What is an e-portfolio?
E-Portfolios are personal websites that can be used to demonstrate the learning of students and can therefore be useful as a means of assessing their learning. They also have the potential to enhance the learning process. Professional e-Portfolios be used by professionals to illustrate their philosophy, skills and accomplishments. They have some similarities to blogs, but e-Portfolios contain both artefacts and reflection, which blogs may or may not. (Auburnwrites, 2019). Artefacts are documents and media that act as evidence of learning, skills and accomplishments. They may include images, essays, videos and certificates.
The benefits of e-Portfolios
Student e-Portfolios can benefit learners, instructors and others in a variety of ways. For learners, these websites allow them to collect evidence of their learning in one place and to demonstrate their learning in a wider variety of ways (as opposed to traditional methods of writing exams and papers). They can assemble artefacts of a variety of media types, making them more of an outlet for creativity and playing to learners’ strengths. They may therefore be more inspiring and empowering for learners. The layout of the website can also be personalized, which would give the creator a sense of ownership.
According to Kahn, instructors experienced in using e-Portfolios ‘have…seen firsthand that thoughtfully conceived and guided e-portfolio development can catalyze new learning, actively engaging students in making sense and meaning of their learning experiences so that they approach these experiences with a greater sense of purposefulness, agency, and accomplishment.’ (Kahn, 2014).
Reflection
E-portfolios also provide space for reflection, which may help deepen the learning process and allow learners to make connections between areas of learning that they might not otherwise make. Reflective writing allows the creator to add meaning and context to artefacts and to explain their significance. They can also allow the learner to explain how they’ll apply this knowledge (Auburnwrites, 2019).
e-Portfolios for assessment
e-Portfolios have many potential advantages over more traditional forms of assessment such as tests and exams, which have become problematic in the online learning context because there is more potential for cheating on exams when students are taking them online from home. Many educational institutions are currently struggling with ways of monitoring this, including proctoring software, which raises thorny ethical considerations. E-portfolios, by contrast, can provide an opportunity for continuous assessment, which would mean things like final exams would be less high stakes or might be eliminated altogether as there is a greater range of work to assess.
Considerations
- Implementing e-portfolios for assessment requires a rethinking of the curriculum as the e-portfolio needs to be integrated into the curriculum and course activities. Program planners must ‘embed the assessment in the curriculum and align it with the learning outcomes and assessment criteria’. (UNSW Teaching, 2020).
- For most students, the platform used would need to be chosen carefully. It would need to be one that is easy to use and doesn't require too much technical knowledge. Otherwise, too much time would be needed just for students to learn how to use the platform.
- Clear assessment rubrics must be developed / used and must be explicit to the students.
Examples of e-Portfolios
Auburn University ePortfolio examples
LaGuardia Community College e-portfolio gallery
Example of assessment rubric
Rubric from ePortfolio Ireland: 'The Holy Grail of Rubrics Complete'
Do you think there is a place in your teaching for e-portfolios? Why or why not? Are there aspects of learning portfolios that you could use in your assessment?
I believe one important factor in deciding whether to use e-portfolios is the length of the program under consideration. It would have been challenging to incorporate e-portfolios into my previous teaching context since learners were often in a program (and even with us at the school) for as little as four weeks. E-portfolios would have had to be implemented program-wide for this reason so that one e-portfolio could be utilized by a student over their entire journey at the school. Also, the main purpose of assessment in our program was to decide if learners were ready to move up to a higher level as the courses were non-credit, so the need for formal assessment was limited.
Even if they weren't used for formal assessment, I believe e-portfolios would be a powerful tool for language learning. The language-learning process may involve learning about the language, but an important aspect is developing language competence through actually using the language, especially for authentic communicative purposes, which I think e-portfolios would provide. Parts of the e-Portfolio could be shared with classmates, which would give it a real communicative purpose as students shared parts of their lives, cultures, experiences and thoughts.
Along with providing a purpose for communication, they would also be an excellent way of showing the development of language skills to the learner himself/herself and so I would definitely consider using e-portfolios in the future if they made sense in the context where I found myself teaching. The type of task in which language learners have to share experiences with each other, often connected with an artefact, are quite common in English language teaching and seem to be meaningful and motivating for learners. E-porfolios would be a natural extension of this and would allow them to collect their work in one place. They would be able to demonstrate learning (and the development of language skills) over time, something that langugae learners can't always perceive in themselves. E-portfolios would also give them an authentic purpose for communication, which is seen as a vital element of language learning.
E-portfolios are increasingly being used to illustrate personal/professional development and achievements in teaching. What value do you see in creating your own personal teaching e-portfolio? What kind of artefacts would you think of including in this portfolio?
I have already built a limited teaching portfolio where I’ve collected a range of materials to show my abilities and work, but it is not in digital form. I think an e-portfolio is a logical next step with this portfolio, one that is actually a better alternative since it can collect more diverse types of media and organize them in a more interesting way. It seems to be a much better was of giving people like prospective employers a fuller picture of my teaching career when compared to submitting just a résumé and cover letter.
What I would include are things like lesson plans, my résumé, perhaps something about my philosophy of teaching, materials I’ve created, messages from students, etc.
References
AAEEBL Connect. (2020, July 12). Doing Assessment "Right" with ePortfolios (Week 1). (Video). YouTube https://youtu.be/diMvI6UFRes
Auburnwrites. (2019, February 5). Introduction to ePortfolios (Video). YouTube https://youtu.be/3n8UG3YOOFU
Kahn, S. (2014). E-Portfolios: A Look at Where We've Been, Where We Are Now, and Where We're (Possibly) Going. Peer Review. 16 (1). https://bit.ly/3lIISge
Landis, C., Scott, S. & Kahn, S. (2015). Examining the role of reflection in ePortfolios: A case study. International Journal of ePortfolio. International Journal of ePortfolio 2015, 5 (2), 107- 121. http://www.theijep.com ISSN 2157-622X
UNSW Teaching. (updated 2020, August 11). Assessing with ePortfolios. Retrieved on December 3, 2020 from https://teaching.unsw.edu.au/assessing-eportfolios
Schrand, T., Jones, K. & Hanson, V. (2018). "Reflecting on Reflections:" Curating ePortfolios for integrative learning and identity development in a general education senior capstone. International Journal of ePortfolio 2018, 8 (1), 1-12. Retrieved from http://www.theijep.com ISSN 2157-622X
Stannard, R. (2019, February 21). E-portfolios in education—An ideal way to assess online. (Video). YouTube https://youtu.be/kykfcqqr8T8
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