J. Ouellette | UBC-MET | ePortfolio
Group Project: E-Portfolios
ETEC 532Â | ARTIFACT TWO
One of the many things I loved about the MET program, was the opportunity, in almost every course, to collaborate with peers on an inquiry topic of personal interest.
​
Being very passionate about the notion of children being able to own their own lifetime digital portfolio, continues to be a goal I'm working towards in my current school. This electronic portfolio (eP) should be proof-in-the-pudding of the benefits. It affords the learner a repository of work, in-the-moment reflection and metacognition, and a student-centered focus on process rather than product. They are media rich, and, in my opinion, have greater permanence than a paper portfolio.
​
An eP also allows for reach in terms of audience. A child's grandmother could see his or her work in Canada if the child is studying in China, and semi-synchronous feedback could offered in a far more enriching forum than the often untimely feedback given on the printed alternative. In fact, there's barely a forum for discourse at all.
​
Like other co-constructed artifacts that were to be presented in the MET program, my inquiry needed a proposal. This is important to address the topic's relevance, purpose and links to modern theory. Here was the proposal that we submitted:
Elsdon, J., Magnussen, S., O'Connor, M., Oswald, J., & Ouellette, J., 2016a)
Elsdon, J., Magnussen, S., O'Connor, M., Oswald, J., & Ouellette, J., 2016b)
Once given the green light from our professor, my fabulous group members and I began building our resourceful website intended for educators aiming to make the shift towards ePs for their learners.
​
One medium that I was very passionate about gaining knowledge in was Seesaw. We also chose to explore Schoology and Freshgrade, as these were gaining popularity in Canadian schools, at the time.
Unfortunately, all of these eP media platforms do not pass the ubiquitous access test in China, the nation where I teach, due to the Great Firewall's access restrictions. Asking parents to purchase a VPN in order to gain access to and comment on student work just doesn't make sense.
​
For now, my school uses locally hosted WordPress sites. Children below grade four, that aren't officially in the 1:1 Macbook program, document some of their learning via the EasyBlog application, which is tied to their classroom blog hosted on WordPress. Students do not own the links to these, however, in the past three years I have been at the school, I have not seen them pass. Grade threes, the year which I teach, unfortunately do not have their own WordPress sites ... yet.
​
In the meantime, I do have children add work into their own Evernote folders and share it with their parents. However, Evernote's lack of a proper visible feedback forum takes away from the purpose a little. Yes, Evernote does have a WorkChat feature, however, it removes discourse from the actual work itself, which is not ideal.
​
I also have students share their work in our class blog via the EasyBlog application on our class iPads. This does allow for greater audience reach and timelier feedback. The main drawback is that individual work is loosely categorized to show development over time. Yes, children could be taught to categorize and tag, but that, at a grade three level, would end up taking as much, if not more time, than the reflecting itself. Click here for an example of what this looks like.
​
Essentially, I'm looking forward to the day when the location where I am teaching has less barriers to implementation, use and access to one of these great eP platforms.
J. Ouellette | UBC-MET | ePortfolio