Notes from Dr. Tanya Martini's interview on the Neuro Transmission podcast on what she has learned from doing ePortfolios with her classes over the years. Audio files for this presentation can be found here: https://community.cengage.com/t5/Psychology-Blog/ePortfolios-Key-Considerations/ba-p/14154

1. Psychology Professor, Brock University
St. Catharines, Canada
ePortfolios:
Tips from Dr. Tanya Martini

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• ePortfolios are usually considered to be a collection of what people refer to as artifacts. A lot of
students are familiar with LinkedIn for example. Students have unique needs and [LinkedIn allows
them] to create separate spaces and unique profiles so that they can best demonstrate what it is
they've got to offer an organization and recognize that sometimes their work-related experiences are
more limited than people who've been in the field for 40 years. A lot of people would say that a
LinkedIn profile is a good example of an electronic portfolio. They tend to be a repository where
students can collect and organize experiences they've had.
• I remember somebody saying to me, well, how's it any different than a resume? And the answer is,
it's never meant to replace your resume. You've got to have a good resume, but it allows you to
expand on things you think are important. And the electronic side of it now allows you to draw in
things you can't do with a resume - a video or photographs or links to poster presentations that you've
done.
What Is an ePortfolio?

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• People think about it as a capstone experience - you arrive in your fourth year or your final year and
now's the time to draw these things together. The only difficulty with that that I have experienced is
that oftentimes you don't always remember things as well as you might, and you haven't
necessarily collected the artifacts along the way that you might want. I've had students say to me,
hey man, you know, if I knew that I was going to build this, I wish now that I had done a little video
about it.
• So there are multiple reasons for students to start early. One is that it allows them, if they're thinking in
those terms, to gather their work and put it in the portfolio and use it as a repository.
• But the other thing I really like about schools where they start that project early (I think the University
of Michigan does this), is that they look at it much more as a process of building it over a long period
of time and as a pedagogically helpful too. Students can see this as “This is where I was when I was
in first year and this is where I am now”.
• And they not only can document their experiences, but it gives them something quite concrete to look
at and use as a springboard to reflect on how they've changed, what kinds of experiences they've
had and how that's changed them, how their opinions have changed. I like it as a product that starts
early and evolves and it requires you to create spaces in the curriculum for them to work on it at
regular intervals. I think pedagogically it's a better model.
When Do You Start Creating One?

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• From a really practical point of view it's about starting to build their digital footprint. We begin the
course by talking about what a digital footprint is and why it's important. And I show them some stats
about the number of people who didn't get a job because when the employer or the human resources
department Googled their name, found them and then didn't really like what they saw.
• So they need opportunities to start to develop a digital footprint that they can be proud of and that is
professional.
Help Students Create their Digital Footprint

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• I've seen quite a few paper based portfolios, usually from students in our faculty of Education.
Education students have used portfolios for a long time. You see it as a place to gather together their
lesson plans or the kinds of things that they've done in the classroom.
• The electronic format allows you the opportunity to bring in media that aren't possible [with paper]. So
I'm thinking about some students who have recorded a video, for example, or in one of my classes I
have students do a Ted talk and we post them up on YouTube.
• So the eportfolio does give you a little bit more flexibility. And the other thing about it is that as you
evolve over time and you add experiences to your collection, I think that the electronic format is easier
to move around and edit than a paper based portfolio.
Digital vs. Paper

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• Getting past [students’] anxiety of technology means that you would want to use a tool that's relatively user-friendly
for students. That’s one of the reasons I landed on Weebly, but of course there are so many sites that are very
similar - it's all drag and drop technology. So it makes it really, really easy for students. They're going through the
motions that they're very familiar with, like uploading pictures from their hard drive.
• So for me, making a decision about software is partly guided by ease of use, intuitiveness and what does the final
product look like. One of the things that guided my choice about using Weebly for example, was that there's a lot of
templates they can choose. There's a lot of flexibility in terms of choosing imagery that seems to project the image
you want.
• We generate part of the grading scheme together. So [I ask them] "What do you think constitutes a really effective
website?" Does "effective" look different if you are applying for a job in early childhood education than it does if you
are applying for a job in an HR department at Pepsi. So one of the things that I think is important aside from ease
of use is just the ability to create an outward facing product that has a lot of flexibility so people can create
something that's quite personalized.
• I've seen really effective eportfolios that were generated by somebody moving into early childhood education
where using a lot of crayon colors were very effective visually, right through to eportfolios that are very
conservative looking, black and white fonts, etc., but very effective as well. I like tools that allow people to express
themselves in whatever way seems to make sense. And that is guided to some extent by the purpose of that
portfolio from their point of view.
ePortfolio Tools

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• What I have found is that one of the best ways to approach this is in pieces. That’s the way that we structure the
portfolio assignment, which runs from week one to week 12 in a 12 week course. So it essentially spans the entire
course by giving them a series of shorter assignments that allow them to build it in pieces. I start them by thinking
in ways they are quite comfortable with like very concrete ways, you know, name five or eight experiences that
were really important to you. And then I get them to kind of break that down. Start by telling me about what you
did, tell me what your responsibilities were. And that's really, that's easy. That kind of concrete thinking is very
easy.
• And then I gradually working them towards the more difficult kind of reflection, the metacognitive side where it's
like - what did I learn from that? And, “If I was back in that position, would there be something I would do
differently?” I have found that given sufficient time to actually do an assignment like this, one of the things that's
very helpful for them is basically starting in a place that they're very comfortable with and and using a series of
smaller assignments to move them towards the kind of sophisticated and integrative thinking you want them to
engage in at the end.
• I never let them start building the website until closer to the second half of the course. The first half is really
about the writing, I’m much more concerned with the process than the product. The product is important, but the
process is really important. In my experience that's better than giving them really, really large assignments and
expecting them to tackle it holistically. It also gives you the opportunity to create buy-in as you move along. So I
like the kind of "build it in pieces" approach. That's worked much better for me and it gives me more time to explain
and sometimes revisit why we're doing this and why it's important. And what can you get out of this?
Build it in Pieces

8. Notes
This presentation was created from an interview that Dr. Martini gave on the Neuro
Transmission podcast by Cengage. Here are some helpful links:
• The audio sound bites that were transcribed to make this presentation can be found on the
Cengage Higher Ed Faculty Community site.
• The full interview can be heard on the Neuro Transmission Podcast site.
• Dr. Tanya Martini’s Workplace Skills Lab website.
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