why is ownership of the ePortfolio so important?
At the beginning of program at Lamar, I remember diligently saving every assignment, discussion post, responses, and lecture notes. I knew this information was going to be especially important for me to forward in my education and career. However, to my surprise, was my work. Despite moving on to a new course, all my works were still accessible. Even my videos. The hub has become a source of reference for dealing with leadership, conflict, collaboration, growth mindset, etc. My evidence of learning and growth – stored all in one place, forever. So, who owns the ePortfolio? Ideally, it should be the owner. We should have our own space to develop our ideas and experiment with our craft (Watters, 2015). It is essential that learners have control over their work, including their content and data. Owning our own data and knowledge has the potential to give any learner agency and control (Rikard, 2015).
However, to make the experience of creating and maintaining an ePortfolio effective, there must be ownership of ideas and learning and there must be modeling (Harapnuik, 2019). Making meaningful connections can help a learner reflect on their growth and learning, not just on their artifacts. So, that means giving the learner a choice, ownership, voice, and authentic learning over their ideas and thinking process as well. Assignments on our ePortfolio should be authentic and be applicable to the real-world. This, however, is up to educators to create and model this type of learning environment to their learners. That means being willing to do the very thing we expect out of our students. We need to model utilizing an ePortfolio and model deep thinking (Harapnuik, 2019). Help our learners understand that their ePortfolio is more than just a digital collection, but a space to show growth.
So, give learners the opportunity to explore, create, inquiry, and decide what to include in their ePortfolio. Give them the opportunity to make connections and problem solve. Give them their own digital domain to reflect on.
References
Harapnuik, D. (2019). Who owns the eportfolio. It’s About Learning. http://www.harapnuik.org/?page_id=6050
Rikard, R. (2015, August 10). Do I own my domain if you grade it? EdSurge.
https://www.edsurge.com/news/2015-08-10-do-i-own-my-domain-if-you-grade-it
Watters, A. (2015, July 15). The web we need to give to students. Bright. https://brightthemag.com/the-web-we-need-to-give-students-311d97713713
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