Derrin Kent

ePortfolios, eAssessment and both.

Posted in Free & Open Source Software, WBL, e-Portfolios, e-learning by Derrin on the April 1st, 2010

Both e-portfolio and e-assessment processes have independent value …but both objectives can be happily delivered in an interdependent way.

Mahara very much sees itself as a stand-alone reflective (lifelong) e-portfolio tool. But Mahara is also keen to integrate with the Moodle Course Management System and its very useful gradebook.

This integration then facilitates the use of outcomes within Moodle´s gradebook. When qualification requirements need to be described, a template Mahara view can be supplied as a starting point for a learner to creatively bounce off. The learner-produced Mahara View (page) can then be submitted via Moodle for assessment as outcomes towards an evidence based qualification (such as an NVQ or QCF unit).

Both Mahara and Moodle are Open Source and Learning Technologists can access the patches required to implement this integration via: http://wiki.mahara.org/System_Administrator%27s_Guide/Moodle%2F%2FMahara_Integration/View_Submission

Sooo… yes… we very happily deliver eAssessment within Mahoodle…..

However, if I am brutally honest, I have been really disappointed to find that too many of my FE / skills sector clients have been (economically) driven by the eAssessment process almost to the point of rejection of the ePortfolio process.

I maintain that facilitating learner production of a ¨personally-stylised online ringbinder¨ - structuring their own, personalised collections of ¨paper behind glass¨ - is at least equal in priority to our helping our learners to tick the evidence boxes required for success in their qualifications.

When Leitch told us in the UK that we needed to raise the skills bar, he meant that we should improve the skills held by the learners, not just to give out more certificates and badges, didn´t he? Did he?

I do sometimes feel that the ePortfolio process has been hijacked by eAssessment tools which serve as ¨evidence of competence postboxes¨ rather than serving as reflective learning platforms. It perturbs me that too many of these tools dare to refer to themselves as an ePortfolio (!) This misnomer has made it very hard for TDM to explain the benefits of a proper ePortfolio tool such as Mahara.

Believe it or not, I have experienced many Work-Based Learning Providers actually telling me that they do not want to use Mahara but that they do want to use Moodle (!). How on earth can it have arisen that a Work-Based Learning provider perceive a Course Management System to be of greater value to them than a Portfolio-building tool???

To make matters worse, I find it unfortunate - nay sad - that too many accrediting bodies have too often thrown their weight - in the form of their endorsements - behind too many pedagogically impoverished software tools: tools which almost cynically prioritise the assessment process over the facilitation of reflective learning process.

Surely it is a basic androgogical truism that adults learn best when they are encouraged to reflectively apply their learning to their real-life contexts? Haven´t Vygotsky and Bruner taught us that learning is delivered best when a ¨teacher¨ intervenes upon and shapes authentic learner output / performance?

As I said earlier on this list… assessment is a healthy element of a learning process. It can motivate study and yardsticks / measures are socially useful. But portfolio-building should be seen as the very heart of the adult learning process…. even acknowledging that teacher-directed courses (a la Moodle) can also be very helpful when we wish to pursue a sequence of identified learning / knowledge / skills improvement objectives.

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ePortfolios, eAssessment and both.