This subsection briefly reflects on my experience of assembling and applying an ePortfolio that was used to present evidence for this module, again I am using Schön's reflection on action to recall the experience (Smith 2001, 2011).
Referring back to my Introduction, I highlighted that ePortfolios assisted in developing practice, they were learner-centred and that you could collect and organise work and learning experiences. This would then contribute to making a product of achievement that could be built upon or transferred into new learning experiences. The following discusses this in a little more in detail to conclude my experience.
Developing practice
I define my learning approach to be pragmatic, so this module worked well with my learning needs. However, as my specialist subject is within learning technology I feel I must be creative and flexible in my approach to gain a wider understanding of implementing an ePortfolio not only for assessment but for future practice, plus to gain better perspectives of using an ePortfolio over a traditional method. However, it was prescribed in the module specification that learners are encouraged to take a more pragmatic approach to their individual learning. I feel that an ePortfolio has developed my practice in terms of digital literacy as it has allowed me to capture naturally occurring evidence that I could place into one area. This was a great benefit to me as my initial learning occurred digitally, so I could easily link to where this happened or transfer it to another area within the ePortfolio to make my newly acquired knowledge and skills visible.
Learner-centeredness
I found the ePortfolio a good and flexible medium to enable reflection as with my personal blog, probably due to the ease of access and freedom to type while thinking. As with handwriting it is much slower but typing works at the same pace as my thinking, so I can talk in my head whilst hitting the letters on the keyboard. I found myself intrinsically motivated by the personal product that I was creating and by the knowledge I was acquiring through research and the online community. Personalisation was essential in which the tutor did enable within us by stating that we could be creative in how we approached the assessment. I made my choice of Google Sites for this ePortfolio as I had previously experienced them before and was confident in exploiting further potential.
Collecting and organising
I adopted the portfolio approach by collecting evidence through 'on-the-go' research and the contributions I was making in the online community. However, I wasn't fixated on the technology but the learning approach with the eagerness to immediately apply it into my ePortfolio as a way to store, retrieve and organise at a later date. The technology affordances such as linking my online contributions and embedding multimedia were an advantage over traditional documents. The approach is still the same in an essay style format, but I did adapt this slightly towards an actual portfolio by making it look and feel like one with dedicated sections and labels.
ePortfolio as a product
I mentioned that an ePortoflio can act as a log or tracking mechanism to demonstrate fitness for practise. Looking back I seem to have done this through frequent writing and note taking in this online space as my learning occurs. May that be when I was reading literature around topics and then recording references and making notes in the sections for me to weave in at a later date. The ePortfolio appeared to act as a repository to store my evidence, it didn't necessarily develop my learning which was acquired in the online community but it did help to reinforce my learning, which I can refer back to when I need to. However, my evidence wasn't the place of assessment, thus leading myself to make more effort to transfer contributions or thinking of alternative methods of linking them into the ePortfolio.
Ultimately, in the experience of my ePortfolio it was effective in supporting and reinforcing my learning using a medium that suits my preferred learning style. This ePortfolio can now be used as an active product that can be built upon or transferred to in any future learning experiences.
Constructive Alignment
Furthermore, when looking back at the whole module activity, it reminds me of the process that Biggs (2003) introduces in his Constructive Alignment theory. The 'constructive' aspect suggests that learners construct and create their own meaning through relevant learning activities, not transferred from teacher to learner. This relates to me researching and contributing to the online community but then making sense of it in my personal online space, the ePortfolio. The 'alignment' aspect suggests that the teacher creates the environment and supports the relevant learning activities to help achieve set learning outcomes. Teaching and assessment methods are then used to align learning activities to meet the set learning outcomes. The learner is then left with a sense of feeling enclosed in what they are expected to learn and do. This relates to the online community that was set up by the tutor and the choice of electronic medium that learners could use to present evidence, which in this case is this ePortfolio. The learning outcomes were communicated at the beginning of the module and reminded throughout which emphasises the notion of enclosure.