One of the problems in Technology Enhanced Education, I am coming to think, is that new media are very different from traditional paper and book based media. And as Friesen and Hug (2009) argue that “the practices and institutions of education need to be understood in a frame of reference that is mediatic: “as a part of a media-ecological configuration of technologies specific to a particular age or era.” This configuration, they say, is one in which print has been dominant. They quote McLuhan who has described the role of the school specifically as the “custodian of print culture” (1962) It provides, he says, a socially sanctioned “civil defense against media fallout”  – against threatening changes in the mediatic environs.

So what is appropriate content for an e-Portfolio may not be that required by our education systems and institutions, Much of university education is based around essays. Research is still judged by publications in scholarly journals.

Essays and journal content do not make for inspiring web content, however good. Indeed like most other people, I simply print out papers I want to read. But more importantly such paper oriented publications lack the richness that the web can bring, through linking, through the use of multi media, through links to people and increasingly through location specific enhancement.

This problem is not unique to education. As the Guardian newspaper reports, it is also a pressing issue for publishers nervously awaiting the arrival of the iPad and wondering how to produce materials for both print media and for use on a mobile device.

The Guardian interviews Wired editor Ben Hammersley who says “Digital convergence pushes content to more and more devices, but for the requirements of each can be very different. For example, location data can be important for reading stories on the iPhone, while linking is essential for web publishing, and typography has to change for publishing on a tablet computer.”

Hammersley is developing a new content managements system to overcome this problem. Called ‘Budding’ , the system appears to be based on mark up code to allow multiple use of texts.

“Having to learn to write in markup isn’t an imposition, any more than having to learn shorthand or telegraphese. And as with learning any new language, you gain a new soul: writing in markup would allow you to embed code” Hammersley explains on his blog.

“The ability to embed code within a story gives us whole new realms of possibilities for journalism and publishing. Digital platforms are connected and location aware, so why not use that? At the moment the answer is “because your infrastructure won’t let you,” but if it could, the potential is extraordinary.”

In another blog entry he says: “One of my basic points is that having lots of metadata means you can do lots of really nice stuff when you transition from print to online, or print to multimedia. But that metadata needs to be captured and stored as close to the original author as you can. The moment when you can write this stuff down and store it is fleeting, and once it has passed, it has passed forever, for profitable values of forever at least.”

And according to the Guardian: “Budding should also provide an archive for writers as the project aims to transfer the writing and editing online to the cloud, and export it from there to multiple formats such as Indesign or blogging software.”

This sounds very much like part of a Personal Learning Environment to me: a tool which can allow us both to capture contextual learning where and when it happens and to repurpose it for presentation in different media, including on-line through an e-Portfolio and in written formats for essays and scholarly publications.

The only draw back I see is the mark-up language – would academics, students, learners use mark up. Maybe they would, if there was enough obvious gain. And maybe we could develop a simple menu allowing the markup to be added from a visual editor. After all, word processors juts use a menu system to add mark up to text (and a long time ago with Word Perfect the mark up code was written).

Ben Hammersley says he is going to offer Budding free to authors. I’ve signed up for a trail. But could we work out a mark up code for a PLE or e-Portfolio?

References

Friesen N and Hug T (2009), The Mediatic Turn: Exploring Concepts for Media Pedagogy, In K. Lundby (Ed.). Mediatization: Concept, Changes, Consequences. New York: Peter Lang. Pp. 64-81.

McLuhan, M. (1962), The Gutenberg Galaxy: The Making of Typographic Man. Toronto: University of Toronto Press.

Lets start with the old problems of Virtual Learning Environments – yes one problem is that they are not learning environments (in the sense of an active learning process taking place – but rather learning management systems. VLEs are great for enrolling and managing learners, tracking progress and completion and for providing access to learning materials. But the learning most often takes place outside the VLE with the VLE acting as a place to access activities to be undertaken and to report on the results. In terms of social learning, groups are usually organised around classes or assignments.

The idea of Personal Learning environments recognised three significant changes:

• The first was that of a Personal Learning Network which could be distributed and was not limited by institutional groups
• The second was the idea that learning could take place in multiple environments and that a PLE could reflect and build on all learning, regardless of whether it contributed to a course the user was enrolled on
• The third is that learners could use their own tools for learning and indeed those tools, be they online journals and repositries, networks or authoring tools, might also be distributed.

Then lest throw social software and Web 2.0 into the mix. This led to accordances for not just consuming learning through the internet, but for active construction and sharing.

This leads to a series of questions in developing both pedagogies and tools to support (social) learning (in no particular order):

• How to support students in selecting appropriate tools to support their learning?
• How to support students in finding resources and people to support their learning?
• How to support students in reporting or representing their learning?
• How to support students in identifying and exploring a body of knowledge?
• How to motivate and support students in progressing their learning?
• How can informal learning be facilitated and used within formal course outcomes?

How can we reconcile learning through communities of practice (and distributed personal learning networks) with the requirements of formal courses?

I am not convinced those of us who advocate the development of Personal Learning Environments have adequately answered those questions. It is easy to say we need changes in the education systems (and of course we do).

In one sense I think we have failed to recognise the critical role that teachers play in the learning process. Letsg o back to to Vykotsky. Vykotsky called those teachers – or peers – who supported learning in a Zone of Proximal Development as the More Knowledgeable Other. “The MKO is anyone who has a better understanding or a higher ability level than the leaner particularly in regards to a specific task, concept or process. Traditionally the MKO is thought of as a teacher, an older adult or a peer” (Dahms et al, 2007).

But the MKO can also be viewed as a learning object or social software which embodies and mediates learning at higher levels of knowledge about the topic being learned than the learner presently possesses.

Of course learners operate within constraints provided in part by the more capable participants (be it a teacher peer, or software), but an essential aspect of this process is that they must be able to use words and other artefacts in ways that extend beyond their current understanding of them, thereby coordinating with possible future forms of action.

Thus teachers or peers as well as technology play a role in mediating learning.

In terms of developing technology, we need to develop applications which facilitate that process of mediation. Some social software works well for this. If I get stuck on a problem I can skype a friend or shout out on Twitter, There is plenty of evidenced use of Facebook study groups. Yet I am not sure the pedagogic processes and the technology are sufficiently joined up. If I learn from a friend or peer, and use that learning in my practice, how does the process become transparent – both to myself and to others. How can I represent by changing knowledge base (through DIIGO bookmarks, through this blog?). And how can others understand the ideas I am working on and become involved in a social learning process.

I guess the answer lies in the further development of semantic applications which are able to make those links and make such processes transparent. But this requires far greater sophistication than we have yet achieved in developing and understanding Personal Learning Environments,

Several years ago, e-portfolios were the vogue in e-learning research and development circles. Yet today little is heard of them. Why? This is not an unimportant question. One of the failures of the e-learnng community is our tendency to move from one fad to the next, without ever properly examining what worked, what did not, and the reasons for it.

First of all it is important to note that  there was never a single understanding or approach to the development and purpose of an e-Portfolio. This can largely due be ascribed to different didactic and pedagogic approaches to e-Portfolio development and use. Some time ago I wrote that “it is possible to distinguish between three broad approaches: the use of e-Portfolios as an assessment tool, the use of e-Portfolios as a tool for professional or career development planning (CDP), and a wider understanding of e-Portfolios as a tool for active learning.”

In a paper presented at the e-Portfolio conference in Cambridge in 2005 (Attwell, 2005), I attempted to distinguish between the different process in e-Portfolio development and then examined the issue of ownership for each of these processes.

The diagramme reveals not only ownership issues, but possibly contradictory purposes for an e-Portfolio. Is an e-Portfolio intended as a space for learners to record all their learning – that which takes place in the home or in the workplace as well as in a course environment or is it a place or responding to prescribed outcomes for a course or learning programme? How much should a e-Portfolio be considered a tool for assessment and how much for reflection on learning? Can tone environment encompass all of these functions?

These are essentially pedagogic issues. But, as always, they are reflected in e-learning technologies and applications. I worked for a whole on a project aiming to ‘repurpose the OSPI e-portfolio (later merged into Sakai) for use in adult education in the UK. It was almost impossible. The pedagogic use of the e-Portfolio, essentially o report against course outcomes – was hard coded into the software.

Lets look at another, and contrasting, e-Portfolio application, ELGG. Although now used as a social networking platform, in its original incarnation ELGG stared out as a social e-portfolio, originating in research undertaken by Dave Tosh on an e-portfolio project. ELGG essentially provided for students to blog within a social network with fine grained and easy to use access controls. All well and good: students were not restricted to course outcomes in their learning focus. But when it came to report on learning as part of any assessment process, ELGG could do little. There was an attempt to develop a ‘reporting’ plug in tool but that offered little more than the ability to favourite selected posts and accumulate them in one view.

Mahara is another popular open source ePortfolio tool. I have not actively played with Maraha for two years. Although still built around a blogging platform, Mahara incorporated a series of reporting tools, to allow students to present achievements. But it also was predicated on a (university) course and subject structure.

Early thinking around e-Portfolios failed to take into account the importance of feedback – or rather saw feedback as predominately as coming from teachers. The advent of social networking applications showed the power of the internet for what are now being called personal Learning networks, in other words to develop personal networks to share learning and share feedback. An application which merely allowed e-learners to develop their own records of learning, even if they could generate presentations, was clearly not enough.

But even if e-portfolios could be developed with social networking functionality, the tendency for institutionally based learning to regard the class group as the natural network, limited their use in practice. Furthermore the tendency, at least in the school sector, of limited network access in the mistaken name of e-safety once more limited the wider development of ‘social e-Portfolios.”

But perhaps the biggest problem has been around the issue of reflection. Champions have lauded e-portfolios as a natural tools to facilitate reflection on learning. Helen Barrett (2004) says an “electronic portfolio is a reflective tool that demonstrates growth over time.” Yet  are e-Portfolios effective in promoting reflection? And is it possible to introduce a reflective tool in an educations system that values the passing of exams through individual assessment over all else? Merely providing spaces for learners to record their learning, albeit in a discursive style does not automatically guarantee reflection. It may be that reflection involves discourse and tools for recording outcomes offer little in this regard.

I have been working for the last three years on developing a reflective e-Portfolio for a careers service based din the UK. The idea is to provide students an opportunity to research different career options and reflect on their preferences, desired choices and outcomes.

We looked very hard at existing opens source e-portfolios as the basis for the project, nut could not find any that met our needs. We eventually decided to develop an e-Portfolio based on Wordpress – which we named Freefolio.

At a technical level Freefolio was part hack and part the development of a plug in. Technical developments included:

• The ability to aggregate summaries of entries on a group basis
• The ability add custom profiles to see profiles of peers
• Enhanced group management
• The ability to add blog entries based on predefined xml templates
• More fine grained access controls
• An enhanced workspace view

Much of this has been overtaken by subsequent releases of Wordpress multi user and more recently Buddypress. But at the time Freefolio was good. However it did  not work in practice. Why? There were two reasons I think. Firstly, the e-Portfolio was only being used for careers lessons in school and that forms too little a part of the curriculum to build a critical mass of familiarity with users. And secondly, it was just too complex for many users. The split between the front end and the back end of Wordpress confused users. The pedagogic purpose, as opposed to the functional use was too far apart. Why press on something called ‘new post’ to write about your career choices.

And, despite our attempts to allow users to select different templates, we had constant feedback that there was not enough ease of customisation in the appearance of the e-Portfolio.

In phase two of the project we developed a completely different approach. Rather than produce an overarching e-portfolip, we have developed a series of careers ‘games; to be accessed through the Careers company web site. Each of the six or so games, or mini applications we have developed so far encourages users to reflect on different aspects of their careers choices. Users are encouraged to rate different careers and to return later to review their choices. The site is yet to be rolled out but initial evaluations are promising.

I think there are lessons to be learnt from this. Small applications that encourage users to think are far better than comprehensive e-portfolios applications which try to do everything.

Interestingly, this view seems to have concur with that of CETIS. Simon Grant points out: “The concept of the personal learning environment could helpfully be more related to the e-portfolio (e-p), as both can help informal learning of skills, competence, etc., whether these abilities are formally defined or not.”

I would agree: I have previously seen both as related on a continuum, with differing foci but similar underpinning ideas. However I have always tended to view Personal Learning Environments as a pedagogic capproach, rather than an application. Despite this, there have been attempts to ‘build a PLE’. In that respect (and in relation to rethinking e-Portfolios) Scott Wilson’s views are interesting. Simon Grant says: “As Scott Wilson pointed out, it may be that the PLE concept overreached itself. Even to conceive of “a” system that supports personal learning in general is hazardous, as it invites people to design a “big” system in their own mind. Inevitably, such a “big” system is impractical, and the work on PLEs that was done between, say, 2000 and 2005 has now been taken forward in different ways — Scott’s work on widgets is a good example of enabling tools with a more limited scope, but which can be joined together as needed.”

Simon Grant goes on to say the ““thin portfolio” concept (borrowing from the prior “personal information aggregation and distribution service” concept) represents the idea that you don’t need that portfolio information in one server; but that it is very helpful to have one place where one can access all “your” information, and set permissions for others to view it. This concept is only beginning to be implemented.”

This is similar to the Mash Up Personal Learning Environment, being promoted in a number of European projects. Indeed a forthcoming paper by Fridolin Wild reports on research looking at the value of light weight widgets for promoting reflection that can be embedded in existing e-learning programmes. This is an interesting idea in suggesting that tools for developing an e-Portfolio )or for that matter, a PLE can be embedded in learning activities. This approach does not need to be restricted to formal school or university based learning courses. Widgets could easily be embedded in work based software (and work flow software) and our initial investigations of Work Oriented Personal Learning Environments (WOMBLES) has shown the potential of mobile devices for capturing informal and work based learning.

Of course, one of the big developments in software since the early e-Portfolio days has been the rise of web 2.0, social software and more recently cloud computing. There seems little point in us spending time and effort developing applications for students to share powerpoint presentations when we already have the admirable slideshare application. And for bookmarks, little can compete with Diigo. Most of these applications allow embedding so all work can be displayed in one place. Of course there is an issue as to the longevity of data on such sites (but then, we have the same issue with institutional e-Portfolios and I would always recommend that students retain a local copy of their work). Of course, not all students are confident in the use of such tools: a series of recent studies have blown apart the Digital Native (see for example Hargittai, E. (2010). Digital Na(t)ives? Variation in Internet Skills and Uses among Members of the “Net Generation”. Sociological Inquiry. 80(1):92-113).  And some commercial services may be more suitable than other for developing an e-Portfolio: Facebook has in my view limitations! But, somewhat ironically, cloud computing may be moving us nearer to Helen Barrett’s idea of an e-Portfolio. John Morrison recently gave a presentation (downloadable here) based on his study of ‘what aspects of identity as learners and understandings of ways to learn are shown by students who have been through a program using course-based networked learning?’ In discussing technology he looked at University as opposed to personally acquired, standalone as opposed to networked and Explored as opposed to ongoing use.

He found that students:

Did not rush to use new technology

Used face-to-face rather than technology, particularly in early brainstorming phases of a project

Tried out software and rejected that which was not meeting a need

Used a piece of software until another emerged which was better

Restrained the amount of software they used regularly to relatively few programs

Certain technologies were ignored and don’t appear to have been tried out by the students

Students used a piece of software until another emerged which was better  which John equates with change. Students restrained the amount of software they used regularly to relatively few programs  which he equates with conservatism

Whilst students were previously heavy users of Facebook, they were now abandoning it. And whilst there was little previous use of Google docs, his latest survey suggested that this cloud application was now being heavily used. This is important in that one of the more strange aspects of previous e0Portolio development has been the requirement for most students to upload attached files, produced in an off line work processor, to the e-Portfolio and present as a file attachment. But if students (no doubt partly driven by costs savings) are using online software for their written work, this may make it much easier to develop online e-portfolios.

John concluded that :this cohort lived through substantial technological change. They simplified and rationalized their learning tools. They rejected what was not functional, university technology and some self-acquired tools. They operate from an Acquisition model of learning.” He concluded that “Students can pick up and understand new ways to learn from networks. BUT… they generally don’t. They pick up what is intended.” (It is also well worth reading the discussion board around John’s presentation – - although you will need to be logged in to the Elesig Ning  site).

So – the e-Portfolio may have a new life. But what particularly interests me us the interplay between pedagogic ideas and applications and software opportunities and developments in providing that new potential life. And of course, we still have to solve that issue of control and ownership. And as John says, students pick up what is intended. If we continue to adhere to an acquisition model of learning, it will be hard to persuade students to develop reflective e-Portfolios. We should continue to rethink e-Portfolios through a widget based approach. But we have also to continue to rethink our models of education and learning.

So far most of the work on mobile learning at a practical level seems to me to fit into four categories:

• applications designed to provide information for students – about their courses, lecture times, venues, transport information, buildings etc.
• what might be called learning objects – small apps designed to support learning about a particular topic or issue – often using multi media
• apps or projects aiming to improve communication between learners or between learners and teachers
• information – revision guides etc. designing to promote mobile access to resources

There is nothing wrong about any of these and they all may be useful in pushing mobile learning forward. But I think they may fail to really extend forward ideas about tecahing and learning 0 they are all essentially repackaging existing elearning applications for mobile devices.

The big potential I see for mobile devices is in their affordances of being always on – or almost always on, in the fact that we already accept the idea of the frequent but sporadic use of the devices for all kinds of activities such as taking photos and messaging – as well as making telephone calls – and that they are portable.

in other words – taking learning support to areas it has not been taken to before. And prime amongst these is teh workplace. It is little coincidence that many of the main take-up areas for elearning are for those occupations which involve regular use of computers e.g in ICT occupations, in marketing and management etc. Ans one of the main issues in developing elearning for vocational or occupational learning is the contextual nature of such learning and the high cost of producing specific learnng materials for relatively low numbers of learners. Vocational students often wish for learning materials to be in their own language, thus exacerbating the problem of small numbers of users for specific occupations.

It is also interesting to note that despite many researchers pointing to the importance of reflection as a key pedagogic tool, there has been limited pedagogic and technical development to facilitate such an approach.

The use of mobile devices can overcome this. They can be used in specific contexts of location, tasks, experince, colleagues and allow ready means of reflection through the use of photographs, video, text and audio.

If linked up to a server based ‘portfolio’ this could form an essential part of a Personal Learning Environment. Furthermore the learning materials become the entire work environment, rather than custom built applications. And tools such as Google Goggles could easily be incorporated (although I have to say it seems more alphe than beta ot me – I havent managed to get it to recognise a single object so far!).

I am mush taken with a free Android Ap called Ontheroad. It doesn’t do much. It is designed its ays for you to share your adventures on the road You have to set up a free account on a web site. You can publish active trips (I am going to try to make one this week). You can add articles including your position by GPS, you can add text, multimedia, dates and choose which trip to publish it to though the telephone network or by SMS. You can browse existing articles and look at comments. You can add media including photos already on your gallery. Or you can record a video (audio support seems limited).

And it is all synced through a server. It would not take much to refocus this app to a Learning Journey, rather than a road trip. And it could be incredibly powerful in terms of work based learning.

So I do not see a great technical challenge. the bigger challenge is in developing a pedagogic approach which incorporates informal learning in the workplace and such a portfolio based on practice within formal approaches ot education and training.

If you are interested in working with me to develop these technologies and ideas please get in touch.

On his blog Niall Sclater says:

“In our first foray into cloud computing, Google will be hosting for our students:

• email (gmail)
• contacts
• instant messaging and presence
• calendar
• document creation, storage and sharing
• websites”

Interestingly, The OU, the UK’s largest univeristy, will not at the moment be giving staff access ot the system, presumably becuase of concerns over security and confidentiality.

Niall explains the reasons for the decision :

“Growing numbers of institutions are now adopting cloud-based systems such as Google Apps for Education, particularly in the US. The arguments for hosting your own student email are becoming increasingly weak when it can be done externally for free, or at least much more cheaply. Google will provide a service level agreement with higher levels of availability than we could achieve ourselves. In addition there are other services included such as instant messaging that we don’t currently provide to students but could help them to connect more with each other.”

However the decision has interesting implications for pedgogic approaches. Niall says:

“These systems will increasingly start to compete with some of the features of learning management systems / virtual learning environments such as Moodle and Blackboard. They provide a higher level of individual control for students and potentially remove some of the administrative burden from the university. …

Another area for investigation is the use of Google Apps as an eportfolio system. Our initial research has shown that it would work for some of the key aspects of eportfolio provision such as the storage of documents under the control of the user, the exporting of these so they can be taken with them through life, and the creation of templates for the collection of structured data for a variety of purposes. We still need to work out how we can freeze or export eportfolio content where it is being for formal assessment.”

In a comment on the blog, Tim Hunt, also from the Open University, says:

“The VLE is the University’s space where it publishes its courses, and students come to study that material and perform some course-specific activities.

Google tools / ePortfolio / PLE / student’s own laptop are the student’s spaces for keeping and managing their learning.

In a traditional bricks a and mortar, chalk and talk setting, the VLE is the lecture room and labs; and Google tools are the student’s room in the hall of residence, or possibly their leaver-arch file.

I think it is clear that you need both types of space, and that they complement each other. However, there are some activities that could take place in either space.”

Manish Malik from Portsmouth University, which is already giving access to Google cloud services to all students, tries to distinguish between PLEs, VLEs, loosely coupled applications and what he calls a “CLE or Cloud Learning Environment”

” The cloud can be seen as one big autonomous system not owned by any educational institution. Let the Academics or Learners be the users, of some cloud based services, who all equally share the privelages like control, choice, sharing of content etc on these services. Then this is different from a PLE, a VLE and a PTE. For example Google Apps for universities is hosted on the cloud, not fully controlled by any educational institution and certainly not owned by one. The tools on it are to a great extent academic or learner controlled. Each “Google Site”, for example, can be owned by an academic or a Learner and both users be given the same rights/control by one another (depending on who creates first). Likewise Google Docs can be owned and shared between learners themselves or learners and academics under their own control.

This gives all parties the same rights on same set of tools. This clearly has potential to enable and facilitate both formal and informal learning for the learner. Both the academic and the learner are free to use the tools the way they wanted and share and collaborate with anyone they wanted.”

I think Malik is wrong is distinguishing between PLEs and CLEs (and to be honest, we really need just to advance our understandings of PLEs, rather than invent yet more acrobyms and terminology). If we go back to the blog entry which strated it all – Scott Wilson’s “The Future VLE?”, it was always clear that a PLE would include different third party services  (even though cloud computing was not a term invented then as far as I know).

However, there are a number of interesting issues raised by the move towards cloud services for students.

Firstly, the services provided by Google make it very easy for s student to develop their own PLE. One of the long running concerns about PLEs has been whether or not all students have the knowledge and skills with technology to develop their PLE. This may overcome such concerns. Furthermore, in a podcast interview with Niall I made three years ago, he expressed the concern that university computer services had a duty to provide support for all applications a university was using for tecahing and learning. If PLEs were to be introduced he argued, this would be impossible due to the very diversity of different platforms and applications. Presumably, the deal with Google overcomes that issue.

Of course it is all to easy to see Google as the new evil empire, taking over education. But unless the nature of the deal between universities totally ties down systems, it should be relatively easy to integrate third party services with the Google apps, at least for someone with reasonable digital skills. And although Niall Sclater refers to ePortoflios, I see little difference in the way this is developing to a PLE.

Of course, there are worries about trusting a PLE to third party commercial companies. But data is not locked down on Google in the way it is on platforms like Facebook. it should be relatively simple for a learner to keep copies of important work and data on their own computers (and indeed to update those copies when they change computers).

Interesting, from my present interests, it  should be relatively simple to integrate Google apps with the Android platform, this making mobile learning much cimpler (ignoring of course the problems with cross paltform use).

Of course the proof will be in the use. Will teachers start moving to Google apps rather than use the Open Univeristiy’s Moodle platform? Will learners develop their own PLEs? How will the Google apps integrate with univeristy services and applications. Will data be secure and will Google continue to support student PLEs even after they have left university: Is this just a new form of lockin? And how reliable are Google services? Do the moves by Portsmouth and the Open University herald a large scale shift by educational institutions to cloud services?

Most of all – will the use of these services provide new pedagogic affordances which will lead to changing practices in teaching and learning? Tims will tell.

That is not to say every issue has been resolved. The resourcing of OER creation is till an issue, although some institutions seem to be absorbing the cost into the overall budgets. There remain issues over how to develop OERs, given that materials often include artefacts that are covered by copyright. Discovery – finding suitable OERs – is still not always easy. Academic practices (and terms of service) are not always aligned with the idea of open publishing. And of course we still do not as a community have a single agreed understanding of what constitutes an OER. But all thes eissues can be resolved given a little time.

However, the movement towards OERs conceals bigger issues. Firstly what do we mean by an Open Educational Resource. I am not  talking here about definitional squabbles. More important for me is who the resources are aimed at. many of the early OER repositres have comprised of materials for teaching and not for learning. these are not the same. Of course lecture notes and overhead presentations may be helpful to support learning (and certainly helpful for teachers). But, I am not sure that reading and watching course materials constitutes a learning programme in itself. Neither have many of the institutions providing OERS intended it to be. Why make free courses available online of it would compete with courses offered by an institution.

Yet, at the same time, organisations such as the BBC, are publishing increasing amounts of  learning (not teaching) materials aimed at a wide range of age groups and a wide ability range. YouTube contains hundreds of videos providing help in how to do almost anything. Web tutorial sites abound. And the growing power of mobile devices and if rumour is to be believed, the immanent arrival of smart tablet readers, allows integration of learning into everyday work and leisure activities. In other words, learning is moving outside teh institution at an ever increasing rate. It is these materials which will be of most profound influence on the future of our education systems

My prediction of trends for 1010 is that the crisis over the future role of institutional education will continue to deepen. The crisis, engendered largely by technological and social change, can only be exacerbated by the financial cutbacks facing higher education in many countries. At the moment education institutions can fall back of their function in providing recognised qualifications. Although the degree of regulation regarding qualifications and the weight such qualifications carry for employment varies between sectors and countries, in general we might expect that increasingly employers will look to a person’s digital identity and digital record of learning, rather than accepting qualifications as the basis for employment.

So do educational institutions have a future? I think they do but this will require profound change. Already a few pioneers like Dave Wiley, George Siemens and Stephen Downes have tested new models for online courses including both participants registered for a course credit and those not registered. But more fundamentally institutions may have a role in motivating and supporting the learning of students at particular phases in their (lifelong) learning. But this requires far more flexibility than our present (higher) education systems provide. Although I do not agree with his motives the Prince of Darkness, UK Business Minister Peter Mandelson, may be right when he talks of more flexible degree offerings including both full time two year degrees and more work based degrees. And we may even have to question the degree structures. Why not start recognising the learning that takes place whilst following a course in an institution, rather than referring to the course which frames that possible learning?

And of course such (personal learning) programmes will have to start from the point of where learners are at – recognising their previous learning and their learning needs (and desires). Much of that learning will have come from engaging with OERs in a workplace or social setting. That doesn’t mean there is no place for the seminar, workshop or even lecture. But it does mean that the regimentation of courses may become a thing of the past. Different learners will have different prior experiences and different learning needs. Why not conceive of university as an university such as an extended bar camp or unconference. Students could opt to follow particular elements and could themselves support the learning of others. Support would still be needed to help learners get from where they are now to where they potentiality could be. Universities could become an intense learning experience, unlike the present exam factories, often marketed on the basis of the social life around the institution.

If course I might have been reading too many science fiction novels over Christmas. But the times are a changing, however slowly and the increasing availability of Open Education Resources or Open Learning materials are part of that change.

NB Scroll to the bottom of the paper for a downloadable PDF version.

INTRODUCTION

When considering formal and informal learning, we can see that the way young people today play, interact with others and take part in the surrounding world also represents the way they learn (Brown, 2002). Whist young learners in the 21st century are seen as being increasingly independent, simultaneously group skills are more important than ever before. Flexibility and adaptability are key to lifelong learning in a networked society, as are personalised learning opportunities (Green, Facer, et al 2005). However, such approaches may be missing from formal education where the focus on standard content, in a drive to measure and assess learning, means that sometimes there is little scope for learners to participate in school life in an engaging and relevant way. This becomes even more challenging when working with ‘disadvantaged’ young people, who often lack the confidence as well as the opportunities and supporting environment to develop a stronger self-awareness (i.e. awareness of their personal skills and abilities). Educational activities, which promote self-reflection and encourage young learners to engage in a learning journey by mixing fun with pedagogy through web technologies, can provide a powerful recipe in the classroom (Passey, Rogers et al, 2004). It not only increases the level of enthusiasm, it can also boost the pupil’s motivation and help create new ways of fostering learning and social engagement, in addition to new forms of teaching (John, 2005).

This paper focuses on the development of innovative learning activities and teaching and mentoring methodologies as part of the European ICONET Project, which is piloting a range of approaches to the recognition of informal learning in different countries and for different target groups. In this paper, the authors will consider the recognition of informal learning in the school setting, encouraging personal and joint reflection on formal and informal competencies with the use of web cartoons and micro activities supported by a hands-on, exploratory learning approach. We describe how young people were encouraged to use computers as an effective, hands-on, creative medium to develop self-awareness and engage in reflection on their own skills and competences. We also explore the advantages of giving learners access to the web and the issues to be addressed when working with them, and report on how this experience helped the researchers realize the potential of web-based activities to promote active engagement and reflection by young people. The importance of the presence of the teacher/tutor as a mentor to provide personalized support will also be considered as a key factor for the success of this experience. We conclude with suggestions for future research in the area of web 2.0 technologies, new educational trends and innovative practices as a contribution to creative learning experiences.

TRANSFORMING THE CLASSROOM

Education should aim to provide a transformative experience (Torosyan, 2001). With the spread of digital media and social computing this ideal may be seen as easier to achieve. In a society where new technological innovations are released daily, creative innovation in today’s education is to be expected. Yet, the panorama is somewhat different from optimistic predictions by educational theorists. According to the latest IPTS report (Ala-Mutka, Punie and Redecker, 2008), despite the wider availability of technology and the Internet, most classroom practices still fail to provide learners with innovative, creative and social approaches to augment and motivate learning. The ‘educational shift’, grounded on social and personalised pedagogies, as advocated by most of the literature, is still in progress (Williamson and Payto, 2009). Nevertheless, in the last decade there have been numerous policy initiatives, programmes and projects to adapt educational systems and institutions to the digital age (PLTS, 2009). Web based interactive environments can contribute to a shift in pedagogy and learning approaches. Such approaches are not new (the debate on educational change has been long running), but access to social computing offers new opportunities for radical pedagogic approaches to teaching and learning (UNESCO, 2004).

Even so, the transformation of the classroom does not rely so much on the technology as on the instigation of strategic approaches to modernising education and the willingness of the practitioners to adopt such approaches (Travers and Decker, 1999).

A Pedagogy of Change

A pedagogy of change does not mean that teachers become irrelevant. On the contrary, they become more important than ever (Redecker, 2009), in providing and mentoring learning experiences. The construction of new knowledge through collaborative and cooperative activities, which are personally meaningful to the learners, are core to a pedagogy of change (Learning and Teaching Scotland, 2007). However it is often argued that learning, as a dynamic process, is dependent on the learner’s willingness to interrelate with his/her learning in order to develop understanding (Barr and Tagg, 1995), it is equally contended that an effective learning experience is also influenced by those who help foster learning through active methodologies and personalised support.

Modern pedagogy, based on social processes, is not new. The idea that learning develops through dialogue and active processes has been much discussed, although not always practiced (Alexander, 2005). Learning relies both on granting the individual an active voice and creating an environment for collective listening and mutual support (UNESCO, 2002). That is probably one of the most radical changes the contemporaneous pedagogical approach is seeking to encourage. However, education systems are still based on an industrial age with the purpose of delivering mass-education (McLuhan and Leonard, 1967). The use of digital technologies is playing an important role in promoting change in education (Anderson, 2007). Participatory media has focused attention on the idea that teaching and learning practices have a strong social component, and that learning is a dynamic activity and naturally embedded in daily life (Bull, Thompson, et al, 2008). The interactive web not only enables collective understanding; it can also facilitate personal development and reflection through social engagement. Nevertheless, the effectiveness of learning environments is dependent more on human interaction than on technology. A pedagogy of change relies strongly on the actions of practitioners to promote such change, and also on the institutional support that is given to it. (Pritchard and McDiarmid, 2006) Equally it is dependent on the engagement of learners. Effective practices in teaching and learning rely on the commitment of both parties.

Formal education remains important. Whilst there is still a need for learning centres, these centres have to be become less formal, and provide different learning contexts, to remain relevant to those seeking meaningful learning opportunities (Du Bois-Reymond, 2004). This is especially true when working with ‘disadvantaged’ learners who may not relate to a programmatic and standardised education, but who are able to show, and most importantly, realize their potential, when engaged in different and less formal approaches to learning. A pedagogy of change could be rooted in the development of innovative learning activities, focusing on the learners’ personal and collective experience, with tutors/teachers acting as guides and mentors in the construction of knowledge and the understanding of experiences in the communities and networks in which learners participate. The school of life is a good teacher, but the learning from daily activities still needs to be recognized and capitalized as part of a formal education. Social computing can help in this as it can link the school setting with other environments where students learn in a more informal manner.

Innovative Learning Activities – Using the web to bridge learning (formal and informal)

In the recent years there has been a growing acknowledgment of the importance of informal learning (Cross, 2007; Attwell 2007). Life experience is recognised as relevant to personal and professional development, with lifelong learning taking place in a variety of scenarios and settings. Competences and skills are developed through experience and social interactions although frequently are not formally accredited as they remain outside the formal curriculum (Burley, 1990). This can demoralize and alienate those who fail to achieve formal academic qualifications but still possess skills and competences achieved in other contexts. As Cross (2007) points out, most of the skills and knowledge acquired are developed through informal learning. How we capitalize on that acquired knowledge and recognize learners’ skills is something that needs to be addressed, as recent debates in this area suggest[1].

The development of Internet and web environments is providing increasing access to free and informal learning opportunities and communities. Although learning has never been restricted to a classroom, it has met with boundaries, however internet has pushed these boundaries wider than before(Lindsay and Davis, 2007), and now even within the classroom, learning no longer is bound to a single place.

However there remain a number of outstanding issues: how to capitalize on those ‘marginal’ learning experiences, and valorise the competences and skills acquired through daily life, while assisting still learners in reflecting and realizing their full potential. The social web may assist in the development of learning activities which enable the engagement of students with their own learning. However, as pointed out before, the panoply of web applications currently available is not a solution per se. A pedagogical strategy focusing on effective engagement of students and promoting reflection on their learning is fundamental in leveraging the relevance of the technology. The ‘distractive’ side of the Web can hence be converted into a powerful learning and reflective tool. That is partly what the ICONET- Cartoon Planet project approach, described in this paper, tried to achieve. Through the development of a learning strategy ‘camouflaged’ by elements of ‘excitement’, ‘fun’ and ‘play’ with the use of interactive learning activities and digital cartoons for micro-reflection about personal skills and competences, we were able to engage learners in a way that activities with the same purpose, but with different strategies, might have not.

THE ICONET PROJECT

“There’s something wrong when a person is able to do something really very well, but is not considered smart if those things are not connected with school success” (Howard Garden)

The University of Salford is a partner in the European Commission funded ICONET project. This builds on the previous ICOVET project focused on developing and testing validation procedures for vocational skills gained by young people outside the framework of institutional education. The ICONET mission is to build on those experiences and develop new approaches and pedagogical tools for the validation of informally acquired competencies by disadvantaged young people. The main goal is to develop a space within the education system to introduce informal learning methods and pedagogical approaches targeted at engaging the learners with their own learning through active reflection.

The ICONET approach was incorporated into both Year 8 and Year 10 of the Salford Young People’s University (SYPU), a Summer School Programme for 11-16 year olds, providing a first-hand experience of life at the University with an opportunity to meet current students and lecturers. SYPU is a community outreach initiative aimed at young people who traditionally would not tend to go to University. The Year 8 SYPU Summer School is sponsored by AimHigher Greater Manchester, ‘a Government’s initiative to widen participation in higher education in England through activities that raise the aspirations of young people’.

The ICONET intervention was developed in conjunction with the SYPU. The curriculum criteria were based on three broad aspects of teaching and learning:

• an interactive approach;
• a focus on informal learning and skills;
• attractive, diverse strategies for class engagement.

The approach focused on the use of interactive web and game-based reflection to involve learners from the Salford Young People’s University with their own learning in a fun, meaningful and personalised way.

The pupils taking part in this programme were between 11 and 16 years old. Classes were usually comprised of pupils from different backgrounds. However, most of them came from disadvantaged social environments and educational backgrounds, and were considered to be at risk of not pursing further education as it is not part of their family culture. This can often cause them to unconsciously discard Further and Higher Education as a possibility to progress their formal education.

ICONET – Cartoon Planet – Approach

The University of Salford’s ICONET approach was based on engaging the young learners from SYPU in interactive situations that would stimulate reflection about their own skills in a familiar environment, and thus help them realize their own potential. Hence, two-hour face to face workshops were planned and offered by the researchers/tutors. The workshops, entitled ‘Cartoon Planet’, aimed to promote the idea that learning can be exciting. The sessions were organized around activities that were supposed to be fun and stimulate active participation. The aim of the workshops was:

I. To stimulate guided reflection about the learners’ strengths and skills with different peer groups through group activities.

II. To utilise Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) to empower students to communicate their skills and competences in an interactive and personally meaningful way.

To fulfil the workshop’s main goals, two different sections were planned and developed as part of the workshop. During the first part of the workshop, the pupils were invited to take part in a set of activities which aimed at introducing them progressively to the topic under focus: the recognition of their skills and competences. These activities were not only designed to prepare them for the second phase of the workshop, but also to involve the learners in discussions and guided reflection around the areas ‘they were good at’. The role of the tutors was to mentor the learners in their discussions and to help them understand and describe their skills in a more CV orientated language, and most importantly to facilitate reflection and self learning.

The second part of the workshop required the use of computers and took place in a computer laboratory where learners were asked to (re)create themselves online, as avatars (a digital representation of oneself), and describe their skills using voice and text. The avatars were later published and presented to the rest of the class at the end of the workshop.

THE WORKSHOPS IN PRACTICE

Preparing the ICONET workshop

The researchers worked closely with the SYPU team to diagnose the needs and requirements of the participants. They also attended the training session offered by the SYPU coordinating team for the tutors who would be working with the young people during the summer school. This was useful in providing an understanding of the SYPU coordinating team’s epistemological approach to teaching and learning with disadvantaged young people and an exploration of innovative strategies to reach out to learners through the use of active learning approaches. Ideas from the training session were incorporated in the ICONET – Cartoon Planet approach.

As a result, the workshop sought to create a learning environment focused on personal and group engagement and support, where there would be scope for personalization, and where the learning activities were designed to be flexible and adaptable for the different groups of students that would participate in the sessions. Furthermore, the ICONET – Cartoon Planet design was based on the Mind Friendly Learning Framework (Greenhalg, 2001), which is based on a process of stimulating learning through a series of pedagogical steps developed to enhance learning with ‘more inclusive and powerful experiences which develop learning to learn skills’. The eight steps of the Mind-friendly learning framework are:

1. To create a friendly and positive learning environment through engaging ice-break activities that will pose exciting challenges to the learner;

2. To connect learner’s previous knowledge with new learning experiences;

3. To provide a general perspective on what the learning activity entails;

4. To negotiate the learning process and outcomes to achieve

5. To develop a diverse teaching strategy to enable multi-sensory learning

6. To engage learners actively with their own learning through an exploratory approach

7. To show provide opportunities for learners to share their learning with others

8. To encourage reflection and inquiry throughout the learning process

The workshop was planned and designed to accommodate the eight principles of the framework presented above, offering a variety of learning activities which aimed at creating a lively, engaging learning experience for the SYPU participants.

Cartoon Planet Sessions during SYPU 2008

The Cartoon Planet sessions took place in July 2008 as part of the SYPU 2008 programme[2]. An average of 12 students, both male and female, took part in the daily sessions.

The sessions started with a brief introduction about the aims of the workshop and were followed by an “Introduce Yourself” activity. Pupils were asked to share aspects of their experience that they were proud of and that they would like to share with their peers. This helped to create an environment of trust and provided pupils with the confidence to communicate with one another and the tutor.

Afterwards, the facilitator of the session introduced the idea that people have skills and competences which might not solely relate to their formal school learning activity, but which are all the same relevant to be included in their CV. This was explained in a language that was familiar to them (no educational jargon was used) and learners were prompted to reflect about “things” they were good at and proud of while using their own words. The facilitator explained this would help them later to ‘translate’ the knowledge of their skills into a more academic language, which they could include in their future résumé. The workshop activities proceeded with learners being asked to work in pairs and to take part in an interview role play – playing both the interviewer and interviewee – where they had a chance to ask and answer questions that would lead them to reflect about the topic they were exploring. This activity gave learners a sense of achievement and as the learners progressed in their activities, the tutors could notice the learners’ own excitement and interest in exploring their own skills and sharing their abilities with their peers. A mix of amazement and enthusiasm is probably what best describes the ICONET – Cartoon Planet workshop. As noted down in the researcher’s field notes, ‘the learners were delighted to find about themselves through themselves, and also through the eyes of their classmates’. For example, one of the pupils approached the tutor to ask question about one of her peer’s skills. She asked if ‘being good at doing people’s makeup’ was a skill. Her classmate had reported about such activity and she thought it could be added to that pupil’s skill list. The tutor prompted both pupils to think about what it meant ‘to be good at doing people’s makeup’ and how that could be articulated with one’s competences. Together they concluded that those were relevant artistic and social skills. As the researcher wrote down in her notes, a sense of realisation of that pupil’s potential had been understood by the pupil herself and that shone through the light of achievement in her eyes. Such small anecdotes as this may seem irrelevant, yet are important in developing confidence and recognition about skills and competences developed outside the traditional school curriculum.

This was followed by a group activity. The entire class was asked to form a round table. The facilitator introduced learners to the formal skills concept, explaining what was meant by the terminology used in the EUROPASS CV regarding skills and competences. Afterwards, the interviewers were asked to present the findings of their interviews. At this stage all students were prompted to help their colleagues verbalise their skills. The entire class participated in this joint reflection, contributing to the collective knowledge of the class.

To introduce the second part of the workshop students were given a card where they were asked to write down a sentence which would summarize their skills including interests, hobbies, sports, and social activities. This would be their “passport” to the next phase of the workshop which was the key to the “Cartoon Planet’. The game component added some vibrancy to the activity and learners were still enthusiastic about being in class. Once the cards were completed they were granted access to the Computer Lab and asked to explore the use of cartoons to express what they had learnt about themselves. They were asked to create an Avatar (an interactive, digital cartoon) to symbolize their ’selves’ and their learning too. [At this stage it is important to note that secure access to the internet was provided through an application called NETSUPPORT limiting student access to the web application used for the avatars. To enable this, special software called NETSUPPORT was used.]

The creation of the speaking cartoons aimed at introducing a fun element to the session. It also aimed at analyzing how these tools can motivate learners’ and their engagement.

The learners remained focused and did not attempt to browse other sites [this had been one of the main concerns of the SYPU tutors, moderators and coordinator, when considering the Internet as a learning tool].

The understanding of the use of online learning tools appeared quite straightforward The participants were enthusiastic and most were proficient in working with computers. Even those with less experience were fast at mastering it.

However there were no assumptions about learners’ digital proficiency and support was provided through brief demonstration of the use of the tool. Nevertheless, participants were quick to understand the concept, although it was the first time they had used that specific application.

Although students were quite fast in reflecting on their strengths, they required help in expressing their competences in the formal or academic language of a CV. They also required support and personal guidance to focus on the task. Reflection was an exercise they didn’t seem to be used to.

In summary, the ICONET – Cartoon Planet approach supports learners in recognising their own skills and competences and thus realizing their potential outside the formal school setting. By providing tools to support reflection, the ICONET approach encourages young learners to tell their own stories in a more confident and exciting way. Furthermore, the reflective component, which can be problematic in a school setting (Reference), seemed to work well. This is probably due to the fact that the concept of ‘reflection’ was not evoked throughout the workshop. The tutors rather embedded this component in the activities in a way so that they were ‘disguised’ by the environment and the different tasks. It is almost the case that the learners were learning without thinking they were doing so. In day to day life learning happens naturally and reflection is integral to that process. It is only when we try to ‘make’ people learn that it often goes wrong.

CONCLUSIONS AND RECOMMENDATIONS

From the verbal feedback we received from the learners themselves, and the mentors and coordinators who spent more time with the learners, the Cartoon Planet sessions seemed to have been popular. The young participants’ informal feedback indicates this was a successful approach in terms of applying ICONET methodology. Feedback included “this is fun” and “now I can use these skills in my CV”. Learners were reported to have enjoyed the way the topic was presented to them and the way they were asked to explore their skills. The micro activities helped motivate the learners’ involvement in the workshop, whilst also allowing students to learn more about themselves while they engaged in this micro-reflection exercises.

A longitudinal study would be needed to fully analyse the impact of the ICONET tool in recognising informal learning. Unfortunately the workshop was offered only once and the regulations of the SYPU did not permit follow up contact. It was therefore not possible to identity the longer term effect of the ICONET – Cartoon Planet approach. However we believe that this approach can help foster deeper and ongoing reflection about informal skills in an appealing way to learners.

It is our impression that the two different sections of the workshop played a vital role in the success of the session. The personalised mentoring and constant support provided by the tutor to the small group of young people, as well as the freedom they were granted to collaborate with each other while exploring their skills seem to have enhanced motivation and active involvement in the workshop.

The fact that learners were allowed to use computers to create their own avatars appealed to their creativity and reinforced learning from the first part of the session.

In short, we would like to argue that there are a number of key elements that can enable the engagement of young people in this area:

• Face to face contact – as a strong (initial) component of the learner activity (young people need personalised guidance);
• The creation of a friendly, flexible and interactive learning atmosphere by the tutor;
• Tutor’s constant and personalised support to facilitate learners’ engagement with the activities (small groups of students are advisable);
• The use of ICT to help keep the learners’ interest and motivation;
• The development of activities based on social learning approaches;
• The inclusion of a fun component as an integral part of the learning activity.

The approach also raises issues around internet safety. The aim of the workshop was not to focus on digital literacy, but rather to use an interactive web application to enable self and group reflection about informal skills. Hence, net safety was not a focus for the workshop. The workshop provided only restricted access to the internet in line with concerns expressed by the organisers of SYPU. However, if this workshop was to be developed as part of a longitudinal study, with more sessions behind offered over a longer period of time, it would be interesting to develop a parallel strategy on e-safety and digital literacy to build on learners’ computing skills and thus empower them deeper understanding and know-how about both the benefits and pitfalls of social computing.

PDF Version

You can download a PDF version of this paper here.

References

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[1] See discussions in the SCOPE community as ain example: http://scope.bccampus.ca/mod/forum/view.php?id=1691

[2] http://www.edu.salford.ac.uk/summerschool/year8

A year on, it seems apposite to think again about e-Portfolios. Over the past few years, I have worked on a series of e-Portfolio projects, including the European MOSEP project and a series of projects seeking to develop e-Portfolios for both advisers and students for careers advice, guidance and counselling.

We have used a variety of applications including Mahara and Freefolio (based on Wordpress) with varying success. The projects have generated a fair bit of enthusiasm (and certainly have attracted much effort from teachers, researchers and other learning professionals). Yet I cannot really say any have been an unreserved success, nor are they really sustainable. Hence the return to Scott’s question.

The problem as I see it, is that however designed and configured, e-Portfolios are only a container for student work. At worse the recording and reporting of such achievement is constrained by course objectives or outcomes, at best learners are encouraged to report on wider learning from outside institutional courses. But the limitation remains.

There are four key functions an e-Portfolio could fulfil to help learners.

The first is in developing their digital identity – as a learner – though a dynamically generated profile.

The second is in reflecting on learning.

The third is in reporting on that learning – flexibly and creatively.

The fourth is developing and sustaining a personal learning network

The problem is that e-portfolios are remarkably poor at doing any of these. A profile is something you fill in when you set up your e-Portfolio and all to often little happens to it after it is set up. Reflection is something everyone says is important but then passes on quickly to the next issue. reporting is still horribly static and usually amounts to little more than the ability to develop a slideshow or to write about a collection of artefacts. And as for social networking, most e-portfolios still assume learning and achievement is something that either takes place through classroom or assignment groups or as an individual activity.

However, I think we can develop Technology Enhanced Learning applications to support all of these activities – if we break away from the idea of e-portfolios as a container. I am working with a group of Careers Personal Advisers in the UK on a project. Instead of trying to implement an e-portfolio application, we are working on developing loosely coupled web tools to support instances of reflection and learning., The enthusiasm and creativity of the Personal advisers is truly awesome. Freed up from the constraints of the e-portfolio, they are developing ideas which they see as promoting effective learning. many of those ideas are focused on helping learners to explore their own identities as learners – and in the process ot develop their identity. Instead of a constraint, they see the use of multi media as a medium for exploring, for bringing the activities to life. And as developers, instead of explaining what an application can do, we are using our expertise to try to implement their ideas.

I understand the concerns of e-Portfolio enthusiasts to ensure that young people have a personal electronic record of their achievement. But, with disk space so cheap, and with the increasing skill of young people in using computers, I do not think we need yet another institutionally approved container for that purpose. It is much the same argument as that over whether we need VLEs. Lets retain all that was good about the idea of e-portfolios but stop trying to manage and contain learning. Lets try to release the natural creativity – not just of learners but of teachers as well.

Yet reflection is not always an easy learning process. It may be particularly sterile when learners are told to go and reflect! Whilst it is possible to teach or practitioner the skills involved in reflection – active listening, questioning, commentating – reflection is difficult to undertake on demand.

Furthermore, the forms that we use to report on academic learning – essays and papers – may either not be particularly conducive to immediate reflection or may be far too time consuming – especially for work based learners.

Personally I see reflection as a conversation, with myself or with others. And that works best for me out of the office or at the end of the day. That is when I think on what I have done and what it might mean. I often sit in my local pub with my iPod Touch or just a back of an envelope and furiously scribble notes or more often somewhat chaotic mind maps. The fact that I often never look at the results (and sometimes cannot read them anyway) does not seem to matter – it is the process which counts.

This is where I think audio can come in. I have been greatly impressed with the Jisc funded Sounds Good project.  The main aim of Sounds Good was to test the hypothesis that using digital audio for feedback can benefit staff and students by:

• saving assessors’ time (speaking the feedback rather than writing it)

and

• providing richer feedback to students (speech is a richer medium than written text).

The project has in general been extremely successful. But if speech is a richer medium for staff providing feedback then why not for students reflecting on learning.

And the increasing availability of easy to use recording technologies utilising mobile devices makes this process simple. Anyway here is a short audio reflection on e-portfolios and data security and on using audio for reflection!

Here is an audio comment from our colleague Jenny Hughes “Reflections on Reflection”:

Now we are releasing the full version of the interviews as podcasts. There is some rich material here for anyone interested in the use of technology to support e-Portfolios, work based learning, mobile learning, the exchange of course information etc. This is the first of two posts – the second will contain the remaining interviews.

Bob Bell is Fe in HE coordinator for the Jisc Northern Regional Support Centre. In this interview he talks about work based learning.

Clive Church works for EdExcel. He is particularly interested in the development and use of e-Portfolios.

Derek Longhurst is Chief Executive of Foundation Degree Forward. In this interview he looks at the challenges changing forms of learning and knowledge development pose for universitie sand discusses future policy options.

Lucy Stone is project manager at Leicester College, where she is introducing mobile technologies to support work based learners.

Lucy Warman is developing a Jisc project designed to involve students in sharing experience at the University of Central Lancashire.

Thanks to all the interviewees for their time and ideas and to Dirk Stieglitz for post production work.The music is called Musiques en Principauté de Boisbelle and is composed and played by DaCapo. It can be found on the Creative Commons music web site Jamendo.

The music is by

The projects are engaging in much more than the introduction of technology and developers were keen to talk about changing pedagogic approaches and the policy implications of the work they were doing. The projects covered a wide range of applications – including the use of mobile technologies and of ePortfolios to support learners. It was encouraging to hear of the degree of engagement with learners in developing technology based projects. There was much discussion on who the ‘new learners’ were and what were their needs. The issue of change management was a recurrent theme, as was that of sustainability. Many of the projects were looking at the process of embedding developments within the every day practice of institutions. But this could raise cultural issues, especially when it came to work based learning. From a work based learning approach this was involving new partnerships with employers.

And as Tony Tool pointed out – elearning raises many issues for the funding models presently being used. Equally the development of work based learning may call into question the present policies for extending participation in higher education.

Fascinating stuff. Tomorrows programme will pick up on these issues and more with a live panel comprised of Oleg Liber from CETIS, Claire Newhouse from the Lifelong Learning Network national forum and Andrew Ravenscroft from London Metropolitan University. You can listen to the programme by going to http://radio.jiscemerge.org.uk:80/Emerge.m3u . The stream will open in your MP3 player of choice. You can take part in the chat room at http://tinyurl.com/sounds08. Just add your name and press enter – no password required. And you can leave comments and questions on the Jisc elearning blog.

We will also be making the full versions of the interviews available on the elearning blog as podcasts after the show.

But, for some time now, we have been wanting to branch out and make other types of programmes. We experimented with two documentary programmes, The Dragons Den, earlier this year.

And now Jisc has commissioned a pilot of a new programme, the e-learning show. The pilot programme will be broadcast next Thursday, 21 May at 1800 UK Summer Time, 1900 Central European Time.

The following blurb provides the rundown for the show:

“Thursday, 21 May sees the pilot programme of a new Jisc live internet radio programme, ‘the Elearning Show’. The programme which is to be broadcast at 1800 – 1855 UK summer time, is based on issues raised at the recent Jisc Lifelong Learning Symposium.

These issues include how university and college cultures need to change to support work based learning, who the new students are and what are their needs, how e-Portfolios can be used both for recording learning and for providing information, advice and guidance and the use of mobile technologies.

The programme considers both current and emergent practices in elearning and the development of policies to support such practice.

The programme will be presented by Graham Attwell and guests include Derek Longhurst from Foundation Degree Forward, Clive Church from Edexel, Lucy Stone from Leicester College, Tony Toole from the University of Glamorgan, Bob Bell, HE in FE consultant for the northern region, Sandra Winfield from Nottingham University and Rob Ward from the Centre for Recording Achievement

The programme will also feature a live panel. with the opportunity for listeners to skype or email their questions and comments and their will be a live chat room for listeners.

To listen to the programme go to http://radio.jiscemerge.org.uk:80/Emerge.m3u This will open the LIVE radio stream in your MP3 player of choice.

You can take part in the chat room at http://tinyurl.com/sounds08. Just add your name and press enter – no password required.

If you like to send us questions for the panel in advance of the programme, email Graham Attwell – graham10 [at] mac [dot] com or skype to GrahamAttwell.”

Although the programme is based on developments in the UK many of the issues to be discuassed on the programme will have relevance for listeners interested in the use of technologies for learning wherever they are.

And if you are missing the old Sounds of the Bazaar, don’t worry, we haven’t gone away. The next programme planned in that series will be broadcast live from the ProLearn european Summer School in Slovakia in the first week of June. Further details as soon as we can agree on a timeslot for the programme.

JS: Okay. What was the most impressive and effective usage of an ePortfolio you came across so far? Could you please specify your experience?

GA: It’s a hard question. Most impressive and effective use of an ePortfolio. (…) I’ve seen many different people using ePortfolios in many different ways. But of course, it really depends on how you defining ePortfolios in those terms. I think probably the most impressive I’ve seen in formal education was a vocational college in northwest of England where they were using ePortfolios on an auto-mechanics course. And one module on this course they were making a custom car, and they were getting kids who probably haven’t got lots of qualifications really recording their experiences as they went of the work they were doing and reflecting on the work they were doing, so that greatly impressed me.

JS: Okay. So ehm. The second question will be like focal topic for definition and classification of ePortfolios: How do you define ePortfolios and which significant characteristics do ePortfolios have compared to conventional portfolios?

GA: Well firstly and obviously what distinguishes an ePortfolio from an ordinary portfolio is the use of some kind of electronic interfaces, some kind of electronic media. I’d have to say as well I’d say that ePortfolio can be very much mixed, but pretty obviously the use of electronic media gives us a whole new series of capabilities. But after that the definition starts to break down a bit: and I think you can see vaguely three or four different ways in which ePortfolios had been developed and been used. Unfortunately, the predominant thing comes from they’re using higher education and especially from the USA, where they’d been very much used as an assessment vehicle allowing students to record a progress towards preset learning outcomes. Now I don’t think that’s helpful because the students are tended to see them as a part of an assessment regime and in many cases higher education students are already over assessed. And it’s very much limited, the potential of what is seen as legitimate learning. You’ve had another tendency in the UK to see them as a vehicle for planning learning, PDP-processes, which is another way to look at them. Or you’ve got another tendency, which is more of what I favour, which is to see ePortfolios as a way of recording all your learning including informal learning. And of course there is a strand in the literature certainly in the research of ePortfolios which sees ePortfolios as a powerful vehicle or potentially powerful vehicle for reflection on learning. Though I have to say that how that process of reflection is scaffolded and undertaken is less well researched or less well understood and perhaps just a matter of recording, so you got a powerful point about recording learning, assessing learning, reflecting on learning, etcetera, etcetera many different processes and how ePortfolios been used and what they’d been used for, different processes had been emphasized by different people. And to some extend, and this is quite important, some of those processes had been hard coded in ePortfolio-software and series of assumptions made and those assumptions aren’t always made transparent by the people who have developed the ePortfolio applications.

JS: Okay. So the next question would be: Would you rather consider ePortfolios as a loosely composed tool construct or as a specific method used in educational context? Or do you even have a complete different point of view?

GA: Hmm, now I mean, I think that ePortfolios shouldn’t be pedagogical or learning concept first, that’s the key point. For me, it’s the process of recording and reflecting on learning. It is a key essential aspect of it. Now of course if we are talking about an ePortfolio, it assumes that we have some form of tools.
I would certainly prefer probably to see at it as series of loosely coupled tools and you’re moving in a direction of a personal learning environment to that point. But of course it is also possible to provide two steps of some sort of greater or lesser degree of integration to support that process. The key for me is that the tool, I suppose, is about the pedagogically.. the pedagogic concept and the tool concept reasonably in line with each other, the tools do support the pedagogic concept they are putting forward behind the ePortfolio and I’m not sure that is always so. I mean there are series of further technical considerations, particularly the fact that the youth should be able to move that data and keep that data with them. So I see ePortfolio more in a livelong learning context, learn a particular application to support a particular course at a particular time. I think an ePortfolio should be developed over period of time and that implies certain technological approaches, but certainly implies a pedagogical approach.

JS: Okay. So the next question goes into personal learning environments which you already said: To what extent one should distinguish ePortfolios from Personal Learning Environments? What do you think?

GA: I think they are on a continuum to be honest. I mean it very much depends on what definition you take of an ePortfolio. I mean I have a definition which very much emphasizes the learning which takes place in all environments and that includes learning at home, learning in workplaces whether it is formal learning in courses. And I have a definition which very much includes informal as well as formal learning: Now I guess if you to take that definition of an ePortfolio, then it’s fairly close to the idea of personal learning environment. However, very often ePortfolios are been introduced in formal educational context where they’re much more constrained and in that way are quite a long way from a personal learning environment. I mean there is also a technological issue because one of the ideas is a technical behind the personal learning environment is that the learner should be able to very much use the tools they want to and configure those tools to sort their own learning. And there’s a pedagogical level that learners should be very much in control of that learning, so I suppose it depends how much are learners in control of their environment, of their learning, how much learners are able to configure and develop their own learning environment. I mean, I would say one more thing, I think, that we should recognize the ability to shape and develop our learning environment, a competence as an outcome itself which often isn’t at moment and we shouldn’t detached that from what is being learned. I think the process of learning, the process of shaping the learning environment is part of learning and should be recognized as such.

JS: Okay. Now to the next focal topic which would be “handling of ePortfolios”: How can ePortfolios help people with less self-confidence to improve in self-expression?

GA: [laughs] It’s an interesting question, isn’t it!? I mean one of the first points you saying less confidence. And less confidence can exist in many ways. I think one of the things is that ePortfolios can be quite personal, I think that ePortfolios can encourage people to recognize all the different learning and all the different competence they’re undertaking. Not just the learning which is taking place for courses, all of us learn to some extend however all through our lives. The big problem is a lot of that learning isn’t been recognized at that moment. So my first answer is, ePortfolios can help through allowing us to people to recognize their own learning and to put forward that learning as an achievement and much of the learning that people undertake at the moment isn’t been recognized. The second answer I think is that we have at the moment an official education system which is excessively text-based. Whereas actually in our use of media in the society we’re moving very much away of text and towards visual means of expression, particularly through the use of electronic cameras where people are taking millions and millions of photos and increasingly through video. So I think one of the things that ePortfolios potentially can do is encourage those people and enable those people who are not so confident in a text- form to present their achievements, to present their learning’s in multimedia and in different visual forms of expression.

JS: Okay. In which way do ePortfolios support processes of reflection? You might already answered a bit of that.

GA: Yeah, I think that’s an extremely tricky question because if you read any of the text or go and listen to any of the speakers about ePortfolios. They are all say: “And reflection is really important and the next subject.” No one really wants to talk too much about it because no one is very confident about how that reflection process can be scaffolded. I think that there are a series of, if we like, competences which can help in reflection and I think we can actually help learners to explore those competences. It’s things like, very simple things, like how to express an opinion, how to listen to the opinions of others, how to ask a question, how to criticize some construct of the criticize some one else’s opinion, how to contribute to a group discussion etcetera, etcetera, so it’s a whole series of different, if we like, micro or smaller exercises which we do which help in that reflection process. And I think in scaffold pedagogically and technically support those processes within an ePortfolio. By far the two most important, I think, is encouraging people to put forward their own opinion which is very different from sighting an essay or something like that [laughs], it’s forming and constructing an opinion and replying to the opinions of others, to the ideas of others, reading others ideas. In that way, I think, blogging is extremely powerful and even possibly … to explore by the use of micro blogging, things like Twitter, and helping to develop that reflective ability. So I think they are potentially powerful, but then I think that those who are supporting teachers or those who are supporting the development of ePortfolios have got to think about processes which are involved in reflection. I have to some extend scaffold and support those processes.

JS: Okay. What did you say; I didn’t get the thing “Things like Twitter”? What was it?

GA: Yes, Twitter is an interesting one, Twitter is probably the technical phenomenon of 2008 and it’s a micro blogging service. It is really a bit strange. You sign up for it and you choose who you want to follow and people can choose if they want to follow you and it allows posts of every blogger, but the maximum number of characters is 140, which is based on the maximum number of characters you can use in a mobile phone message and it has become very successful, some people don’t like, as I say, get it or you don’t get it. And it’s very interesting because you have a lot of opinions and a lot of ideas almost if you’re following enough people coming as a stream of people. It’s potentially interesting because in choosing who to follow and so you’re getting other people’s ideas and you’ll be exposed to other people’s ideas and you have potential to reply to those ideas in a very quick, light-weight format. If anyone wants to try it, you can always follow me; my twitter-name is grahamattwell.

JS: Ah, okay. I will have a look for it.

GA: Yes, you will have fun with it!

JS: Okay, the next question: Which goals can be reached with ePortfolios? How far should an ePortfolio be focused on a specific aim or should all ePortfolios be focused on a specific aim? Keyword: blogs.

GA: Hmm, ehm, hmm, I think learning is focused on a specific aim, isn’t it? So if I were saying an ePortfolio is something around learning, then of course it will be focused on a specific aim. Of course that aim will change over time, we want to learn changes over time. I mean the key issue, I suppose, is how you negotiate and determine what, I mean I don’t think it is focused on a specific aim, but what aims you have for your learning at any particular period. How that process undertaken and how that process is recorded in an ePortfolio. So yeah I think aims are important for learning. I think that personal aims they may at particular time’s co-inside with course aims, but I essentially think that the key to them is that those aims are learner-driven, not institutionally-driven. So yes it should be focused around aims, but those aims should be determined by the learner and in fact have to be in many ways determined by the learner and if those learners are engaged in some kind of institutionally based learning process then I think that the aims need to be negotiated with tutors, facilitators, co-learners, whoever else is involved in
the learning process.

JS: Okay. What are important aspects when choosing an ePortfolio-software?
GA: Hmm, the important thing is that you know why you want to use an ePortfolio. And you gotta think that very carefully, what’s the point of the ePortfolio, why you are introducing an ePortfolio or how do the learning takes place, what kind of learning and then ones you’ve decided that then you can start thinking about what software will support those learning ideas, those pedagogical approaches, those learning goal.
But start with what you wanted to do, then return to technology….. So it’s in some proprietary format which we should never gonna get there out again, it’s also some usability questions I guess in it, because you do want ePortfolios to be recently easy to use and software should be stable. One other points I am saying about this is that they are, as I said before I think, is some of the ePortfolio applications tend to hard code into the way they work.
GA: Pedagogical assumptions, particularly, to name some names here, the OSPI -Open Source ePortfolio Initiative software. And Mahara which I’ve got a little time for as an application. The open-source ePortfolio software tends to make an assumption about who the student is and they tend to assume they are university students and they tend to assume that they are doing a university course in the traditional way. And while certainly with Mahara you can get around that  with OSPI the last time I looked at it, it was quite hard to get around that. You actually had to go into the Java code and change things in Java to build out those assumptions. And unless you’ve got a handy Java programmer sitting next to you that is not an easy business [laughs].
JS: How important is the presentation of personal skills like a CV, served projects in an ePortfolio?
GA: (…) How important is a CV? Well it depends for what you need a CV? If the user needs a CV, then it is important that they are able to develop a CV and then I suppose you can talk about two things then, don’t you? You can talk about how much an ePortfolio helps them in developing a CV. And you can then say well, you could do a CV outside the PC ePortfolio software, you can do it inside. A European Union funded project has actually produced a piece of plug-in-software which supports one, two, three major software systems which is linked to a PDF-server in Thessaloniki. And that enables construction of an online CV. This is got the pluses and minuses to that. I mean it is quite a good system for constructing CVs. Interface design, least something to desired, but that will improve. But as a plug-in it has this little system’s integration in a CV. So, I mean I’m neutral towards that if you are talking with 14 year old kids probably they don’t need a CV at the moment. So it just depends where you are with it. The issue is, I suppose, can an ePortfolio application be integrated into CV development. I don’t agree it really can a CV, a CV is a CV. (…)
Just add one more thing to CVs: In my view a CV is a particular representation of our learning and competences, right? And it’s one form amongst others. I mean, it’s a form which is particularly common used at the moment. My feeling is that CVs don’t really tell us an awful lot about what people can do.
And as a port.. if and as portfolios become more popular, in one form or another, people will move on to more expressive ways of being able to demonstrate their abilities than a CV, but it is still important it’s still most widely used. And it’s not a particularly expressive format in terms of showing what we can do.

JS: But my, what I what I’m interested in: How you would see a CV presented in an ePortfolio? (…) Do you think it is a good way to present it in an ePortfolio?

GA: I’m neutral about that Janine, to be honest. Ehm [thinks] (…) I, I think it is useful if there are tools to help students present CVs and we maybe talking a little across purposes here. There is the form or formats of CV which of course in multiple ones, but the European Union has produced standardized one. And I think it is useful that people can do that. But I think much more important is what I call presentation. And I’m doing a bit of work on this. And I think that what we should be able to do is take our ePortfolio and make multiple presentations of ourselves coming out on our work, coming out to that ePortfolio. Because I think it’s not just the matter of one format. A different time, say we’re applying for university or saying we’re applying for a job we want different presentations. I mean, for people applying for jobs you never make the same job application twice, you change how you present yourself according to what the job is. So, I think the ability is the flexibility to take all your work within your ePortfolio and to present that work in attractive formats which can be a selected according to what  we wanna do. No, I don’t think that any of the ePortfolio software that I have seen is very good at that at the moment. We’re looking at trying to develop something which can do this – that this should be a canvas if we could see the screen as a canvas. And it should be able to drag things on that canvas and that should support multimedia as well. And that you should be able to graphically show a picture of yourself which is got embedded, text documents embedded, blog comments embedded, videos embedded, pictures in that canvas as a mean to making that presentation. And we hope we’ll build a beta of that application this year within the next three or four months. But I mean, that’s not very easy. So, it depends what  you mean by a CV. But if you mean a CV as a representation or what I call presentation. Yes, I think it’s very important but I don’t think that ePortfolio software applications, at the moment, generally support that.

GA: Yeah. I mean, I think, I think what you’re saying here is differences between an ePortfolio as a standalone thing and how much sharing goes on. I mean in one school I’ve done some work with which had some wonderful being done by kids on developing their ePortfolios. And the ePortfolio software was very nice and allowed them a high degree of customization of the appearance which is very important for kids. And supported a lot of multimedia. But the problem was it is standalone software. So, the only way they could really get any feedback on their work as community learners was to get someone to come and sit beside them and look at it. And of course, that’s quite difficult to do. So, I’m strongly of the opinion that the ability to share your work is very important and the ability to represent a community of learners in some form within an ePortfolio. And in the ePortfolio application which I’m being developing we have an area called community central which shows an aggregation of all the activity between that community if they choose to ’share it’. Now I say the defaults settings on ePortfolio are set to private.
So, the default setting is private unless you choose that you want to share it. And in fact that is in link with UK government guidelines on using ePortfolio with school kids. (…) But I think the community aspect through commenting so one aspect of it is comment, is that aggregation so you can see all the community. And it’s actually reflecting and commenting on other peoples posts and that is both vital process of learning. But it’s also vital process of community development and community emergence. (…)
JS: Okay, thank you. Ehm.. the next questions will be about application areas of ePortfolios. So, the first question on it: Could you please imagine yourself advising a certain company which does not use ePortfolio solutions so far. How would you convince the decision makers of the utilization?
(…)

GA: Well, since I’ve just been doing that last week [laughs] I suppose we could try and say what I said to them. I said to them that actually within their organization I was advising them to use ePortfolios for, let’s make this example as a concrete, shall we? Cause we talking a lot of abstractions sometimes. I tell you a little about the company: The company is a large careers advice organization. It advises kids between the age of twelve and nineteen about their future careers. And they employ about three hundred people. It’s office skilled work and this work actually requires … induction to understand the aims of organizations, the ethos of the organization, the procedures of the organization etc. So they take on new employees about three or four times a year. And what we’ve talked about them is using the ePortfolios to support the professional development of those new employees. And what we said is that it would be much more effective both in allowing them to support each other, allowing them to reflect their own learning, to built up their own resources. And hopefully, this should allow them to keep to continue on with the ePortfolio when they finish their induction. And we see that as a vital part of knowledge development and knowledge exchange within the organisation. And within large organizations like that communication is sometimes extremely difficult and knowledge development can be a little bit haphazard. So, we see it very much both supporting the individual learning of the employees in the organization but also of developing organisational learning, organisational knowledge exchange within the organisation at the same time. And in terms of how we would advise them, we’re saying well let’s start with the new employees coming in and let’s built it up from that and so we’ll see how that process runs. (…)

JS: Okay (…). What kind of business models of ePortfolios are existing so far? (…)

GA: Ja, ok. Ehm (…) there’s three models I think of this, this multitude models which have been used. Let’s see we can try and make this very concrete again. Let’s takes Wales which is the part of the United Kingdom, westerly part. There’s a model there where the government through a government supported agency the careers service of this is making an ePortfolio available for everyone with a Welsh address through a server application, online application. Now in that case, it’s the side of the education funded and their contracting very good software developers from London to support that. So, that’s one number one: public service development. There is a second model where you’ve got various private sector providers producing proprietary software for ePortfolios and there’s two main business models going there I think: One is to license the software to them at a blog fee or as many students as they want essentially selling them the software, usually with some sort of maintenance contract.
Another model is that you buy the software per user per year. That’s the model in use by the PebblePad ePortfolio providers which in turn actually are university spin out from the University of Wolverhampton.
Then there’s the fourth model which is the one we work under which is open source. And these aren’t completely discrete models because if you work with open source you can do those thinks. The model we’re working on is that we had various users want our software want particular configurations of our software. And they pay us to develop and make the software do what they want what they wanted to do and look like.  But the software remains open source and remains free to use for anyone else. You got another open source model which is OSPI. OSPI, the Open Source Portfolio Initiative, is now part of the Sakai open source virtual learning environment and in that case Sakai I think is funded by a trust fund which is owned by a series of universities which have put money in to support the Sakai and OSPI process. So you got very, very varied models and business models for ePortfolio development.
JS: Okay, thank you. What do you think, when is an application with an ePortfolio reasonable? For which job or in which industry is it useful and are there any exceptions where it won’t work or will be accepted.. where it won’t be accepted? (…)

GA: Mmh.. it’s an interesting question.. ehm.. my feeling is that we’ve tended to introduce ePortfolios with the group who lead it, need it least which is the is university students who already have a lot of face-to-face learning contact, who already have quite intensive social relations and already have endless means and requirements through recording their learning. I think potentially the greatest use of ePortfolios lies with work based learners, be those on initial training courses for example an apprenticeship, where I think it could be really effective. Or it could be effective for undertakingprofessional development. I also think that if we’ve tended to provide access to ePortfolios for the people who are enrolled on formal education programmes, what’s the people might benefit most from ePortfolios are those people who aren’t enrolled on formal education programmes so I think we’ve got that wrong, in terms particularly industries on that mmmh.. interesting. I don’t think there are any which is not appropriate to. But I suppose you could say that for those people doing programmes where the ability to directly demonstrate what you’re doing in a physical sense is particularly important perhaps ePortfolio are more of a problem because necessarily there are electronic. But even there I’m … that the potential of video through mobile devices makes it offers at new ideas. I do think that moving ePortolios onto mobile devices encouraging the integration features like, like micro blogging will make ePortfolios, will give a whole dimension to usability application of ePortfolios. So, I’m very interested, for instance, in seeing an ePortfolio use in an apprenticeship setting and allowing the access at least in work through mobile devices to to that ePortfolio. And I think that that will be a great new step forward. (…)

JS: Okay, ehm.. To what extend are tools for professional networking like LinkedIn or XING capable to become cross-linked ePortfolio solutions? What do you think? (…)

GA: Yeah [thinks]. (…) I think LinkedIn is interesting certainly and to some extend it is an ePortfolio. I particularly don’t like LinkedIn but I don’t know why I don’t like it. Ehm.. yes I mean I think I think they can be useful, I think my issue is how much they focus on learning and on reflecting on learning. And if you take LinkedIn, LinkedIn is very much a thing which encourages you to say I can do this, I have done this. These are my competences, these are what other people say that I’m great at doing this. LinkedIn isn’t really an application which encourages you to talk about what you’re learning, what you’re trying to learn. Obviously this is a weakness, I mean LinkedIn is rather an extended curriculum vitae rather than in my view a learning ePortfolio.
GA: But fairly obviously, yeah, in any piece where people are talking about learning and recalling the learning and reflecting on their learning, be that Facebook or Myspace or LinkedIn or your German equivalent networks for all these social software applications, there is an aspect of it. And the key issue there, I think, is the portability again and the compatibility. One of the things which I dislike most about applications like, say Facebook, is that they own your data, you sign up explicitly that they own your data. And if you try to get your data out of there, their relation is to ban you from the system – do not the mistake to subscribe -you’re not supposed to, it’s against the rules. So, I think that the big issue probably is data ownership at that point. I think, it’s very important that ePortfolios are owned, both, in a pedagogic sense and in a data sense, by the learner. And the rules and regulations of most of the social networks, in terms of conditions, say that they own your data, and you’re not to do any hacking into the systems to trying to get your data back out, and I think that’s a very big problem.

JS: Okay. Why and in what respect would you.. would it be beneficial -sorry. Once again. Why and in what respect would it be beneficial for pupils to use and handle ePortfolios in school early on? So like in early ages..

GA: I didn’t catch the first part of the question, but I think I know what you said. Yeah, I think that’s very important, I mean, we’re using.. in a school I worked in North England, they were starting ePortfolios at the age of -I think about -eight. And we are using ePortfolios in the southeast of England like in January, with some more groups, we were starting in the age of fifteen. I mean, look, kids today are used to using social network applications, they’re used to using software, the internet is everyday part of their lives, so I have seen no reason why we shouldn’t be helping them and faciliating them to use software applications to support their learning from that age. So I’m in favour of e-learning ePortfolios for lifelong learning, and that includes younger kids as well as older people.
JS: Okay. How can it be beneficial in their learning progress for them? So that they start early..
GA: How can it be beneficial? Because it supports them in social forms of learning. It supports them in looking at all their learning, not just the school based learning. It supports them especially in learning to reflect on their learning and that recording on learning, but essentially the reflection on their learning and, I think, critically, within the context of our present education system. ePortfolios can support a variety of different media and we haven’t been very good in using that multimedia up to now. And I suppose another quite important thing for me is working with kids.. in ePortfolios, we can teach teach them about data protection, about data security, about the safety, but even more important, we’re starting them exploring the process of forming their own digital identities. And digital identities is going to be extremely important in the future, we will all have, to greater or less extent digital identity, and the kids ought to reflecting on what their digital identity is, and they can shape their own digital identity, so I think, the earlier we start looking at these questions, the better. And I think that the issues are issues which should being addressed to the education systems and all too often aren’t to being addressed at the moment.
JS. Okay. What are the demands on university didactics regarding a potential ePortfolio implementation?
GA: Njah, I think they’re vast. Ehm. If you really want to move towards ePortfolios and particularly towards personal learning environments, universities have to realise that they are not the source of all knowledge, that there are a many, many different sources of knowledge out there now, especially through the web, we can access all points of experts, we can access peer-groups, we can access learning in many different forms, and universities are only one of them. And then I think the big challenge is for
them, is to accept that the students will learn from many different sources, and we should be allowing the students to express their learning from all those sources. The second demand is to understand that an ePortfolio is owned by the learner, not owned by the institution, not owned by the university. And so we have to start reflecting that in the way we approach the development and delivery of education and training.

The third thing is, that, for me, ePortfolios are most.. err.. powerful, when they’re used in reflective process. So, the issue of universities is: are you encouraging your students to reflect on learning? Are you encouraging peer-group learning? Are you encouraging social forms of learning? Or are you running a system where you stand up while the professors come in and stand up in the front and deliver a lecture and then go again. So, of course, there are varied university practices towards the very good to the very bad, but in general, I think that the ways we learn today using the internet are bypassing universities, and universities are in danger of making themselves become irrelevant to the real learning processes which go on in our society. So, I think, universities have got to do some hard thinking, about what their mission is, what their purpose is, and about all, what didactic approaches they are making to learning.

JS. Ok, thank you. What kind of additional scenarios for the utilisation of ePortfolios do you see in the future, facing constantly growing? (…)
GA: Okay, uhm, I think, it’s once more related to my last answer. The technical and creative possibilities, of course, the creative and technical possibilities of web 2.0 and social software for learning. Than we have to look at the way, the generations which are coming into university today, are using those creative and technical possibility, and they can do expect a very different things of education. So, I think, it’s very big pressures
on the university, not just in terms of technologies they provide, but in terms of their pedagogic and didactic approaches to learning. And therefore, I think, there is a pressure on universities to respond to that. I think that, probably, most universities will stop fighting ePortfolios. I think that, one of the issues, again, is going to be: is this just an ePortfolio supported particular course, is this an ePortfolio supports a group of courses, or is it an ePortfolio that supports the learning which is taking place when that student’s at university. Then, I think, one of the big issues for university: who provides the ePortfolio? Is the university selling this providing ePortfolio, how can we assure that learners themselves can import the data from perhaps an ePortfolio got from school, and, critically, how can ePortfolio be supported in the future. Is the data gonna be transferable out, or are the universities gonna commit themselves to support an ePortfolio after the students left the university, and they probably can afford to do that. And so this whole series of big big issues which universities have do examine in
that respect, so I don’t really give you scenarios, but I’d say there’s issues which have to be addressed.

JS: What meaning would you give a standardisation of ePortfolios? (…) Like a standard-CV and stuff.

GA: Hm, the driving for this – right. Let’s use the word standardisation -because it means quite different- I don’t think, we’re moving towards standardisation, but I think the big question is software standards. Which means that we can transfer data from one ePortfolio into another ePortfolio. We do have the IEEE-LMS, which is the education standard working group, going on ePortfolios, which we have to three different standards for ePortfolios. I’d have to say, most of that standards are not particularly helpful, not particularly constructive at the moment, and so we are looking at developing some standard which will allow that data-exchange, but I have to say, its proving quite difficult, not that much from the technical viewpoint, but it’s proved difficult to agree on educational approaches to what should be contained in an ePortfolio, and how that data can be represented as standard. If you want to find more about that, you should look
on the CETIS-website, which is C-E-T-I-S, which is the Center of Educational Technologies Standards in the UK, and they’re heavily involved in that work, I think it’s www.cetis.ac.uk -and it’s quite a lot of information on now, but I think, it’s very limited. I think, in the future, it will be small things like CVs where we will make progress, rather than on the bigger issue of trying to get standards for ePortfolios as a whole. So I think, we should look at these smaller things, and we should look at standards like RSS, which are effective standards which actually are probably more powerful in allowing standards to develop than the very large educational standards which in many cases are very difficult to work with.

JS: Okay, so this question is a bit you already mentioned: the Welsh Government is having the career- thingy, and as you are from Wales, I would be interested in your opinion on that, how you feel about this, that the Welsh Government supplies every person who has a residence in Wales with the possibility to run an ePortfolio -do you think it’s a governmental challenge?

GA: Yes. I think it’s an extremely good initiative. I mean, one reason they have been able to do it, its quite interesting how it’s been done, and it’s been done for the career service. Now: first of all, in contrast, to say, Germany, the career service is relatively strong in the UK, as organised as part of education, but as a separate service it’s not part of the schools, for instance, a bit complex how it works. Now, in England, it’s been separated out in separate career companies covering local areas. Wales, because it has different structure to the education system and education is run by the Welsh Assembly Government, not by the English or the UK Government, they decided not to do that.
And Wales has a national career service, which means has it has far more resources. Now I think that resources issue is particularly important, because if we take a country like Germany, which is renowned for its technology and technology implementations, progressing educational software has been quite slow, and that’s because, in my view, the “Lander”-governments each have responsibility and autonomy for that development, and it’s been a failure to develop a sufficient collaboration and founding for that collaboration across the “Lander”.
So I think it’s an initiative. However, as a whole, I think the Wales initiative is very good. I think it’s especially good, because, they say, even if you are not in education, you’re entitled to have an ePortfolio.

My worries are always data privacy and data security and how to insure that the governments or government agencies providing ePortfolios, than, that data does remain owned by the learner, and the … on how governments can access and use that data. And that’s a constant issue which is a solid issue, and one that we have not resolved at the moment.
JS: Okay, so we are through. I want to thank you, it was a pleasure. Thank you very much!

Over the next few days I will be posting details of a whole series of different events. First up, here is the spring Open Seminar series being organised by the JISC Evolve network in collaboration with the German Educamp Network who are staging a series of conferences around Web2.0 social software and elearning. is organising the third EduCamp in Germany.

Emerging Sounds of the Bazaar Live

26 January 1900 CET, 1800 UK time – Dragons Den special – Learning and Multi user Virtual Environments

23 February 1900 CET, 1800 UK time – The reality of communities

March 2009 – time and date ot be announced – LIVE broadcast from JISC Emerge conference.

You can listen live to all the programmes by going to http://tinyurl.com/6df6ar in your web browser. This will open the live stream in your MP3 player of choice.

Emerging Mondays Seminars

The open online seminars will take place on the Elluminate platform. We will announce the address for the events shortly, together with the final line line up of presenters. Each seminar will feature tow short introductions with most time being given over to discussion.

PLEs and E-Portfolios – is this the future of education?
January, 19th 2009, 1900 CET, 1800 UK time. Click here for access to Elluminate.
Speakers: Graham Attwell, Pontydysgu
Moderators: Thomas Bernhardt and Marcel Kirchner

• What does a PLE look like?
• What is PLE? A technical concept or a pedagogic method?
• How can we use e-Portfolios and PLEs in practice?What is the difference between a PLE and an E-Portfolio?
• Is the PLE the future of education?

Careers and the Internet – how does Web 2.0 impact on our Online Reputation and Identity
February, 16th 2009 – 1900 CET, 1800 UK time. Click here for access to Elluminate.
Speakers: Steven Warburton, Kings College, Eduserve funded Rhizomes project
Moderators: Cristina Costa and Marcel Kirchner

• How can we use E-Portfolios and other tools for applying for jobs and building identities
• The risks and opportunities in developing a web identity
• Privacy 2.0

Enterprise 2.0 – the potential of Social Software for learning in enterprises
March, 16th 2009 – 1900 CET, 1800 UK time. Click here for access to Elluminate.
Speakers: Timothy Hall, University of Limerick, Ireland
Moderators: Cristina Costa and Steffen Büffel

• How is social software being used for learning in enterprises
• Can social software support communities of practice
• How can social software support informal learning

Edupunk – Free the educational system
April, 6th 2009 1900 CET, 1800 UK time
Speakers: Dr. Martin Ebner and Steven Wheeler, University of Plymouth
Moderators: Thomas Bernhardt, Marcel Kirchner and Cristina Costa

• Edupunk – hype or reality
• Does e-teaching need a pedagogical apprenticeship?
• Why and how far students should be involved in the developing process of courses?

ThoughtFest 09

5-6 March, Salford, Manchester, UK
Thought Fest is a two-day event being organized by Pontydysgu with the support of the JISC Evolve network and
the European Mature-IP project.

The event will bring together researchers in Technology Enhanced Learning in an open forum to debate the current issues surrounding educational technologies and discuss how and where research impacts on practice and where practice drives research.

Whilst there will be keynotes by Graham Attwell and Steven Warburton, Thought Fest is a user driven workshop and we welcome ideas for sessions, demontsrations activities. Accomodation and food for free – you juts have to pay for your travel.

More details here or sign up on this page.

Educamp
April 17th – 19th
Venue: Ilmenau, Thuringia, Germnay
What is the EduCamp all about?
The EduCamp-Network (http://educamp.mixxt.de/) is organising the third EduCamp in Germany. This will also be the first international EduCamp. The event will take place from the 17th to the 19th of April, 2009 in Ilmenau, Thuringia. Details of previous EduCamps can be found at http://educamp.mixxt.de.

There will be some initial structure for the programme, but after the panel discussion on Friday, the EduCamp will be organized as a barcamp. Sessions and workshops will be organised by participants at the beginning of the event. On Sunday the topic under discussion is “EduOpenSpace” (OpenSpace?). Participants will form clusters to discuss some of the related topics.

Topics
The issue of how we can use social software, such as weblogs, podcasts, wikis, micro-blogging, VoIP in education in schools, universities and companies is a subject attracting much interest. Developing connections to other people and joining learning networks is central to the Information society. Mulitple knowledge resources all access to the exchange of experiences and the construction of knowledge.

The last EduCamps meeting discussed ‘Teaching and Learning 2.0′. This meeting will continue those discussions.

EduCamp is an open event and everyone interested in welcome to attend. It will take place at the Humboldtbau at the Technical University of Ilmenau.

The main topics for the EduCamp are Corporate Learning 2.0 and e-learning in schools or universities. Other topics include the use of E-Portfolios, Digital games and virtual worlds in education. In line with the idea of barcamp, everyone is invited to propose their own topics for discussion.

Soundpainted with podsafe music from http://www.Jamendo.com.”

This was recorded on a beautiful summers day on the terrace of St Virgil’s conference centre in Salzburg at the EdMedia2008 Conference. To be honest, its chats like this outside the official programme which make conferences worth their while.

Once more my thanks to Andreas – and do join us on the terrace and try to imagine the sun.

Sadly I can’t seem to get the stream to play in my blog. But just head on over to Bildung in Dialog to hear this recording.

Here is his latest post:

“Things still seem to be at the confusion stage it terms of what schools ‘must do’ and what learners ‘must have’. It would be a real shame if we were just to go for the minimum when we have the opportunity to harness the technology and media to provide our learner with something that can really help them. To simply provide them with some text based templates to fill-in, is unlikely to inspire them or
support their thinking, development and progression.

At this stage it might be worth sharing some of the experiences that led us to introduce ePortfolios. Ten years ago we were looking for some way for our Year 12 students to evidence the ‘deliver a short presentation’ requirement of the Level 3, Key Skills Communication Unit. We introduced a requirement for all Year 12 students to deliver a formal presentation, to an external panel, about their career plans.

This required them to research their options, discussing them with their Tutors, careers advisors and parents. We built on this over the years and five years ago introduced a 30 minute end of review
interview for all Year 12 students. This interview was originally introduced to provide opportunities for students to evidence Improving Own Learning and Performance, Level 2 Key Skills. We expected, in the
first 2 years, students to bring their Progress File into the interview. The interview was set up as a competency based interview [some questions etc given in http://www.e-me.org.uk/resources/AStudentGuide.pdf].

We wanted to provide students with more appropriate ways to store andpresent evidence of their learning, achievements and planning; we developed and introduced ePortfolios.

We soon recognised that although the ePortfolio itself was really useful, it was the ePortfolio process that was even more valuable.

I came at things from a Personal Development Planning angle and this has influenced my thinking on ePortfolios.

So why have I rambled on?  Simply to encourage people to interpret the‘P’ in ILP, as ‘Process’. It then links in with Assessment For Learning; Development Planning; PLTs and of course, the ePortfolio Process. The ‘P’ as ‘Plan’ can be very easy to produce; very easy for the learner to ‘tick off’ as done; easy for schools to present to others to suggest that learners have done the job, but, the important bit, the process can be easily forgotten.”

Regular readers may remember that Freefolio is a ’social’ eportfolio being developed by Pontydysgu and our partners, Raycom. Freefolio is based on Wordpress MU and includes a serie sof plug ins for gorup management, structured blogging, aggregation and so on. Why a ’social’ e-Portfolio. Becuase our primary aim is to support learning and we see learning as a social process.

the development of Freefolio is currently beings upported by Kent and Medway Connexions service.

This week we demoed the latest release whcih includes numerous improvements over the previous version. These include amongst others:

1. Easier account creation
2. Greatly simplified and redesigned backend user area
3. Fully customisable dashboard
4. Greater user controlled widgets
5. Full multi media integration through media centre
6. Bringing together of all personal data – profile, settings and CV on one tab
7. Provision of many templates for user choice – some of which allow considerable customisation
8. Replacement of spam karma by less intrusive spam filter
9. Greater code modularization allowing easier future updating and customisation.
10. Full integration of structured blogging templates in wordpress ‘write’ section.

We are working on the group functionality and are planning a presentation module plug in.

In the past we have provided access to a demonstration site for those interested in Freefolio. our first site got hacked down by robots registering accounts. We changed the account creation system to block bots, but then encountered probelms with real (well, brainless but human) registering accounts to spam their wares. Weare planning a new demo site with the new release as soon as we have found someone to moderate the site.

In the meantime if you would like to know more just email me.

Why have a fringe? Well my personal take on it – given there is no offical organising committee – is that we want to build on those out of session happenings which always seem the highlight of conferences. And I want – selfishly – a quickk fure consultation with colleagues – on he issues which are bothering me in my work. Hence I have signed up for th e-Portfolio WTF session – see proposed session below. I am increasingly caught between the dilemmas of trying to provide structured ePortfolio spaces whilst learners are usning all kind sof different social software to discuss and presnet their work. I hope to get other peoples ideas on this. And I like the idea of quick fire sessions. And of sessions being participant organised and led. Social software and especially Twitter has great potential for letting us do this.

And I don’t think that the humour on the F-Alt wiki should take away from the serious nature of such discussions. Serious fun is one of our memes at the moment – and one i take seriously . Sessions are being scheduled outside the main conference times – we do no want to take away form thse who are presneting in official paper sessions. So if you are coming to Alt-C – ad are looking for some serious fun, please sign up on the wiki. Better still offfer to moderate or speak at a session.

The line up to date:

• e-Portfolios: WTF?

Facilitator: Josie Fraser
Speakers: Graham Attwell

Facilitator: Scott Wilson
Speakers:

• Second Life: WTF?

Facilitator: Nicola Whitton
Speakers: Scott Wilson

• Edupunk: WTF?

Facilitator: Graham Attwell

Speakers:

• Microblogging WTF?

Facilitator: Su White
Speakers: Josie Fraser

• Not not re-thinking the Digital Divide

but thinking about the digital divide, using gender as a lens

Facilitator: Josie Fraser

Speakers: Frances Bell, Helen Whitehead

“I dropped into a bar last night, well actually I listened in to some folks talking about where they were going to go and I decide to have a look there. I lurked around in a corner for a while, then sat down at the bar and watched. It was a bit strange, the bar did not have a barman, it looked to be a help-yourself establishment. People, who I have to admit did look a bit strange, were helping themselves to some strange things and seemed to enjoy jumping around a lot. They all appeared to know each other and were chatting about some music that was playing in the background. I attempted a bit of chit chat, although my natural reserved stopped me from dancing on the bar. As usual, I very quickly cleared the bar with everyone whizzing off with some feeble excuse about having to build a tower! I wandered a bit and got lost. I ended up in an adult area with a scantily clad Avatar jumping around in front of me and singing. Now that does not often happen to me often, was I dreaming? How could a grown man, who has a thousand and one real interests, find himself wandering around in a virtual world?

During the past two years I have been on quite a steep learning curve. The need, as a partner in the MOSEP project, to collaborate with colleagues from across Europe forced me to master Skype; Net-meeting; Eluminate Live; Media Wiki; blogging; social bookmarking and collaborative writing etc. I became engaged in a number of social networks and got into the habit of following people who had similar interests. I soon realised that it did not really matter if, having contributed something to a discussion, forum or a Blog, you did not receive a response. I realised that the vast majority of people were lurkers and that people were in fact reading what I was writing and occasionally, were using it to help them with their thinking. So there was a reason for me to participate and contribute. I also found that writing things down did in fact help to move my own thinking forward. I began to follow and contribute to communities, setting up a group and most recently experimenting with micro-blogging.

In the process of following the Jisc Emerge http://elgg.jiscemerge.org.uk/ community I ended up in Second Life last night. I teleported to a Bar on the Emerge Island. I had to apply all of my Functional ICT skills to master the Second Life interface, I did not really practice my Functional English skills but I did listen to others demonstrating their skills, with one person showing that she recognised her responsibility to move a discussion forward, attempting to engage me in the discussion by employing a range of techniques. The exploding Harveywallbanger was a new one to me! I listened to people agreeing how they would work as a team; reflecting on their own strengths; developing a shared understanding of what it was that they were going to work together to achieve; reflecting on their personal strengths and weaknesses and how they might contribute to the work of the team; etc. I was watching people, in a virtual world practising and developing their Functional and Personal Learning and Thinking skills. Had I managed to keep up with them, I am sure that I would have witnessed more as they built the Tower, although I suspect that they went on to a disco – ‘magic dance ball’?

I am beginning to see more and more potential in these environments for learning – but a bit like Twitter I am overcapacity!

“1. Do you know of any interoperability standards for e-portfolios /personal learning environments- I have trawled Pontydysgu, IMS and JISC and EIfEL with no success.

2. in Europe, are there any successful multi country eportfolio projects in any discipline/area?”

There are standards including UK-LEAP. But are any of the standards really useful? Should we focus on interoperability and associated standards for exporting amd importing ePortfolio data, rather than the ‘big’ educational standards.

As for the second question – can anyone help?