e-Portfolios @ UBC – Archive of Projects

Thanks to Bjorn Thomson for providing his testimonial and thoughts on the e-Portfolio pilot project.

What worked:

The main thing that has worked is that people are using it. A technology is successful if people don’t have to be coerced into using it, if once they are introduced to it, they are motivated to explore it on their own and even take it into new, emergent forms. And indeed, I have seen people using e-Portfolios in any number of ways to solve any number of problems. The main thing that has worked is that people are finding it achieves something useful, whether it is encouraging them to reflect, helping them get students to think about their own career arc, or helping people gather evidence to present to a promotion committee or to find a job. In the projects I’ve been involved with, many people have been excited to go off and start their own e-Portfolio. Not everyone is sold, but for those who are, the e-Portfolio is an important and stimulating component of their learning.

The challenges:

The challenge of the e-Portfolio projects has partly to do with its newness. We are often learning how to do things (and how not to) along with the participants, which is useful for us, but sometimes leaves them with important questions unanswered. For example, we still lack a compelling, systematic method of training people to do reflection well, or a rich history of e-Portfolio development to draw upon. So sometimes, we find that students are ‘reflecting’ without achieving anything more than description. Scaffolding this process for students is a necessary step and a key challenge; it needs to be easier for students to know what we expect of them, and for teachers to know how to achieve the desired objectives. We still aren’t sure whether it is e-Portfolios that are affecting student learning, or in what ways. What are the implications of using e-Portfolios in the classroom? I think we’re still learning the answer to that.

Lessons learned:

What I learned from my involvement in e-Portfolio projects was:

• The participants know best what they need; any planning should start with their needs, and needs assessments are essential.
• The simpler the e-Portfolio is and the less ‘technology’ people need to contend with, the better. People have widely disparate levels of experience with technology, and the technology shouldn’t get in the way of people’s ideas or creativity; it should enhance them.
• Clear objectives and expected outcomes are essential. Participants need to know what is expected of them and why. The outcomes also need to be perceived as useful to participants’ learning.
• Summative and formative evaluation is critical.
• Examples help people to get the ideas; show people what e-Portfolios look like, and they will usually get the idea (and do something new with it).
• Sharing can be healthy – as long as students are comfortable with sharing, having them see each other’s e-Portfolios can be advantageous, they often get ideas for their own, and are competitively spurred to ‘one-up’ each other. This competition can be healthy!