ALT-C Conference report: e-portfolios - empowering or enervating?
Are e-portfolios agents of empowerment or exclusion for disadvantaged learners? Delegates visiting the Jisc stand at the ALT-C conference in Manchester have been debating this question and leaving their thoughts on the Jisc pillar of knowledge.
One delegate suggested that e-portfolios themselves are essentially a neutral technology. Issues of empowerment or exclusion are largely factors of how the technology is used in context. Opinions differ on how the technology should be best employed, with some contributors emphasising the importance of a personal, user-controlled, private and flexible experience, and others arguing that the current interest in this area would be best harnessed by a national system rather than local innovations.
Potentially empowering aspects of e-portfolios that have been identified are the ability of non-traditional learners to reflect on their life experiences, skills and learning to boost their confidence even when their experience of formal learning has been less successful. Telling their emerging learning stories is also something that learners of all ages have found empowering. Where e-portfolios are used for assessment or job applications, they may give learners more confidence and control over the way they present their evidence. Use within familiar local communities, maximum user control of presentation, and support for students to engage and share using a pseudonym were all suggested as ways to help overcome learners’ initial fears about ‘Big Brother’ watching them.
Concerns raised include the fear that e-portfolios may primarily be used as tools for assessment and will raise the total burden of assessment for the student. One delegate commented that the use of e-portfolios will favour certain styles of learners, and may cause other learners to worry about their personal learning styles. Scepticism was expressed as to whether e-portfolios will really have an impact in research-led institutions, and whether staff will have time to provide any feedback.
Many of these issues are explored in Jisc’s work on e-portfolios under the MLEs for Lifelong Learning and Distributed e-Learning programmes.
Further information on these can be found at: http://www.jisc.ac.uk/index.cfm?name=programme_mle_lifelong2 and http://www.jisc.ac.uk/pilotsdetail.html