The eLearning Guild is a community of practice for designers, developers, and managers of e-Learning. It is based in America and a recent conference focused on the following areas;
Internationally, the key themes seem to be mobile learning, web 2.0/social software and open content. These are all areas I have looked at thoughout other OU courses, but not, so far, on the H808
For this activity I looked created the following word cloud base on different definitions of the word Professional. Key words from these definitions include Training, specialised, skill, community, education, knowledge and learned. I think all of these relate to the elearning profession.
When I first started this course I didn’t think being a professional meant anything more than being paid to do a particular job. I also didn’t see the point of calling certain jobs a profession. I thought that the only point defining something as a profession rather than just a job, was to create a false sense of superiority.
Reading some definitions and ideas around professionalism has led to me changing my mind, as I think the benefits of professionalism are about organising a community with shared values.
There are a few devices which capture hand written material digitally. These include Digital Notepads in which you clip a normal writing pad onto a special clip board. You can then link the clip board to a computer and download everything that was written on the paper.
For a how to guide please follow the following link to see a video I created last year
Alternatively you could take a photo of any handwritten notes, many mobile phone cameras have a document setting which is useful for this. The photo could then be added to your eportfolio
Extracts from audio presentations
ipadio (notes by Kev Hickey)
iPadio is a useful site for creating an publishing podcasts from your mobile phone. Here is a quick how to guide
How to create a podcast using a mobile phone and ipadio
I have decided to use ipadio to record an audio message. Once you create an account at ipadio account you can phone the number and record your message. once you hang up the message will automaticly be avalavle on the ipadio website as an mp3 file.
So far I have been using Google docs as my eportfolio system, however this activity really highlights its limitations as it can only cope with the following formats;
Documents (up to 500 KB of text)
HTML files and plain text (.txt).
Microsoft Word (.doc, .docx), Rich Text (.rtf), OpenDocument Text (.odt) and StarOffice (.sxw).
Presentations (up to 10 MB)
Microsoft PowerPoint (.ppt, .pps).
Spreadsheets (up to 1 MB)
Comma Separated Value (.csv).
Microsoft Excel (.xls, .xlsx) files and OpenDocument Spreadsheet (.ods).
PDF Files (up to 10MB)
Evidence which is on another website, such as contributions to online forums, blogs or wikis, could be copy and pasted into a google doc as text, a screen shot or a hyperlink.
One system I use allot is Evernote. I hadn’t mentioned it before as I hadn’t thought of it as an eportfolio, but this activity has made me change my mind.
This is a powerful tool system which is difficult to explain but i’ll have ago. Using a plug in on your browser you can clip a web page or part of a web page to your evernote account. Using a downloadable evernote application you can add files including documents, pdfs, images and sound files You can also type notes directly into the system.
For this activity I have created a table of eportfolio systems and their features.
The systems I have chosen are;
eNVQ
PaperFree
Mahara
MyStuff
Pebblepad
Learning Assistant
NVQ Now
One File
SkilSure
Skill Wise
Myspace
The features I have chosen to list and compare are;
Website
Primary Purpose; Reflective, Assessment or Presentation
Cost
Endorsed by awarding body
Life Long
Offline Mode
Hosted by..
Multiple levels of access
Accessable on mobile devices
Support avalable
Case Study/Further Information
The majority of the systems I have chosen are assessment systems for specific qualifications such as NVQ. This is because there seem to be a large number of these systems available and they are often overlooked when discussing eportfolios.
The features I have chosen are based on my experiences of what learning providers want to know when choosing a system. I have done my best to get as much information as I could from the websites, but I can’t guarantee that the table is completely correct. Please let me know if you spot any errors.
The table is too big for this blog so if you are interested please use the following link
In his report Weller mentions the Open Source Portfolio Initiative (OSPI) and ELGG, which is another open source system which can be used as an eportfolio. On the face of it, open source may often seem like an ideal solution from a cost perspective alone, as open source is generally free to use while commercial systems can be quite expensive. This is not just for eportfolio systems but for other open source systems such as the Virtual Learning Environment, Moodle. It is often the case that despite a lack of initial cost, open source solutions may be just as expensive, if not more so, than commercial systems, as they require a significant amount of time and expertise to adapt them to the needs of the learning provider. Having said that, an advantage of open source is its ability to be modified by the learning provider, As Weller said of the OSPI solution “ being open source, we can adapt it – but this would need a serious technical evaluation to determine.”
Another issue to consider with open source solutions is support. Commercial systems may provide a centralised support team with a clearly defined Service Level Agreement (SLA). This means that they will guarantee support issues to be dealt with within a certain timeframe. Open source solutions often rely on a community based support structure, with member s of the community offering support and advice to others. Weller emphasises the community aspects of the open source system ELGG for learners using the system. This follows on from the community ethos of open source systems.
For this activity we are asked to provide advice to a learning provider in their choice of eportfolio system. This is a situation I have been in many times in my role as an elearning advisor. The following advice is based on discussions between my colleagues and me about the different types of eportfolio system available as well as on research and the experiences of others. The scenario I will choose is a large Further Education Colleges who is looking to get an eportfolio system to be used with assessors on Btec and NVQ courses, for art students to have an electronic version of their traditional portfolio and to be used throughout the college as a way of planning future progression.
The four steps for reflective writing listed by Penn State university are a useful starting point. Particularly What happened? What might this mean? and What implications are there for future practice? In the forum Janet Moreland posted some guidelines taken from Allan, H. J. (2008) ‘Assessment tool for reflective practice’, for the Royal College of Surgeons (unpublished) (updated 2009). These include points such as ‘Links made between theory and practical application are thorough and well supported from both curriculum and literature’ and ‘Assumptions of others and of self are examined and discussed in relation to future development’. It is difficult to specify generalised criteria to be assessed for reflective writing as assessment criteria are specific to the course rather that the style of assessment used. However I do think it is possible to provide guidelines help people develop their reflective learning skills. The following guidelines are based on my own experience of reflective writing for assessment;
Have clear questions to answer in your writing
Question any assumptions made
Include both sides of any argument, and specify which side you agree with, even if that means saying you are not sure.
Clearly identify links between what you are reflecting on and other resources from the curriculum, any resources outside the curriculum and the experiences of yourself or others
Don’t be afraid to combine the ideas and theories of others to come up with something new.
Don’t be afraid to constructively criticise theories proposed throughout the curriculum, but make sure these criticisms are backed up with evidence.
Plan you writing so all the points are in a logical order.
While reflecting on reflection I have asked myself the question ‘Is reflection an individual or shared activity?’. This is not really covered in these papers, but i think might be generally assumed that reflection is an internal, individual process. For me this is not really the case as I reflect better when telling and discussing with someone my experience or what I have learned. This is why I feel a blog is such a good tool for reflection as it provides individuals with the opportunity to reflect and alow for comments and contributions from others. When I completed my PGCE I had to keep a log of 30 hours of teaching experiences. This was only seen by myself and my tutor, which I felt was a real waste as I wanted to follow and reflect on the experiences of others on my course, and for them to reflect on my experiences. Anyway this is all a tangent and not answering the questions I am supposed to answer for this activity.
Crème discussed the thorny issue of assessing reflections highlighting questions such as;
- “How can anyone asses whats in my head?”
- Why should anyone be made to reflect if they are not being assessed on it
- How can assesors be expected to keep up with a potential avalanche of reflections
- How do you assess a reflection in which the learner admits that they don’t understand something?
- Will learners write what they think the tutor what’s them to write rather than an honest reflection? How much does this matter?
- If reflection is not assessed does this mean it is not recognised and valued by the learning provider?
On the H808 we are encouraged to reflect thoughout the course through blogs and eportfolio postings. These are not assessed individually, however we are encouraged to refer to them in a reflective commentry in which we write an account of personal and professional development throughout the course. This reflective commentary can be seen as a way of answering some of the questions above. Although it does not asses what’s “in my head” while writing the individual reflections, and does not require the tutor to give full feedback on everything that I write, it does require evidence of how my reflections and ideas have developed.
I suppose the reflective commentary could be seen as reflecting on the reflections, which for this particular course would mean reflecting on the reflections about reflection. I think I had better stop there before i give myself a headache.
The experience of working as a team to complete a table reviewing various publications regarding ePortfolios was a relatively positive one. As a team we formed a plan using the Moodle forum and used a wiki page to decide who was going to focus on which publication, before completeing the table on the wiki along with a summary of the publication. The hardest aspect of this activity for me was trying to get useful information out of the EiFEL website which I felt was more about promoting events than being a clear source of information on eportfolios.
Relating the activity to the Framework for Personal and Professional Development, I would say the activity addressed the following criteria;
Proactivity- as we worked as a team to plan and carry out the activity
Critique- as we had to review and summarise the publications
Reflection- What I am doing with this blog post
Communication Related Competencies- Working together via the forum and Wiki
Technology Related Competencies – Working with the Wiki
Practice Related Competencies- Gaining an understanding of ePortfolios and their different uses
For this activity I read ‘
The experience of working as a team to complete a table reviewing various publications regarding ePortfolios was a relatively positive one. As a team we formed a plan using the Moodle forum and used a wiki page to decide who was going to focus on which publication, before completeing the table on the wiki along with a summary of the publication. The hardest aspect of this activity for me was trying to get useful information out of the 
