use & encourage the multimedia aspects

• For many students writing or reading is not their preferred way of learning.

“For me sitting at a computer writing is like torture, you know, so to have to do it for something that you feel you don’t need on a personal level is just awful. But yeah to use other formats would be good. Loads better video especially, audio definitely”

“I find reading quite difficult on a computer screen so what I did was that each page would be in colour, coloured font and I photographed the pictures and a bit of humour to try and make it as interesting as possible.”

Use students as a valuable resource

“we had to speak to first year students (as a 2nd year) I got up and demonstrated mine (portfolio) and the response that I got with mine was sort of wow, that’s what you can do... the first years actually said that they found that more valuable than a teaching session by a tutor.”

Encourage ongoing engagement - processes

• Most students don’t ‘get it’ (processes of eP) at the start.

“initially when I started using it, it was just a complete mystery.”

• They really see the benefits at the end.“in the first year I used it much more like a diary ... I just liked the week

by week.. . I didn’t do it quite so much this time and I wish I had done now in hindsight because in the first year I found it quite useful to look back on and it was quite a detailed thing looking back.”

• The e- bit seems to make the processes more explicit.

The learning takes time

“It’s the sort of case of building it up and then I found with some two weeks left that I wanted to put more layers in.”

“...it’s something about the way you have to keep sort of writing in it; I do like that”

Tracking & monitoring

• Staff like being able to track progress but what about implications of ownership?

• Students are aware of this and in some cases it influences behaviour.

“it time stamps what you do as well. I found that sort of influences you because I didn’t want to hand in a piece of work that sort of said 28th and things all over it.”

• Or Not“I opened assets throughout the year so that it looked like

I’d been doing things and then I just filled it in at the end.”

An e-portfolio is part of the whole learning experience

• It becomes more useful where integrated into a whole course so it plays a holistic approach to student learning.

“it just kept me on track all the way through. I finished (my project) a week before the deadline and I got a really good grade for it so I’m quite convinced that had I not done it that way (action plans on e-portfolio) I would have approached it in a more chaotic manner.”

“I just found it quite useful at the end of every lecture to just go on (to the e-portfolio) to spend five or ten minutes writing a couple of paragraphs.”

“Looked up what the title of the lecture will be. Did some preparation on it (in the e-portfolio).... I wouldn’t have done it so formally. What it (the e-portfolio) made me do, very much, is write down what I did (the preparation).”

Q: If you were talking to a first year student starting this semester, in terms of using an e-portfolio, what would you say to them?

Student: I’d tell them to record important events that they have. Their experiences in practice probably because those are the things that when you draw back on it, it means something; doing an action plan about an essay mean’s nothing but to record experiences that you’ve had in clinical practice or that you’ve had with your peers. Those are the things that you’re going to look back on and actually care

about.”