Mahara's Usability: 1. Potential issues

I decided to use the e-portfolio platform, Mahara, for the usability assessment.

In thinking about the kinds of usability issues that might arise, I would imagine the following:
Technical usability: since Mahara is an open source platform, I suspect that technical issues will be well handled and the site will be easily available. Ditto the general level: input from lots of developers ought to make the site relatively navigeable and well ordered.

I suspect any usability issues will kick in at the academic and context specific levels. During H808, I found the concept and practice of the e-portfolio very difficult to grasp, and I suspect trying to make the general and specific use of the e-portfolio clear to users will be tricky. The fact that an eportfolio is such an individual record of achievement, and is used for different purposes (reflection, planning, publishing) means that the platform must offer a lot of scope for individual personalisation of the platform. Until a student has got their head around what it is that they want to achieve with their e-portfolio, the many options might be very confusing.

But this is a good experiment for me, as I hope to incorporate the use of eportfolios into a new programme of mine.

Reflective practice and action?

In the model of situational learning presented by Dealtry (2004) , I find myself involved quite regularly in all four categories of learning.

Situation
		Familiar	Unfamiliar
Learning task	Familiar	A A learning task in an area you know well (low risk)	B A familiar learning task but applying it to a new situation (moderate risk)
	Unfamiliar	C An unfamiliar learning task but in a familiar work situation (moderate risk)	D New learning in a new part of the organisation (high risk)

In my case, Box A represents courses of mine that are popular and well established, which customers request on a regular basis. The learning that takes place on/after these events is driven by feedback from participants, which encourage me to consider making small modifications to the way I facilitate the course. Box B learning takes place when one of these familiar and popular courses is booked by a new client. The preparation needed in this case is to research the new context, including interviewing typical course delegates. This research provides material for reflection, which will be converted into modifications to the way that the course is delivered; content, style, duration, assessment etc. Both Box A and Box B are well established routines in my company. Box C is my company's preferred forum for Product Development. We get feedback from our regular market research that there is a potential demand for a 'new' course. Having conducted our research, we would aim to find an existing client who would be willing to partner us in prototyping the event. This means that the only learning that needs to take place is learning about the impact of the new course. Box D is altogether more risky, and would not be my chosen place of learning. However, in order to make that Box as safe as possible, putting a lot of effort (would that be reflection?) into getting to know the context by researching and interviewing the client's business, invariably gives a new course a better chance of success.

The Clegg et al (2002) model of reflective practice in academics has less obvious application in my practice.

	Action	Reflection
Immediate	A Immediate action that follows workshops, often characterised by an instrumentalist approach to instruction	B Reflection-on-action, most usually by experienced practitioners with relevant and immediate opportunities for reflection
Deferred	C Action following reflection does not happen because there is no immediate opportunity to put anything into practice	D Reflection following action is often prompted by formal assessment processes – this also happens after a period of rumination

Reflection takes place in a number of situations; following an event, to respond to a new client need, to respond to competition in the market place, to create a new dynamic in my own business, as a result of fresh research, reading etc. 

Perhaps because my clients are business people, there is a tendency to value tangible ideas, rather than theoretical ones, and whilst many clients require a report at the end of a course or courses, they would expect a series of action recommendations based on our experience. That seems to me to put these reflections in Clegg et al's Boxes B and D. However, in both cases the reflection would result in action, so the separation of these two activities feels forced in my situation.

One other situtation bears consideration; reflection to stimulate action. In my experience, committing to make a presentation or facilitate a course on an unfamiliar subject is a valuable method of forcing myself (or colleagues) seriously to engage in Deep Learning about a subject, and to integrate it into my existing knowledge base. 

Both of these models (Dealtry, 2004 and Clegg et al, 2002) have reflective journals as a key mechanism through which reflection takes place. In my case, summaries of my learning are made, but rarely purely as a learning journal. Much more typical is that the learning is recorded as part of the report given to a client, or appears when the next proposal for a course of a similar type is written for a new client. This may practice may lack academic rigour, but in my experience, it does inform and support the incorporation of my learning into future projects. This enables me to discover whether my reflections had any validity. However, the weakness of this approach means that the drive towards CPD is left to chance.

In creating my e-portfolio for H808, I hope to experiment with creating new routines around reflection that I can incorporate in my professional career.

References

Clegg, S., Tan, J. and Saeidi, S. (2002) ‘Reflecting or acting? Reflective practice and continuing professional development in higher education’ (online), Reflective Practice, vol. 3, no. 1, pp. 131–46. Available from: http://libezproxy.open.ac.uk/login?url=http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/14623940220129924 (accessed 4th December 2009).
Dealtry, R. (2004) ‘Professional practice: the savvy learner’ (online), Journal of Workplace Learning, vol. 16, no. 1/2, pp. 101–109. Available from: http://libezproxy.open.ac.uk/login?url=http://dx.doi.org/10.1108/13665620410521567 (accessed 3rd December 2009).

My own professional values.

My beliefs:

• When people are able to do work that matters (paid or unpaid) they feel useful members of society and therefore feel good about themselves as human beings
• People doing work that matters make a difference to businesses and organisations enabling them to do well
• As a result, society benefits from the above virtuous circle
• Everyone can improve their personal skills and performance, as long as they are willing to take responsibility for this change
• As a learning professional, my job is not only to help people to learn, but also to help them to see the benefit of learning

My professional values therefore include the following:

1. Maintain and develop my skills as a learning professional in business
2. Take an active interest in the context in which my clients are operating
3. Promote excellence in all of my professional interventions
4. Embrace innovation as a key technique in professional and business development 
5. Provide relevant and useful tools and learning experiences to support clients in their pursuit of excellence
6. Keep up to date with technology so that I can offer enhanced learning experiences for my clients 
7. Contribute to an extended global community through which best pratice and learning can be shared
8. Above all, give great service that clients love;-)

H808 Activity 6.2 Best Practice Examples: 2

Of the four case studies I looked at, the second most interesting was th Carnegie Academy for the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning, (CASTL) Higher Education Program, http://cms.carnegiefoundation.org/gallery_of_tl/supporting_the_process_of_building_and_sharing_knowledge.html
Creating and Nurturing Robust Intellectual Communities

The e-portfolio describes the learning environment in which Carnegie Academy for the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning scholars are able to document and share the progress of their research projects. They describe this workspace as scaffolding for a group of post graduate research students.

Some important principles that would seem to promote and support the learning of these students are:

The Collaborative Workspace serves as an excellent arena for students to showcase their learning. This would be a great example innovation in the design of learning environments.

Much emphasis seems to be given to the use of the snapshot tool. As I understand it, this is a tool which creates a pdf document of an original document or webpage? From the teaching point of view, this seems to be an example of an innovative use of technology to create presentations.

Students are required to give progress reports throughout their project, and this structure must encourage a reflective approach to learning. This could be given as an example of good teaching and learning support.

The fact that each progress report requires the student to respond to a template of open ended and searching questions is an example of an innovation in learning design, which will encourage individual learning and critical thought.

More generally, the posting of these progress reviews in the collaborative workspace creates an environment in which (formal or informal) peer review can thrive. This is an example of the teachers establishing an online community of learners in which learning from other students is potentially as important as learning from traditional academic sources.

Finally, the regular publishing of students research activities also provides the evidence for teachers to assess student progress, and to evaluate the effectiveness of the programme.

Whilst I would not necessarily see this as a stunning example of best e-learning practice, it does show how a period in which students are doing research can be elevated to a group learning experience and would be a neat device that could be added to many programmes, whether or not they were fully delivered online.

Madeleine

H808 Activity 6.2 Best Practice Examples:1

Elizabeth Barkley: From catastrophe to celebration - an analysis of a curricular transformation
This is a compelling case of an improvement in educational performance, that I would like to nominate it as an example of best practice; it is a general education music course in a community college in  Foothill College, Los Altos, California which was heading for disaster back in the mid 1990s. The course was seeing a progressive reduction in admissions which alarmed and discouraged the teaching staff.

The professor, Elizabeth Barkley set about a fundamental redesign of everything about the course; content, design, delivery, assessment and so on. Over a 6 year period, the changes that were introduced transformed participation levels; from a low point of around 45 enrollments per year registration levels increased by 1638% - from 45 enrollments to 782. Assessment of the extent to which deep learning is being achieved was also very positive. Word of mouth from happy students has contributed to the popularity of the course with new student enrollments, the course becoming one of the most popular on the campus.

I have identified best practice examples using several of the characteristics of excellent teaching from NTFS, referenced by Goodyear et al (2001). 

Innovation in Design and Delivery
The new course makes a priority of student engagement with the material. This was done by looking at the learning outcomes that an adult education general music course should achieve, and then linking that back to music genres that would engage the interest to the students. The solution was to focus on the music the five major ethnic groups resident in the USA. The tradition approach in music education of focusing on largely European, classical repertoire was abandoned.

Ability to organise and present material
Students allowed to choose f2f, electronic, or combinations of both for learning. There was immense flexibility in the combinations that students could choose.

Ability to stimulate independent learing and critical thought
Students are encouraged to take ownership of the creation of their own programme of music learning, taking advantage of the modular approach to delivering the curriculum.

Effective and Sympathetic Guidance of Advancement
The aim was for Authentic Assessment using what Barkley calls backward design. This identifies the deep learning outcomes that are required, and then positions a range of activities through which students can achieve this deep learning, and also demonstrate that they have done so for assessment purposes.

Recognised Commitment to Scholarship
The theoretical underpinning of the new course is documented, and a second e-portfolio continues to analyse the development of scholarly thinking around this innovative new course. Students are encouraged to participate in the compilation of this review portfolio. 

Finally, I found the the format and presentation of this portfolio most inspiring, and it has given me many ideas about how to create my own e-portfolio. A combination of video, audio, photographs and graphics surround the text based artefacts most tastefully.

Madeleine

References
Capturing Change A Tale of Two Portfolios             

Elizabeth Barkley

http://web.mac.com/elizabethbarkley/BarkleyPortfolioPortal/Welcome.html 

Goodyear, P., Salmon, G., Spector, J.M., Steeples, C., Tickner, S., (2001) Competences for Online Teaching: A Special Report, ETR&D, Vol 49. No 1. 2001. pp65-72 ISSN 1042-1629

H808 E-Portfolio: Web Tutorial 3 Review

In Sessions 1 and 2, we have focused on explaining the background to our organisation model, Future Shape of the winner, and having the students study it and get used to articulating the main features of the model.


In Session 3, we want to move on to have students start the process of integrating FSW into their existing practice. We decided to prompt this thinking by setting some background reading on how the model connects with other well known management theories, and then to explain three case studies which outline the way that we have integrated the model into our practice. These case studies elicited a number of questions, that were at quite a practical level, and indicated to me that students were putting themselves in the position of using the model and having to make sense of its findings. One contacted me after the Web Tutorial with the following comment:

"This is becoming a lot clearer in my mind and am getting a lot of confidence!"

This seems to be an example of someone discovering how to integrate this new knowledge into their existing knowledge bank.


I remain uncomfortable with medium of the webinar platform, and am not convinced that it is the best for presenting data. And whilst the telephone contact enables us to have discussions and answer questions, it is still an imperfect way of judging the audience reactions to the material. 
However, the benefit of the teleconference is that the community of the programme is beginning to strengthen, and students are showing an obligation to each other to contribute. Being honest, the mindset that is probably the most important to shift is that of the tutors, including myself, whose background is almost entirely face to face training. Becoming comfortable with a style of teaching that relies much more on the learner to make sense of the material is difficult, and may not at the outset feel so personally rewarding, but is essential in the Distance Learning arena.


By the end of this first programme, I aim to be able to map the key learning inputs that are essential for the programme, and find ways of delivering that material through a more suitable medium; podcasts, videocasts, quizzes ...etc. And I would want to identify which are the most important subjects for discussion. Setting up activities that engender the right discussions will be the next challenge.


But all in all, we are managing to have the right conversations, and the confidence our students are developing for the material is most heartening.

My Mental Block around E-Portfolios

The first six weeks of H808 have been a period in which I have felt extremely confused. I have had these same emotions on previous H80X programmes, and I have found that if I can trust the expertise of the Open University's course designers, the fog will eventually clear. Or perhaps to be a bit more theoretical about the description of this process, I will find a way to integrate the new knowledge into my existing knowledge bank.

My confusion has largely been around the use of the e-portfolio. The idea of having an electronic place to store, organise and retrieve pieces of work or pieces of interesting research or information is a straightforward enough idea, particularly in the era of Web 2.0. My confusion has arisen around how an established professional, with many years of experience and insights, and with a multitude of uses for an e-portfolio, would begin to set up and organise one.

On reflection, maybe the root of my problem is that I am not someone who thinks in a linear way. My first degree was in Music, and my Belbin team role is Plant; I have always considered myself to have a more creative than scientific mind. Organising thoughts at a meta level is not my strength, and I am lucky to have a business partner for whom this comes naturally. This may therefore have let me off the hook with this discipline in a work context.

My H808 confusion has arisen because I did not grasp quickly enough that to use tools like My Stuff, de-licious, and Google apps (these latter two highly recommended by H808 colleague Eugene), I must first decide how to sort and store my data. When I went back into My Stuff after 5 weeks of collecting, the tags were chaotic, to say the least.

So, I decided to become intensely practical, and to organise my thoughts around the immediate challenge; H808 activities. With that in mind, I was able to organise the My Stuff tags, which meant renaming a few tags, housekeeping the tags I had set up to avoid duplication, and revisiting those artifacts already stored there to include as many tags as are relevant. I then moved on to my Google Docs Application, and carried over as many of the My Stuff tags as are relevant to this (work based) project. Some additional tags were needed to reflect the H808 Skills and Competencies requirements of the EC. And lastly, I revisited the tags I had set up on De-licious, and discovered similar chaos to the other two repositories. Again, I have done an editing and clearing out job here, and have tried to maintain tag consistency with Google and My Stuff.

This all feels as if I have managed to clear out a cluttered kitchen drawer;-)

It will be most interesting to discover whether I am able to hold myself to the discipline of organising my thoughts, my work and my reading beyond H808. I suspect that I will, as my unease with the early clutter of H808 mirrors my general unease with the amount of data that is available in the world today. The explosion of information over the last 10 or so years that the internet and the other publishing media are generating has felt, at times, overwhelming. Having a way of categorising and then storing information which adds value to my practice and my hobbies is beginning to feel like a watershed in my cognitive mapping process.

Activity 3.2 Second Attempt

In my business, my colleagues and I have embarked recently on a new venture which uses Distance Learning as its methodology. Since they are novices at e-learning, my colleagues are very cautious about the use of technology, and since our learners come from disparate backgrounds, and have varying capabilities, again caution seems a wise mindset.


Our Distance Learning programme is designed to train already competent consultants in our Organisation model. Weller (2005), quoting a recent JISC report, states that an e-portfolio is “‘a collection (or archive) of reflective writing and associated evidence, which documents learning and which a learner may draw upon to present her/his learning and achievements. Incorporating an e-portfolio dimension on this programme would, in my view, improve the learning experience during the programme, and give learners valuable material for incorporating the model into their practice. It would also give my colleagues much greate visibility of how learners are engaging with the material.


From my colleagues’ point of view, several factors about an e-portfolio system will matter:
• Ease of use
• Integration with other technological packages, such as Powerpoint, Word and Blogging
• Enhancing the group dimension
• Assessing the performance of the learners
• Technical support
• Costs


Learners, in addition, are likely to value features that allow them to present their finished material professionally.


I have chosen Google Apps and Open Source r/Smart to consider as options for an e-portfolio platform.


Easy of Use/Accessibility
Google is likely to be a system that is very familiar to my audience. However, the e-portfolio functions will be supplied by using various Google Apps Tools, ie. Documents, Reader, Groups and Blogging, which may make the system feel cumbersome to users


Opensource has an integrated portfolio of tools and templates which we can customise. Users are able to select from a number of preset options to customise the look and feel of their portfolio, and can set up their own templates for collecting artifacts.


Interoperability
Both systems offer equivalent interoperability with popular software packages.


Group
Google Apps have a group forum for discussions and sharing of documents and the Documents Application can be used by a group to produce documents collaboratively. The Blog is also a forum in which the group can communicate and collaborate. Opensource has much less functionality in this arena, with neither a groups forum or a blog facility. However, documents can be shared amongst a group.


Assessment
Opensource has a function which enables tutors to prompts to mark progress. There is a template which enables tutors to monitor the progress being made by learners to their learning goals. There is also a review tool for the tutor's evaluation of the e-portfolio. No such features are available on Google.


Technical Support
Google Apps offers technical support through Help Functions, FAQs and user forums. Open Sources offers full technical support.


Costs
Google Apps is available for use at no/minimal charge, whereas Opensource Portfolio r/Smart is provided via a certified license on an annual subscription.


Presentation
Google Apps does not offer any facility to create presentations. Open Source, on the other hand, has choices of templates that learners can use to create professional presentations.




If I were purely taking an educational point of view, I would recommend Open Source r/smart with its Assessment, Technical Support and Presentational features being most attractive. However the familiarity of the Google system, along with the lesser cost and the group features is likely to make Google Apps an easier first step for my colleagues to take. On balance, although this might offer fewer educational benefits in the short term, encouraging colleagues to take a step into using e-portfolios will familiarise them with this technology. Persuading them to upgrade to a better system will be easier once that first step is taken.


Ref:

Weller, M (2005), ePortfolios report

Reflections on Unit 3 Activities

In researching unit 3, part 1, I came across the work of  Bisovsky and Schaffert (2009), on the subject of Learning and Teaching with e-Porfolios.They identify the most important processes in working with e-portfolios as:
" to clarify the target and context of the digital portfolio work, to collect, select and connect artifacts with a learning target, to reflect and manage the learning process, to present the e-portfolio artifacts, and to assess and evaluate the learning processes, development of competencies" (p13)

They use the European Commission definition of adult learning, which is  "all forms of learning undertaken by adults after having left initial education and training, however far this process may have gone [3]. Adult learning includes learning for personal, civic and social purposes as well as for employment-related purposes."

They also observe that the adult learners come with very different skills, experience and background and that these differences can be capitalized upon to create what they describe as connected learning. This connected learning dimension makes a most compelling case for the adoption of e-portfolios.

[ Personal note for future reference: In my own case, I am introducing a diverse group of seasoned professionals to a new organisation model. This model will only be adopted if they are able to make the connections with their previous learning on organisations. The e-portfolio functionality of being able to incorporate artifacts that reflect the broad range of experience of these learners should certainly facilitate the integration of the new knowledge with their existing knowledge. Being able to incorporate input from their diverse colleagues into their e-portfolio will also add value to their learning experience. Finally, the functionality in an e-portfolio of being able to collect, select, and then present relevant material from their connected learning, must be a valuable additional tool in their professional practice.]

This paper has provided me with some helpful guidance around the selection of the 6 features that I use to compare e-porfolio systems. Using Bisovsky and Schaffert's findings, there is a good argument for incorporating the five processes identified above as key to the use of e-porfolios into my 6 features. As a 6th feature, I would like to explore further one of my H808 Unit 2 reflections on learner reluctance as an obstacle to the adoption of e-portfolios.

I have decided to take the viewpoint of the educator in this analysis. What would be the features of an e-portfolio system that would matter to someone engaged in adult education, such as myself? I hope to be able to incorporate my findings into Activity 3.2 in which I have to make the case for the use of an e-porfolio system.

So, to re-frame these points to fit into the activity 3.1, the six evaluation features of e-portfolio systems might be:
the functionality to target and contextualize the digital portfolio work,
the functionality to collect, select and connect artifacts with a learning target,
the functionality to reflect and manage the learning process,
the functionality to present the e-portfolio artifacts,
the functionality to assess and evaluate the learning processes, development of competencies, and
the functionality that makes the system easy to use by the learners



Ref: Bisovsky, G. and Schaffert. S., (2009), Learning and Teaching With E-Portfolios: Experiences in and Challenges for Adult Education,  International Journal: emerging technologies in learning, Vol 4, No.1,
http://online-journals.org/i-jet/article/view/822/839 (accessed 10th October 2009)

My e-portfolio project

As part of my H808 studies, I am required build my own professional development portfolio; an e-portfolio. In this portfolio I must evidence my progress in each of four areas of competency; practice related, communication related, technology related and research related. Each area of competency involves skills, reflection, critique and pro-activity.

At the outset of H808, I was determined to devote my time to subject matter that will be directly relevant to my work life; I am looking for more than knowledge, I want demonstrable improvement in my skills! For this reason, my initial plan for this e-portfolio is that I will focus my reflections on a distance learning project at work, for which I have managed to attract 8 paying delegates. This project is being run between 5th October and 2nd November and the 8 participants live in 5 different countries. This project is a completely new departure for my company, and one that could open up significant new markets for us, not just for this Distance Learning training, but also the additional products and services that delegates may then wish to buy from my company. This is indeed what our company founder, Tom Peters, calls 'Work that Matters'.

I plan to use the portfolio initially, to use Barrett's (2009) distinction, as a workspace rather than a showcase. And having focused largely on formative reflections, my hope is that by the end of the 6 month period, I will be in a position to focus on what she calls prospective reflection, creating new goals for the next iteration of the programme. There may be a role for showcasing my learning, as this may be a piece of work that will have PR or marketing applications for my company.

As an initial piece of work in this portfolio, I will analyse my previous experience of running a distance learning project, working out how I fared on each of the four practice areas.

My next reflection piece will be to describe the decisions we have made about this latest distance learning project, with my rationale for the these decisions. Again, I will use the H808 Professional Development Framework to structure my thinking.

I hope then to be in a position in 6 weeks time to reflect on the actual experience of running this latest course, to critique how it has progressed, and make resolutions for the next iteration of this programme, always assuming I am able to assemble a second group.

Not only does this seem to be an interesting porfolio, it also has very practical applications for me and my business. Win, win, I would say!

Ref: Barrett, HC, (work in progress, last update 23rd April 2009), Balancing the Two Faces of ePortfolios, (online) http://electronicportfolios.org/balance/index.html (Accessed 25th September 2009)
Peters, TJ, (1999), Re-inventing Work, Professional Service Firm 50, Alfred A Knopf Inc, New York. See Chaper 4a.

What is it I am meant to be doing?

A re-reading of the H808 Course Guide and Assignment Guide has led to a bit more fog lifting for me;-)

A big 'AHA' moment came when I re-read the Diagram with the Framework for Personal and Professional Development on H808. I know I had seen the chart before, but I didn't really take it in the first time around. But now I am beginning to discover what some of the organising principles of my H808 e-portfolio need to be. I need to be providing evidence of my (and maybe other peoples'?) Skills, Reflection, Critique and Proactivity in my Research, Technology, Communication and Practice Competencies. It seems to me that I would do well to get my head around my level of competency in each of these areas before I set off on the H808 Journey.

I am, however, quite excited about one thing; the distance learning project that I am embarking on as part of my job is going to be an excellent artefact for my e-portfolio, as it is a real prototype, and I am deliberately keeping the technology to the minimum. I want to get to the bottom of what the learning issues are that can be supported by e-learning before getting too caught up in whizzy features. I guess the course itself will be a chance to use such skills as I already have.The reflection and critique I will have to do as the course progresses and completes will be essential for me to be able to be pro-active in designing programme number 2.

So I am still not sure I have quite got my head around H808, but I'm feeling relieved I can see a way through the fog!

Task 2.1 My first summary - phew!

I offered to review one of the supplementary resources (The Centre for Recording Achievement) to identify what will be some of the drivers that will lead to a greater adoption of the use of e-portfolios.

The study that I focused on (rather selfishly, I have to admit) was a review that looked at the use of e-portfolios in supporting employer engagement and workforce development.
The 68 page report looked at evidence (both literature and practice) from a very wide range of Higher Education and Professional institutions of the relevance of e-portfolios to adult learners who are in employment. There is also a fairly cursory review of evidence from outside of the UK.

If I had to sum up the findings of this report, I would say that e-portfolio practice has not yet demonstrated relevance to adult, employment based learners. The report admits in its executive summary that although there is a great deal of evidence about work based learning, “literature about existing e-portfolio practice implemented with work based learners is sparse!”

There was evidence in the report of a number drivers that, in theory, ought to stimulate the adoption of e-portfolios. I would group them into four categories; government and higher education policy and practice, employer policy and practice, professional institution policy and practice and learner practice.

Successive UK and EU governments have identified the critical importance of developing a highly skilled workforce that can maintain the competitiveness of European business. The constantly changing economic landscape and relentless global competition mean that citizens of the EU must be encouraged to see lifelong learning as a condition to embrace. Hence, the UK government has targeted the Higher Education sector to engage more actively with employers, supporting them in developing programmes that are relevant to employers and employees alike. This has led to HE establishments finding ways to give academic accreditation to work based learning, and to the adoption of the use of Personal Learning Plans for many vocational learners. But whilst these are helpful developments for employees and employers alike, they have not yet stimulated the adoption of e-portfolios as common practice.

Professional Institutions such as the Institute of Physics, and the Institute for Learning report more positive attitudes to e-portfolios. Such Institutes demand that members demonstrate ongoing professional development and apply professional standards to their work. E-portfolio platforms offered by the institutes enable members to create a personalized record of their professional development that can be used in their work life, as well as validating their membership of the institution. Since there is clearly a benefit to professionals for maintaining and submitting their e-portfolio to their professional institution, this would seem to be amongst the most promising drivers for workplace learners to adopt the use of e-portfolios.

Employers, who have been on the receiving end of the Government’s encouragement to invest in employee training and development, are driven predominantly by strategic and operational demands, and these demands can be at odds with the priorities of employees and/or the Higher Education Institutions. For those employers who do see the value of recruiting the best people and then deploying and developing their careers, the e-portfolio certainly offers a valuable tool, but few to date have embraced the opportunity. We can only speculate as to why this would be, but a lack of awareness of the potency of this medium must play a part in this lack of take up. Another important factor is that the creation and maintenance of an e-portfolio is totally driven by the employee, and requires their willing engagement for success. So, whilst the information available in an employee’s e-portfolio would undoubtedly be useful to an employer, it may be difficult for them to mandate its use.

Finally, the learners themselves could become key drivers in the adoption of e-portfolios. An e-portfolio is an excellent way of demonstrating to potential employers the broad range of professional and personal skills that have been developed over an individual’s career. Work based skills can be more effectively recognized and it can be a tool to help to develop personal aspirations. The fact that e-portfolios are as yet little used in work based learning situations probably reflects the fact that the digital technologies are constantly developing and employees may have had no awareness of their existence, let alone their usefulness. As the e-generation of young people join the active workforce, their facility with web based interactions will increase the acceptability of e-portfolios as a part of working life.

Here is my sense of how e-portfolios may eventually become mainstream learning tools;

1. Government policy will continue to emphasize personal development/lifelong learning as a priority for the country.
2. The HE sector will continue to model the way and develop best practice in e-portfolio platforms and practice and any learners taking part in HE programmes will be exposed to the methodologies
3. Professional Institutions will progressively enrich their common practice of using portfolios for professional ongoing assessment by shifting to e-portfolio platforms and providing their members with advice, guidance and space for their storage and use.
4. Employees who graduate from HE programmes and who are members of professional institutes will begin to submit e-portfolios for interviews and assessments with their employers. Their employers will be impressed!
5. Employers will discover the benefits of e-portfolios and will encourage all employees to adopt this practice.

E-Portfolio thoughts

I have been feeling rather overwhelmed at the prospect of compiling an e-portfolio, but in the last few days, my H808 colleagues have added some balance to this perspective.

Perhaps what was concerning me was the technology of managing an e-portfolio, such as My Stuff on the OU website. And although this technology can be a lot to take in, as I look at the way I presently organise my professional learning, I have to admit it is a bit of a shambles ;-)

When I read something of professional or personal interest in the press, I often cut out the article, or store the URL. I wish I could say that I have an orderly way of storing this information, but I can't! When I read a new book of interest, I mark up the points that seem relevant and make notes in the book; when it seems important enough, I write a summary and action list. My professional activities are stored on our work server, but are filed by customer. When I make a public contribution; press article, blog, facebook, twitter etc, these are stored on the site/journal that published the item.

When I think back to my two previous years of Masters study, the process I used to collect my thoughts was essentially manual; hand drawn mind maps, printed out articles and journals, key themes on post-it notes, word documents summarising key quotes and themes......it makes me wonder how I ever got my act together!

My photographs, professional and personal, are stored in several different places. My hobbies are almost totally unreported, even though my choral performances are regularly broadcast publicly, and receive critical acclaim. I save the programmes and sometimes cut out newspaper reviews, but not in any systematic way. Isn't it a pity I don't keep track of this?

An e-portfolio approach to my life's documentation and learning would enable me to link various learning streams together, and better still, to be able to search and find information that has influenced my thinking. It would also be excellent to have a focus for summarising key learning points and for cataloguing my development as a professional, rounded human being.

I am not sure that I have ever aspired to be an E-Learning Professional. Rather I want to be an excellent learning professional, who helps people get the most out of their lives, not just their work. Having a good grasp of how E-Learning can contribute to that ambition is, in today's world, essential, as technology is a major enabler of learning, particularly for younger generations. For this to be a meaningful exercise, I am inclined to think it needs to be focused on me as a professional human being, not just on me as a professional educator.

So, here is my latest thinking on how to organise my e-portfolio. The organising concepts will be threefold; the professional skills that I feel are important to doing a good job today; the professional skills that I feel are important to my family, friends and hobbies; how my professional and personal skills must develop in future.

I am inclined to think that I should not spend too much time looking back to collect data for the e-portfolio, but if choose the right meta categories, and then begin to break them down into smaller organisational units, I can, if I choose, add historical information for posterity.

And the sooner I set up these organising themes, the more organised I can be about making H808 matter in my life, not just in order to gain a Masters Degree;-)

What is H808 about? First thoughts

As the E-Portfolio seems to be central to this course, here is a definition:

"The process of creating an eportfolio consists of collecting pieces of work, assessments, presentations, websites, blogs etc., explaining how the learning experiences relate to course content or learning objectives and documenting this with evidence from the pieces submitted. Students can share their eportfolio with staff and/or other students, who can add their comments."

(reference p44-45, Elearning, the Key Concepts, Robin Mason and Frank Rennie, 2006, Routledge, Taylor and Frances Group, London and New York.)

The first TMA has two parts.

1. To show understanding and awareness of what an eportfolio is and the functionality that they offer. I will need critically to examine the arguments for and against the use of such systems in my chosen context. I will need to read the background literature on these learning environments, to develop my knowledge of eportfolio teaching and learning practices, to describe the teaching context of my own situation.
2. To use the eportfolio system to reflect on the development of my own skills as an elearning practitioner; defining the skills I will need, reflecting on my own development, learning to critique the practice of others, identifying the kind of proactivity that is productive in the elearning environment.

It is beginning to dawn on me that one of my key pieces of professional learning will be to create a learning space in which I organise my thoughts in a completely different way. The way I understand it at the moment is that I will have to get much better at identifying meta concepts about which I want to collect my thoughts and develop my thinking. The eportfolio will be a place to organise and link material that illuminates the (new?) concepts and enables me to construct new meaning and argumentation.

Key Learning Points from H802

My first year of the MA ODE programme looked at the use of technology in the learning environment.

In the final Examinable Component, I was challenged to describe the comparative strengths of using technology to enable learning, versus the medium of Print.

I focused on three aspects of learning; transmission of complex information, Interaction with Learning Material, Interaction with Learning Community. The adoption of technology as an enabler of learning becomes more valuable as interactivity (many to many) that is provided by electronic media is demanded.

The theoretical approaches that emerged as most relevant for the professional and managerial population that I serve are:

• Social Constructivism as articulated by Vygotsky and others
• Cognitive apprenticeship as articulated by Brown, Collins and Duguid
• Situated Learning as articulated by Jean Lave and Etienne Wenger (First published 1991).
• Minimalism: Boyle (1997) describes the work of Carroll (1990)

As I look ahead at H808, it would be most helpful if I could use this programme to intensify my understanding of the technologies and methodologies that will increase my competence as an E-learning Professional.
My own advice to myself is to use my forthcoming Distance Learning Programme to expose the learning processes of my professional learners using the minimum amount of 'technology', but to use the experience of observing how the learning actually happens to consider ways of scaffolding learners, and to improve the learning environment for future groups. I intend to discover whether it will be possible to substitute asynchronous communication for the combition of synchronous and asynchronous which will be used in the first version.
I will also be keen to understand what further support material and/or activities will be of use to learners.