at the speed of a glacier
Sep 4th, 2007 by robynjay
E-portfolios are raising their ugly heads once again; but this time away from the seedy back rooms of e-learning ‘fanatics’ [read 'innovators'] and out into the mainstream. As Graham Wegner so aptly put it: ‘the education system itself has the speed of a glacier’.
The looming ice flow is re-instigating all sorts of critical conversations. The VET Pedagogy team has been having some interesting discussions, and the flavour of the month is tasty enough to warrant targeted focus at one of our regional events on 18 September (to which you are all invited F2F or online).
The concerns and issues being raised by the field are not new of course. I’ve been revisiting the passionate and insightful conversation that went on during 2005-2006 by members of TALO. It’s going to make for a rather long post but I think some of the points raised then are worth repeating to inform current exchanges. The quotes below come from Graham, Leigh and Alex and can be sourced here and here and here amongst many…
I reflect on a few years of working with students of all ages ( including adults )enabling them to get good stuff online only to discover that their attitude to such modality - content shape shifting ( of which I pushed as gospel ) befitted that of the arcadian pursuit they first sought to flee !
How do we prepare students and educators for the shapeshifting of the emergent mobile network ? How do e-portfolios ensure a learners security when the very institutions that govern their creations make independent thinking difficult or nigh on impossible ?
Dreams of the perfect e-portfolio are, as you say a responsibility of the educator, to raise in the consciousness of the student, to foster / nurture a reasonable take on documenting teaching and learning et al. but in my opinion the implementation of such a model means we must now be ready to discard more than we dispense.
I just can’t understand the persistent drive by so many in education to replicate the tools and opportunities that are already freely available on the open network. They’ll bust a gut getting their IT support crew willing to get another server, bash their heads getting permission to install a system that will enable something like an ePortfolio, offer it up for teacher and/or student use, ignore the questions about student IP and life long holding of content (beyond the enrolled period), talk themselves into believing the system they have set up is a useful thing for staff and students, get thousands of dollars worth of PD training rolled out, run workshops for years on the use of their unpopular system, and 3 - 5 years later die in a ditch protecting it against new innovations that threaten it.
The Internet (especially the web2 variety) has always been there, offering up a suite of tools for us to use, now, in the past, in the future, always. All we needed to do was spend a little time with it (out in the real world) understanding how it all worked, and come up with innovative uses for it in education. But instead we have spent millions trying to remodel the Internet into our classroom comfort zone, developing systems on a proprietary model, ignoring the opportunities to offer education to all, ignoring more serious issues like the local and global digital divide…
…. when academics hear the word blog, they hear a word that sounds like poo, or a wet towel on a line, or a chocolate bar.. they don’t hear a word that sounds academically minded… perhaps the word blogfolio achieves what you are aiming for … But in the end, I want the “free range” thinking to be respected and referred to for what it is.. and I think that’s more than simply a way of doing things, its a subversive and political gesture that asks significant questions of powerful economic exchanges. “why are we buying that licence? who owns this content? what’s our responsibility to the author of that content? is the classroom a good way to learn? etc.
ePortfolio….is a word that panders to old schoolers, managers and academia who refuse to acknowledge the digitally networked world in the terms that are current. This provides charlatans with the opportunity to sell false things like ePortfolio software and servers, which in turn leads teachers into yet another false reality, which leads our kids into schizophrenic learning… out there is the way things are really done - in here is the way we do things in school.
Realising that the key elements of professional portfolios are imbedded in the individuals ability to demonstrate and action social change, realise social dividends, connect others to knowledge and weather the organisational-flack-attack are in my opinion the portfolio we should be carrying around with us
ePortfolio is simply a conceptual use of web2 technologies - which I think is totally OK. My previous experience with the term however has been at the hands of horrid academics who on the one hand dismiss blogs and wikis, while on the other embrace ePortfolios - because they paid for a special ePortfolio software…
Students need to take memory of learning with them, not wrapped up in someone else’s slick ‘certificate’ that tells them what made the outcomes tick. The aggregation and distribution of this portfolio should be ( in my humble opinion ) a students choice - blog, wiki, moblog, youtube, myspace, flickrsticker you name it.
My headset is still at what this means for teachers - the students will define their purposes in their future and don’t need us imposing any model on them….students now and from now on will want to be linked up in the way that is convenient to them. Anything hosted solely on a department or school server does not have the portability any future portfolio will need.
You might find some of what was said confronting but it needed to be said and still does. It has taken the mainstream nearly two years to catch on to the concept but they are not yet critically analysing the real issues. However the glacier is approaching - time to act, time to influence….. join us on the 18th.
[image: slack13]
I think Robyn that the concept of an e-portfolio for an organization with thousands of students, coming and going and re-enrolling and flexibly connecting and so on is quite frightening.
The idea or concept of a PLE is an ever burgeoning threat and I can garuntee you that the same old same old approach to building a PLE for the VET sector will emerge and along will come the AQF architects and punch it into a box with one lid and no luster.
In fact I wouldnt be suprised if the sector finances such a venture only to realize after countless millions have ignored it that learners have their own PLE…..what they chose and when they choose to use it ……not something the (dis)organization is forcing them into.
The idea that a student is in control of their own and that educators track, trace and connected within also must seem as daunting as the glacier is slow. Here is another apt metaphor;
We see a billion container ships leave our shores and yet do we know what are in them ? Do we care ?
It seems for many educational organizations that the same old tried and true ways of containing information, controlling access, limiting interaction and the deletion of “expired” course materials within an quality audit driven environment will be here to stay for a while yet.
Three years on and 70 per cent of the audience ( in many settings ) truly dont know what a blog is. Nor is a wiki seen as a viable alternative for software and servers that are controlled by IT nazis and at great cost to the organization……with un-helpful helpdesks and bulging inboxes.
Last night I heard an analogy on radio…….yep I listen to the radio occasionally which was centered on action”effectiveness” in education rather than exposure for professional developments sake. The subject raised some serious considerations for me as to what the point is in persisting to try and work within organizations to make tiny bits of incremental change as opposed to working with consortiums that engaging with millions……..and devolve slower than they evolve.
In fact there’s another visual metaphor….could be a self-effacing question…..is your employer evolving quicker than they are devolving and why ?
I also notice that the word creativity has popped up in recent VET sectorial ( useless ) documents that purport “futures” for education.
The only future is in acknowledging that change has occurred around the landmass slowly but surely. The ocean has risen and the glacier is disappearing…..fast. Ships find it easier to transport unseen goods further and the containers get smaller and smaller.
In each container are millions of smaller containers transporting either air from the old organizations or goods from the new organizations that made best use of the change.
Industry comes of change and cheques are about as current as climate change is on the Australian political persuasion at present.