Using e-portfolios to support flexible learning options
Living and working in the knowledge era means people expect to use technology when they are learning in the same way they use it in their everyday lives. Australian education and training organisations are realising the key benefits of incorporating information and communication technologies (ICT) and the internet to offer flexible learning opportunities to their students. These influences have given rise to a growing interest in the use of electronic portfolios (e-portfolios) to support personalised learning.
E-portfolios are learner centred, personal online spaces which support lifelong and life-wide learning by providing a mechanism for individuals to manage their existing knowledge and facilitate new learning opportunities. As a structured and purposeful collection of digital objects, e-portfolios enable individuals to dynamically create up-to-the-minute records of their own experiences, achievements and evidences of learning.
The ability to capture evidence through mobile devices (such as mobile phones, digital cameras, smart pens and point of view devices) offers improved opportunities for gaining RPL (recognition of prior learning) or presenting information for individuals moving between educational organisations.
Capturing and recording evidence of learning digitally through audio, video, and photographs, as well as, reflectively through blogs, provides authentic means of enabling workplace assessment, and helps fast track learning, especially for work-based apprenticeships and traineeships. Incorporating e-portfolios and mobile devices into learning experiences also provides new and exciting ways of re-engaging and retaining learners in traditional learning settings.
Allison Miller, the E-portfolios Business Manager, will be explaining how e-portfolios are being used to support flexible education and training options together with providing a means for learners to move easily between education, training and employment at the Learning Technologies 2009 Conference on 18-19 November 2009 in Mooloolaba.
Tags: apprenticeships, careerportfolios, conference, digifolios, digital cameras, digital portfolio, digital portfolios, disengaged, e-portfolio, e-portfolios, epf, eportfolio, eportfolios, fast tracking, flexible learning options, ICT, information and communication technology, learning technologies 2009, life portfolios, lifelong learning, lifestreams, lifewide learning, LT2009, mobile devices, mobile phones, Mooloolaba, online portfolio, online portfolios, personal learning spaces, personal online spaces, personalised learning, presentation, reflection, RPL, smart pens, traineeships, transitions, virtual learning spaces, virtual portfolio, virtual portfolios, Whole of life learning