Exploring eportfolio as both a formative and a summative learning tool for requalification in Canada.

1. ePortfolio
21st Century Learning and
Demonstration Tool
for Professional Immigrants
March 19, 2013

2. Why an ePortfolio?

3. Purpose: Summative or Formative?
Shop window or factory?
http://www.jiscinfonet.ac.uk/infokits/e-portfolios

4. Multimodal, recursive
http://www.slideshare.net/4nitsirk/mahara-open-source-eportfolio-application

5. ePortfolio: product and process
• Digital archive
• Showcase: celebration & assessment of learning
– Education
• Acceptance/advanced standing, course requirement,
graduation requirement
– Workplace
• Hiring, HR development, professional development, project
team selection
FuturEd 2004

6. ePortfolio: product and process
• Assessment for learning (e.g. CLPA)
• Reflection, self-assessment
• Transferring skills, making transtions
• Coaching, collaborative learning
• Learning plans
• Knowledge Management

7. Credentials vs. ePortfolio
Credentials ePortfolio
• Reflect time spent in • Reflects time spent learning
class • Evidence-based proficiency
• Questionable proficiency • Statement of actual skills and
• Proxy for skills and knowledge
knowledge • “Living”
• Dated • Systematic
• Variable quality • All learning valued
• Formal learning only
(Courtesy FuturEd)

8. Benefits of “e”
• Information Management capabilities
– Collecting, archiving, sharing, making different versions
– Multimedia evidence
• Digital technology, Internet literacy
• Learning and collaboration integration
– Online research: documents, networks
– Easy to add comments, edit, mentor, coach
• Digital Identity
– Professional Profile, Personal network
• Measurement, alignment
– Link to frameworks, rubrics, track learning over time
• Systems integration and interoperability
– Moodle and other LMS, HRIS systems

9. Key elements
• Links individual’s skills/accomplishments to
skills frameworks
• A record of formal AND experiential learning
• Claims backed by digital evidence
• Learner ownership
• More than a showcase

10. Personal Planning and Learning
Online Locker, Interactive Workbook
• Online archive
– Personal & downloaded documents, links
• Resources for self-directed learning
– Webinars, videos, self-assessment surveys
• Learning plans and tracking tools
– Set goals and track progress to them (Learning Plans)
– Keep records of learning activities over time (CPD)
• Personal journal
– Reflect on goals and alternative futures
– Keep ad hoc “notes to self”, prepare agendas, etc.
• Ongoing Personal Learning Environment (PLE)
– “Continuous Learning Environment”

11. Learning Example
English as an Additional Language
• Products of language courses
– Portfolio Based Language Assessment
• Authentic artefacts of speaking, listening,
reading and writing
• Formative/summative
– Snapshots of progress
– Holistic employability
• (e.g. demonstrate communication &
technical skills)

12. Employment & related purposes
Demonstrate, assess & improve Human Capital
• Qualification Recognition
– Initial, formative, summative assessment
• Academic recognition
– PLAR/RPL for courses and programs
• Career Development
– Gap analysis, exploration of alternatives, building pathways
• Employment (Web CV)
– Hiring, career advancement, team building tool for employers
• Continuing Professional Development (CPD)
– Tracking ongoing learning activities and reflection on practice
– Recertification

13. Lifelong, lifewide
Before AND after getting the job
• Pre-employment
– Becoming employable, getting hired
• Workplace development
– Skills development, performance management,
career advancement
• Recognition of Prior Learning
– Challenge for credit
• Continuing Professional Development
– Regulated occupations
• Knowledge portfolios
• Life portfolios

14. An Essential Skills
ePortfolio using Mahara

15. Workplace Education Manitoba
& WPLAR
• Nonprofit partnerships of Government,
Business and Labour
• WEM: workplace education in Essential
Skills
• WPLAR: workplace Recognition of Prior
Learning
wem.mb.ca
wplar.ca

16. Essential Skills ePortfolio
Program overview
• For Adults in Transition
• Leverage the “e” factor
• Accessible and authentic ICT
– Free software
– Accessible multimedia hardware
• Provide ongoing learning support
– Gap training / PD for SMART goals using Moodle

17. Professional Immigrants
Succeed with excellent Essential Skills
• Reading Text
• Document Use
• Numeracy
• Writing
• Oral Communication
• Working with Others
• Continuous Learning
• Thinking Skills
– Problem Solving, Decision Making, Job Task Planning and
Organizing, Significant Use of Memory, Finding Information
• Digital technology

18. Vision for Career Portfolio Manitoba
Lifelong career development
• All Manitobans
• Learner owned
• Personal and public purposes
• Lifewide: home, community, school, work...
• Based on (not restricted to) Essential Skills
• Built through partnerships of stakeholders, with
WEM and WPLAR as “anchor tenants”
• Globally aware, locally relevant

19. Career Portfolio Manitoba
Demonstration
• Portfolio building course
– Video tutorials, support
• Templates
– Pages (soon collections)
• Job Match Summary
• Extensive use of Web 2.0
– YouTube, Screenr, LinkedIn…
– Embed.ly as the glue
• Fictional exemplar
• Growing gallery of real examples

20. Conclusion

21. Benefits for Immigrants
Personal Learning Environment
• Self-assessment, filling gaps, practising,
building confidence
• Developing Essential Skills
• Building necessary knowledge
• Demonstrating competence authentically
• Building support networks
• Supporting personal performance
– Frequently used links and other tools
• Personal space for learning

22. Develop your own ePortfolio
Take the online course
• Initial focus: MLPIMG
– Formative (workbook):
• Online checklist, practice, track performance improvement
• Sharing with support/advisory network
– Summative (showcase):
• Supplementary demonstration of required competencies
• First steps
– Validate the approach
– Organize a study group for the self-directed online
course
– Contact Don Presant to get logins
• don@learningagents.ca

23. careerportfolio.mb.ca
don@learningagents.ca
Twitter: @donpresant
(SIMILAR) PRESENTATION SUPPORT PAGE
bit.ly/ep4imm