This post started a few days ago, actually sometime last week. Via Educause.edu:
An exploration of the Career ePortfolio at NYC College of Technology (CityTech)
As I explored around the site, I found myself wondering why portfolios seem to be so fond of the finished product. Why should you create a portfolio for just one purpose: the showing off of what you have accomplished? Shouldn’t a portfolio be a fluid place that showcases success, and highlights skills for employers while at the same time invites continued growth and development? (Learning.)
I’m totally for showing off skills and competencies. That’s important. Met goals and challanges should be displayed in your portfolio, but I wonder about showing your "work in progress" as well.
The ePortfolio featured here just feels boxy to me. You can post info under Academic Samples, Work Experience, Internship, From the Field, Professional Goals, and your Resume. (See the ePortfolio template.)
But wouldn’t it be cool if the student could create his/her own categories and decide what goes in them and why? Maybe schools should place some fixed categories there, but a genuinely personal learning environment should offer the student deeper control of its content.
The NYC ePortfolio examples that I explored just seemed to have too many periods. Too many finished statements and experiences. I could be totally wrong here, but isn’t that an incomplete picture of learning? Isn’t it encouraging a breakaway from lifelong learning? Isn’t it tempting the student to think: I met the competency, I read the book, I reflected on course content and that means I’m finished learning? I kinda think so.
Today I came across a really interesting podcast from the 2005 EDUCAUSE Annual Conference Session on ePortfolios entitled Digital/E-Portfolios and Learning: From Mosaic to Kaleidoscope, From Static to Dynamic. It was delivered by Linda Ehley and is quite interesting if you’re thinking about ePortfolios for your classroom.
One of the biggest questions it left me with was Ehley’s position around the portfolio’s purpose. She argued that there are a large variety of ePortfolio purposes out there, but effective portfolios only focus on one of them. It could be built to showcase accomplishments, to showcase development over time, for employment seeking, for assessment purposes etc. but should only be on one of those, not a combination of many.
She gave an interesting analogy of why: Think about a Swiss Army Knife. It has a variety of tools that can be used for a variety of purposes depending on the tool you select or require at the time. But think about how effective those tools really are. Ehley used the can opener tool as her example: Have you ever cleanly opened a can with a Swiss Army Knife can opener? You often wreck the can and cover yourself with the contents in the process.
According to Ehley, an ePortfolio that tries to be too many things at once loses effectiveness and therefore needs to be highly focused on one thing or purpose.
Her analogy was compelling, and made me consider my own position on the ePortfolio being used for a variety of purposes at once. But one question remains for me: If an ePortfolio is a focused environment, don’t we set ourselves up for a great splintering of our educational/learning experience?
You want a place to record your learning journey, you build a portfolio specifically for that purpose. You want to show your growing skills to a prospective employer, you have to build a specific portfolio for that purpose. Before you know it you’ll be faced with multiple environments happening at the same time.
Wouldn’t it be more practical and powerful to build a layered environment instead? A portfolio node or hub, that offers a variety of lenses to be looked through, but all from the same place? Not to push blogfolios, but I see the possibility for this type of thing in this environment. The ability to build a separate page to your blog could be like adding a separate lense or purpose to your portfolio.
I really like the blog as a portfolio mainly because of the blog’s "unfinished" nature. It’s an addictive animal that needs constant feeding and attention - just like authentic learning. It’s also an interactive environment. Ehley, at one point, describes the thrill students have of posting their artefacts so that others can SEE them. I say you should post your artefacts so that others can interact with them, and give feedback for further growth and development. The concept that learning and growth never stop is really hit home well using the blog as a portfolio solution.
What do you think?
