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- Monday February 06, 2012 Benoit Bolduc (AQPC) The 32nd AQPC Symposium - Cultivating Judgment: from Montaigne to Today The 32nd AQPC Symposium will be held from June 6 to 8, 2012 at the Palais des congrès in Gatineau, and will explore the theme of cultivating critical thinking. Benoit Bolduc, director general of the AQPC (Association québécoise de pédagogie collégiale) presents several aspects of the upcoming program in which IT will occupy an important place. The complete program of the symposium will be available at the end of March 2012.
- Monday January 30, 2012 APOP Using APOP’s ICT Savvy APOP is now accepting project proposals from Anglophone sectors within the Quebec College Network. APOP can assist you in structuring your project, helping you to foresee every dimension that needs to be addressed, taking advantage of their 30 years of experience in the pedagogical application of ICT expertise.
- Monday January 23, 2012 Maeve Muldowney (Dawson College) Fanny Kingsbury (AQPC) Norm Spatz (Profweb) Pédagogie Collégiale's IT English Secret Thanks to information technology, a wealth of English pedagogical information from the AQPC's Pédagogie collégiale is available to members of the Quebec College Network and to anyone else at a single click. With the launch of its English Editorial Board, the journal is hoping to become better known within the Anglophone community.
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ePortfolios in Education
Raymond Cantin
project manager, Vitrine technologie-éducation
Traditionally, portfolios have been used for revealing and portraying a person's skills, education, learning and achievements. But traditional portfolios are slowly being replaced by web-based information management systems called digital portfolios or ePortfolios. These are made up of a collection of digital artefacts that can include inputted text, assignments or projects, graphics, images, photographs, websites or blog entries. If they are online, ePortfolios can be maintained dynamically over time: teachers can track their students' progress over the years, encouraging them and providing positive feedback.
- Click to enlarge!
Research shows that ePortfolios facilitate students' reflection on their own learning, leading to increased awareness of learning strategies and needs. Results of a comparative research between paper-based portfolios and electronic portfolios in the same setting suggest that use of an electronic portfolio leads to better learning outcomes. A European project is even using e-portfolios in order to strengthen the self-esteem of young learners.
Specialists in the field believe that use of digital portfolios represents an opportunity to improve the quality of education, providing teachers and staff with valuable information to design individualized, challenging learning experiences. Some Open Source ePortfolio systems are available for those who would like to implement an ePortfolio project in their institution.
In the following podcast interview, Dr. Helen Barrett, an international specialist and speaker on the subject of ePortolios, gives us her definition of ePortfolios. She also talks about how this new technology gives students opportunities for taking ownership of their learning process, and how e-portfolios are used in innovative ways in different parts of the world to truly engage learners.
Click on the arrow in the lighthouse image to listen to the podcast.
Comments are always appreciated (please use the form below). Cheers!
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respecting certain conditions.
Comments by readersReact to this text
'Education' needs defining
Yes, Raymond, I agree with what you say, as far as it goes. However, 'Education' is a very broad field. I would therefore like to suggest that we look a bit further at what you suggest: 1. Intelligent young adults, certainly those of 18+ yrs and who find themselves in HE, are capable of taking on initiatives and 'adult' responsibilities which make individual 'cloud-based' e-Portfolios a natural and interesting approach generating a variety of solutions. As much as I am in awe of the work of Dr Helen Barrett I am not sure of the practicability of cloud computing when it comes to assessing holistically the whole student. The young intelligent adult is capable of using a vast range of tools for an even wider variety of purposes. How these tools are used, the collaborative interactions with peers and a whole range of other 'background' information may not be ostensibly recorded. Furthermore, the products of such external links may not easily be linked to the institution's MIS or VLE. 2. In mainstream education, certainly here in the UK, every school is expected to have a VLE which not only supports Teaching & Learning but also should provide 'real-time' reporting to parents AND support some form of connectivity to an e-Portfolio. This has produced a plethora or VLE-based e-Portfolio systems which work well whilst the student is in that particular institution (even at Primary school levels) but have significant difficulties in terms of interoperability or 'portability'. 3. BUT e-Portfolios are not just for bright young adults, nor just for mainstream education, but should be available to all abilities, the less able, those with disabilities, the disadvantaged, or even those not attracted to formal learning. The e-Portfolio should therefore be simple enough to use so that it may capture all aspects of Prior Learning or Experiential Learning. I therefore maintain that the one e-Portfolio application should be equally appropriate for all Ages, Aptitudes, Abilities, Accessibilities and Attitudes. 4. I therefore see the only realistic solution to meeting all of the above criteria in an externally hosted application which meets the requirements of 'Lifelong, Lifewide Learning and Leisure' capable of portability independent of any institution. I post regularly on this topic at my blog: my eFolio in the UK blog
Ray Tolley, Education ICT Consultant, Maximise ICT Ltd [2010-5-31]