The Wales-Wide Web

I have just spent another week bogged down with administration.

But have taken a quick hour out to write down some thoughts on the European MOSEP e-Portfolio meeting in Wolsingham last week. If I don’t do it now I am going to forget some of the main points - and there was plenty to think about.

First a little background. The MOSEP project is researching, developing and piloting e-Portfolios with 14-18 year olds in six European countries. Our initial research suggests that whilst the idea of e-Portfolios is well developed - if in the early stages of implementation - in the UK - in other countries, such as Bulgaria and Lithuania it is little known. Thus one talks for the project is sharing expertise and experiences between the different countries and different partner organisations involved in the project.

Our research also suggest there are wide difference sin approach and purpose in introducing e-Portfolios. Roughly speaking the purpose of e-Portfolios can be seen as assessment - which tends to be the approach in the USA, for Personal Development or Careers Planning - the major approach in the UK, or for learning and for recording informal learning.

The MOSEP meeting was held in Wolsingham School and Community College (to give it its full name). Wolsingham is a small village in the Durham Dales in the north of England. The school caters for 11-18 year old students (apologies to John and the Wolsingham staff for any inaccuracies in this piece). It is a  comprehensive school providing both general and vocational education. It is slightly unusual in having a small 6th form - for students aged 16-18. In most cases in England, sixth form provision has been concentrated in larger schools or sixth form colleges, or in Further Education Colleges to allow wider subject provision. However, Wolsingham is in a rural area catering for students over a wide distance and as such is funded for smaller class provision at sixth form level. Obviously the issue of rurality is an important one in the organisation of the school - most students travels some distance by bus - and in the social life of the students (and teachers).

John Pallister - the head of IT at the  school - represents the school in the MOSEP project. He did a great job organising the meeting. On the first afternoon of the meeting he organised for about 15 students to come in and show us their portfolios - and gave us a brilliant opportunity just to chat with the students. And in the evening we had a meal and a post session drink with the staff from the school who are reviewing the use of the portfolio. This provided a lot of food for thought. So here goes - and if it seems overly critical believe me when I say they are doing a great job both in attempting to broaden the learning experience for the students and - in the course of it - providing much experience for others who will follow in their steps.  (It should also be said that I was greatly taken with the atmosphere in the school. I am not a great fan of schools - I always feel intimidated. But this place had a very nice open feel to it - and the students were themselves very open in putting forward their ideas).

First the achievement. The school is providing and supporting an e-Portfolio - called an E-Me for a considerable number of students and is aiming to provide an e-Portfolio for every student. The E-Me has a high profile in the school. Students appear to have taken ownership of the e-Portfolio, and although there are differences between individuals, are investing some time and effort int he design and maintenance of their e-Portfolio. The major issue I think was the purpose of the Portfolio. The portfolios had been introduced essentially for careers planning with the support of the IT department. This had tow consequences. Firstly they were not linked to the ‘normal’ subject lessons. Neither were they focused on reflection on informal learning form outside the school - although hobbies were included in so far as they were relevant for the careers planning. Secondly, they the e-Portfolio was largely a presentation portfolio - there was little functionality to make a selected presentation and students tended to see them as the finished goods. Given the lack of links to subject based learning, some of the students - and probably teachers - failed to see any great value, especially as the University entrance authorities do not presently accept e-Portfolios and there is little awareness amongst employers of the potential of e-Portfolios for employee recruitment.

Reflection was regarded as a problem by the staff. However its seems to me the major problem lay in the nature of the software being used. I cannot remember the name if the package, but Wolsingham are using a proprietary system. Nothing wrong with that I suppose (even if I do prefer open source). The major problem is that this is not an on-line portfolio -students are accessing their portfolio on the school network. And there is no opportunity to share the portfolio with anyone else. I talked about this to one student who was obviously (rightly) very proud of her portfolio. She told me she updates in several times a week in the lunchtimes. She said her mum and dad had seen it and she though t some of her teachers looked at it but sighed and said she had tried showing it to her friends. The lack of peer group (or wider) access to the portfolios was not only resulting in the lack of feedback fort the students but was conversely resulting in a lot of work for teachers in trying to make up for the lack of peer group interaction. And I think that it is the peer group feedback which probably forms the basis for reflection. We have tended to think of reflection as an internal process. Reflection may be far more powerful when considering another persons view of our work.

On the plus side the e-Portfolio software was easy to use and to style (unlike most on-line programmes) and it was clear that many of the students enjoyed designing the graphics. They were also encouraged to use multi media but it turned out that most of the multi media in the portfolios was actually produced by the teachers.

A number of the students were also concerned that they were not able to work on their portfolios at home. This turned out to be a misconception as the school license did cover home use but this had not been communicated to them (and would require yet more organizational effort by the staff). A number were also concerned that the materials would be lost after they left school because of the proprietary format. This also may not be true as we dug around and found at least an html export function which they were not aware of.

The commitment of the students - and indeed the level of student satisfaction - with the e-Portfolio seemed heavily predicative on when they had started the development process. Those students who moved from another school to enter the sixth form at Wolsingham could see little benefit from the Portfolio. They had come to the school to obtain their 'A' levels and the portfolio was at best a diversion. However those students who had already developed a Portfolio at Wolsingham prior to entering the sixth form were far more supportitive.

In the evening I did two interviews - one with a retired member of staff who chairs the Portfolio review group - and the second with Dorothy Parkin, Head of Sixth Form at Wolsingham school. I will try to get the audio recordings on line this weekend. Dorothy talked a lot about change management and how to get a critical mass of support amongst staff at the school. Whilst there is very active support from a number of staff, they probably remain a minority. To my mind the problem is that whilst the e-Portfolio plays little role in subject based teaching and learning, it will be difficult to persuade these teachers of the value of the e-Portfolios for their students. And of course - as with every UK teacher I have talked to in the last five years - she pointed to the burden of compliance with the hundreds of new initiatives the government had launched in education.

All in all a great learning experience for me - thanks to John and the other Wolsingham staff and students.

If you would liek to find out more John has published a paper entitled Implementing a multimedia e-portfolio to support learning