Reflecting on learning

20-March-2007

[ e-Portfolios ]
An invitation to take part in the testing of a new social software tool for facilitating reflection
I am involved in a pretty lively discussion on the MOSEP project blog site. MOSEP is a project developing and piloting professional development for teachers on the use of e-Portfolios. It includes partners from six different European countries.

One issue above all has dominated the discussion on this site - that of reflection. Whilst everyone pays lip service to the importance of reflection in developing an e-portfolio - in reality there are limited ideas on how this might be done.

I am working on another project called Reflective Evaluation. This project is developing and testing tools to support adult education practitioners in reflecting on their practice as part of their continuing professional development.

This is an interesting project - much more interesting than it sounds! We have developed a lightweight editing tool which allows researchers, teachers and trainers to develop and edit short content ‘objects’ as the basis for reflection. The editor supports different question types and makes it easy to add multimedia type questions. These go into a database which now holds some 150 ‘learning objects’ in six different languages.

At present these are grouped into:

  • Values
  • Self evaluation and quality development
  • Assessment and recognition
  • Work conditions
  • Collaboration and networking
  • Teaching and learning


and have been developed at four different levels:

  • practitioner
  • team
  • institution
  • society

A further tool layer allows a facilitator to select a particular group  of questions for a particular user group and if desired, sequence those questions.

Practitioners work through the questions. Besides their own individual answer they are able to access others answers to the questions and to rate the answers. Practitioners can also themselves add questions into the database. The questions for reflection will be enhanced by a further reading and reference list being developed using a feed from Delicious.
I’m enjoying this project and am pretty confident it will work. The trick is that the ‘learning objects’ - the raw material for reflection need to be developed by practitioner and to reflect their experience. The key then to this, is the development of tools that are easy for practitioners to understand and use. And I think we are cracking  it. Besides myself there is only one other participant in the project with any background in Technology Enhanced Learning. Sometimes it is painful having toe explain basic concepts. But it is rewarding t o see how others are beginning to make use of the tools.

In May / June we will test the tools in anger with teachers and trainers. If you would be interested in joining the test  - or would juts like to know more about the Reflective Evaluation project and tools please get in touch.

Of course the smae tool could easily be used for posting materials for students - if anyone would like to give it a go just contact me.


Graham Attwell; 20-March-2007 13:09:21;