Presentation for the MaharaUK 14 conference

1. Do Cats Play Piano?
DO-MI-nique Alain JAN

2. Evidences
http://news.bbc.co.uk
/cbbcnews/hi/newsid_8080000/newsid_8087800/8087807.stm

3. Metaphor
http://news.bbc.co.uk/cbbcnews/hi/newsid_8080000/newsid_8087800/8087807.s
tm
Graduate employee
ePortfolio practice

4. Real title of my research project
“An investigation of graduates’ practice
in maintaining ePortfolio practice after
graduation and at the beginning of their
career” Actual PhD thesis subject

5. Training is essential

6. Champions vs Laggards

7. Champions vs Laggards

8. Where literature review stops

9. What happens next?
Do Doctor Cats Play Piano?

10. What happens next?
Do Accountant Cats Play Piano?

11. What happens next?
Do Teacher Cats Play Piano?

12. The Deep Learning approach
LMS
Informal Knowledge
Personal skills
Experience
“Soft skills”
PLE
Goodyear (2003)Formal knowledge
Keys and common concepts
Institutional training - “Hard skills”
ePortfolio

13. The question remains...
• Do graduate employees continue with eP
practice at their workplace ?
• Whether they do / don't
• Why ?
• What?
• For what purpose? 13

14. Research questions
• What are graduates’ ePortfolio practices after having left higher
education for professional life?
• What are educators’ expectations of graduates continuing to engage
with their ePortfolio after graduation?
• What are employers’ expectations of graduate employees engaging with
an ePortfolio at the start of their professional career?
14

15. Participants
• Graduate employees' employer
• Graduate employees
• Graduate employees' former trainers
• Unity of study = a cluster
• 1+ graduated student
• Employer (HR)
• Educator
15

16. ePortfolio purpose in
Francophone countries
Teacher training (IUFM + C2i2) Engineer training
Technology training (IUF) Students’ placement

17. Teacher training Assessing language skills
Nursing (initial + further training) Students’ placement
ePortfolio purpose in
Anglophone countries

18. Teacher training Assessing language skills
Nursing (initial + further training) Students’ placement
ePortfolio purpose in
Anglophone countries

19. Which platform?

20. What do they do with eP?
Livre blanc « La démarche ePortfolio dans l’enseignement
supérieur francais » Cahier n°3 / March 2013̧

21. Students Teachers
Livre blanc « La démarche ePortfolio dans l’enseignement
supérieur francais » Cahier n°3 / March 2013̧
Do they train practitioners?

22. How do they train them?
• Students
– 1 to 3 sessions
– Average of 60 min/session
• Teachers
– 1 to 2 sessions
– From ½ day to 1 day/session
• Training on how to use the tool
– 80% to 100% of the training time
• No training on the eP methodology

23. How to foster eP practice
http://vimeo.com/69882471

24. Do technologies, including eP have
an impact on teaching? (%)
Jesen, K. and Folley, S. (2011) Teaching and Learning Institute
Working Paper No.1, University of Huddersfield, March 2011.

25. What are the barriers to ICT use? (%)
Jesen, K. and Folley, S. (2011) Teaching and Learning Institute
Working Paper No.1, University of Huddersfield, March 2011.

26. What factors foster the adoption of
technology in teaching? (counts)
Jesen, K. and Folley, S. (2011) Teaching and Learning Institute
Working Paper No.1, University of Huddersfield, March 2011.

27. The Digital Footprint

28. Managing our Digital Identity
• Control our [personal-teaching-learning] environment
• Improve the ownership of our knowledge
• Manage access to our information
• Working together
• Build our reputation on facts
• Facts / Groupwork are keypoints to foster motivation (Heute,
2009)

29. Methodology
• Qualitative research
• f2f semi focussed interviews
• Activity theory framework
• Grounded theory approach
29

30. Field of research
30

31. First results
• No geographical / sociological differences in the stories collected
• 95% of graduate employees have stopped engaging with eP practice
(they say)
• 80% of graduate employees have the same perception on eP as their
educators
• 98% of employers never heard the word eP
• 60% of employers (HR) are trained for skills/competences appraisal
31

32. What do employees say?
• eP is a strategic tool
• eP takes time
• eP tools are too complicated
• eP are/were not considered as important by
educators/employers
• What is the point if our eP is lost when
leaving the institution? 32

33. What employees do?
• 88% have a FB account they use for personal purpose
• professional information is sometimes posted there
• 65% have a LinkedIn account
• professional information is sometimes posted there
• used more as a tool to say you are here
• 80% have a DropBox or equivalent account
• used to store evidences of professional achievements
• 10% are blogging/reflecting on their learning/professional skills and
achievements 33

34. Conclusion (so far)
• If graduate employees say they have stopped with
eP practice, we notice this is not totally true.
• Yes: they don't use eP management systems
anymore
• No: because some practices are transferred form
the classroom to the workplace
34

35. Conclusion (so far)
35
• Some reasons for having stopped with eP practice
– Time consuming
– Was not valorised by educators during HE studies
– Too complicated (bad user experience  impact the whole eP
practices)
– Lost the content of the eP after graduation
– Control of my digital identity  Educators were accessing my
“secret garden” without consent
– “What is ePortfolio?” (a graduate after 2 years of having used
Mahara during his teacher training school)