Through the Looking Glass – UBC’s e-Portfolio Conference

Wow! What a great day we had on Nov 19th! Judging by the number of people who stayed late on a Friday to ask more and more questions of our student panelists, I’d say we had a successful and thought-provoking day.

All presentation slides are now available on the website for those who want to re-visit the day and reflect on what was covered. Video clips of the talks and panels will also be made available in the future.

Here’s my brief summary of the day…

The Morning…
Michelle Lamberson (Director of Learning Technology, UBC) & Beth Hawkes (Co-director, UBC Career Connections) opened the day and set the stage (or should I say lens!) for the rest of the day.

A moving and very reflective keynote was provided by Helen Barrett (UAlaska, Anchorage). She gave a very informative overview of the literature dealing with reflection and brain-based learning. She also focussed on new perspectives on storytelling as reflection on experience to improve learning. The very impressive examples of digital storytelling that she closed her talk with were a highlight.

Karen Belfer, Lynda Eccott, and Cathleen Nicholls, all from UBC, spoke about their experiences with transfer learning and reflection. They examined the issue of reflection and social dialogue practices to support folio thinking and how it helps portfolio owners become more aware of themselves and promotes their ability to transfer knowledge. One example of a student e-portfolio discussed illustrated how e-portfolios help learners build positive attitudes towards learning. This particular student kept a reflective journal for her course while doing an internship in Vancouver’s very poor Downtown Eastside and showed personal growth and deep reflection in writing about her experiences.

Midday
Lunch was combined with networking, poster and laptop demos and feedback centres in the e-Portfolio Cafe. This gave attendees an opportunity to mingle, share success and challenge stories, see the work of some of our UBC e-portfolio pilots and reflect on what they’d heard so far.

The Afternoon…
David Tosh (UEdinburgh), Tracy Penny-Light (UWaterloo) and Helen Chen (Stanford via videoconference) presented on their work on the learning landscape model and student engagement with e-portfolios. This panel was the perfect complement to the student panel that followed. I think they are right on the money with this model! Students will be more motivated to engage in e-portfolios if they are able to have more control over what they can do with them and if they are able to use types of tools they are familiar with…blogs and social networking software like Friendster & Flickr. David Tosh has recently posted a diagram to his ERADC blog that the 3 of them have been working on, with Ben Werdmuller, that details their idea of the learning landscape.

Our final panel of the day, was a student panel. The panel was moderated by Bjorn Thomson, a Master’s of Education student. The student panelists came from diverse departments on campus. Rob Emmerson (Education), Alex Moxin (Science), Martha Kinnear (Pharmaceutical Sciences), and Michelle Chua (Computer Science). The students spoke about their experiences with using e-portfolios in their courses, what they liked, what they didn’t like, what their understanding of reflection is, and their thoughts on how they can be better engaged in the process at university. They also showed examples of their e-portfolios. Judging by the overwhleming number of hands that went up when Bjorn asked the audience if there were any questions, the student voice was a very welcome addition to this conversation.

Traditionally, we end our e-Portfolio Days with a summary from a number of participants. Because of the volume of questions for the student panelists, we had to shorten this part of the day. But, Margot Bell (Student Development, UBC) and GailAnn Rickert (Dean of Academic Advising, Gettsyburg College, Penn) did volunteer to sum up the day. It was interesting to hear the perspectives of two people whose job it is to think about students and services for students at their respective schools. Especially after hearing from our student panelists.

Thank you all for your very valuable contributions to our e-Portfolio Day!