January , 2005
Students Be Heard: A Look at e-Portfolios
By Bjorn Thomson and Alison Wong
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Martha Kinnear (UBC, Pharmacy) and Robert Emmerson (UBC, Education.) are on their way to getting their portfolios online. [Martin Dee Photos]
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While these online collections won't allow anyone to leap tall buildings in a single bound (or guarantee that coveted gig on The Apprentice), they may help students get a running start on the job-hunting front.
In fact, the electronic portfolio, or e-Portfolio, is a digital space for students to collect, select and reflect on their best work - providing a nifty showcase of their skills. And it's online, accessible from anywhere in the wired universe.
Enquiring Minds Want to Know: What Do Students Think?
Kele Fleming, e-Portfolio community of practice coordinator at UBC, explained that e-Portfolios are "a living record of a student's work."
She says, "Building an e-Portfolio allows students to more deeply engage with their learning and give them the opportunity to showcase their skills for future employers."
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"Building an e-Portfolio allows students to more deeply engage with their learning and give them the opportunity to showcase their skills for future employers."
-Kele Fleming, e-Portfolio Community of Practice Coordinator at UBC
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"In our campus-wide e-Portfolio pilot project, we are exploring a number of different contexts with a focus on how they can deepen student learning," said Fleming.
Which is why, as she and her colleagues were planning the annual e-Portfolio conference, Reflection is Not a Mirror, it's a Lens, they placed students' experiences with e-Portfolios as a top consideration.
After speaking to conference organizers and attendees at other universities, they realized that the student voice is often missing from the conversation at such events.
"We felt a key to the success of any new learning technology was to ensure the students were engaged with it," said Fleming. "The logical first step to engagement was actually knowing what the students think about the technology and how it's being used and implemented,"
Michelle Lamberson, director of the Office of Learning Technology, agrees.
"If there is one voice that needs to be heard when we undertake efforts to promote learner-centred strategies, it is that of the learner," said Lamberson. "The student voice grounds us more effectively than any other."
In fact, when people ask Fleming about the UBC e-Portfolio project, they inevitably want to know: what do students think about it?
Not Just A 21st Century Resume: Students and Their e-Portfolios
To answer that question, the conference planners included a student panel , which featured UBC students Martha Kinnear (pharmacy), Robert Emmerson (teacher education), Alex Moxin (science) and Michelle Chua (computer science).
The panelists were each given a few minutes to present their e-Portfolio and talk about what they liked about their experience and what they thought could be improved.
For the most part, student comments were positive.
"It looks like it's the way of the future," said Emmerson, describing his teacher education e-Portfolio.
Emmerson's portfolio includes downloadable versions of papers he's written, his teaching philosophy, a biography and a list of his previous occupations.
Kinnear highlighted the personal development potential of e-Portfolios, and said that before starting her e-Portfolio, the word reflection was just a "buzzword."
"I saw little value in the act of reflecting," she said. "By completing the e- Portfolio, I was able to identify my strengths and weaknesses in a very tangible way. I've already been able to make improvements this year."
Getting Technical
The four-member panel also addressed technical aspects of the e-Portfolio project: What applications were the various departments using, and were they helping or hindering the students?
Emmerson, who used Netscape Composer in his teacher education program, said the structure of this software can be too wide open, especially for beginners.
He said he would like to see a template as an option.
"It would be easier for us to start building (our) first e-Portfolio," he said.
But not all the students agreed.
In fact, Kinnear said she found the template- based software she used creatively limiting.
"The format of the e-Portfolio left a lot to be desired," she said, referring to the iWebFolio software she created her portfolio with. "The layout lacked creativity, which made it harder for me to be excited about the project."
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"If you feel like something belongs to you, you'll be more inclined to put in the effort and time required to improve and maintain it."
-Michelle Chua, UBC Student
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One of the student panelists, Chua, is also a software developer. She said she hopes to address some of the participants' concerns with template-based e- Portfolio systems.
Chua presented her e-Portfolio, a hybrid blog/e-Portfolio aptly named "blogfolio."
She said she hoped this approach would foster a sense of ownership through giving the user a lot of control and making posting and writing easy.
"If you feel like something belongs to you, you'll be more inclined to put in the effort and time required to improve and maintain it," said Chua.
Student Voice is Heard
Audience reaction to the panel's suggestions was enthusiastic. When the question period began, the self-described "hapless moderator" was confronted with what he described as "a pointy-fingered forest of eager hands."
Clearly, the audience wanted to know what the four student panellists thought of e-Portfolios, a project that's been growing substantially at UBC for the past two years and now includes nine departments or units.
Follow-up feedback on the panel confirmed that the student panel was a highlight at the conference. Some attendees remarked on how the students provided great evidence on the perceived disconnect between what educators intend and what students think.
One participant wrote that: "having students share their experience was especially important."
More Information:
UBC e-Portfolio conference site: https://www.elearning.ubc.ca/home/index.cfm?p=main
/dsp_eport_event_20041119_2.cfm
e-Learning@UBC's e-Portfolio site: https://www.elearning.ubc.ca/eportfolio
Robert Emmerson's Teacher Education cohort e-Portfolios:
http://educ.ubc.ca/courses/tact/cohort.html
Robert's e-Portfolio:
http://web.educ.ubc.ca/robert/index.html
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