Education Investigation

It was exciting to see the report entitled “ePortfolios Celebrating Learning” published yesterday. Commissioned by the MOE this report investigates and encourages discussion on the use of electronic portfolios within the context of NZ schools.

I write this post to encourage you to read it if you are interested in the development of ePortfolios in New Zealand and share your thoughts. You can download it here or view the discussion and leave your thoughts here.

The following was my initial response to the report and the two cents I contributed to the forum:

Hi Paul

Firstly I want to say thank you for commissioning the research paper into ePortfolios. It is a timely paper and has encouraged and informed me (and other teachers I am sure) in our schools pilot use of ePortfolios for the purpose of enhancing teaching and learning.

I also wish to thank Ian, Sandy and Viv in the fact that they carried this research out with the following principle in mind: “ePortfolios are not about technology; they are about pedagogy and learning. They are about life-long learning.” (Pg 17 of the paper) This I believe has kept the report rooted where it should be; on learning.

I do wish to support the report findings and the development of one national ePortfolio tool because there is more to it than just reasons of efficiency, user familiarity, access through schooling and learner ownership. I had a conversation with Lenva Shearing a few weeks ago and she referred to the desire of having an ePortfolio tool that was “an empty box” (I hope I have quoted her correctly). I liked this analogy. So from here I would like to share a few more thoughts and add these to the discussion.

If we all used one tool then schools/teachers will have:

1) Flexibility (They can use this one tool to add what they like into it to meet the individual needs and while maintaining student choice, voice and ownership.)

2) Better communication (Students/Teachers would use “one language” and so work together easier across levels and ages developing their ePortfolios.)

3) Efficencey (Professional development is made easier because we are all using the same language and focusing on the one tool.)

4) Better consistency (One school or teacher will not be considered lower than another because they did not have the expertise or financial support to develop superior ePortfolios. Everyone will have the same building blocks.)

Please don’t get me wrong; I am not advocating for a “straight jacket” type of tool. This one tool would have to be cleverly developed so that it did support different learning styles, user choice, offer flexiblitiy, etc.

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