Personal Blogs

Hi All,

I did some searching on the web about Reflective writing and found a useful document: Reflective Writing: a Basic Introduction
It is written by Martin Hampton: University of Portsmouth.

This might be useful as well. It is from a Language & Learning Online Institute.

Hi All,

Unfortunately I can't the access the specific area of the website anymore. I have looked into the website and read through all the different features. What I like about it is that this University makes an effort in helping the students with reflective writing. In my Blog Post I made a comment about the fact that reflective writing is not something you just do. In my opinion it is something that needs guidance. Well, Penn State University provides this.
They also provide a resources area which, in my opinion, would benefit the students as well. It gives students a clear example of how one reach the targets the Penn State University is telleing them to achieve.

Again, unfortunately I can't access the  Reflective Writing Steps and the Description vs Reflection page anymore. So I can't judge the Penn State on their content. However, reading through all the forum posts it strikes me that certain issues (which are mentioned in the Moon en Creme paper as well) are surfacing as well: how can one write honestly or how can one write with in an upbeat style? These are all skills which, in my opinion, need to be taught or their relevance needs to be debated.
Perhaps cultural issues are at play here as well. I hadn't been taught how to write in an honest, upbeat and sincere tone (as you have probably seen!!)...is this a British way of teaching? Maybe someone can enlighten me here?

Cheers, Eugene

Crème and Moon described the introduction of reflection and reflective learning in higher education.

In the H808 Course Guide, the OU provides us with an explanation about how we are assessed for our first assignment (TMA01). Amongst the criteria that will be used to mark our TMA there are two distinctive types of writing required: essays and reflective commentaries.

In the Moon papers the writer says that in order to have students write reflective commentaries or design reflective activities, we should define the word reflection. Moon (2005) describes it as: “Reflection is a form of mental processing that we use to fulfill a purpose or to achieve some anticipated outcome. It is applied to gain a better understanding of relatively complicated or unstructured ideas and is largely based on the reprocessing of knowledge, understanding and possibly emotions that we already possess.”

Clearly the OU makes a distinction between formal essay writing and reflective commentaries. They define reflective commentaries as, and I quote from the Course Guide: “a style of writing that is commonly associated with diaries, learning logs, blogs and portfolios. Although this style is quite different from the formal essay, on this course we regard it as equally academic because it deals with knowledge that is constructed during the course”.

The last sentence of this quote is quite interesting because in the papers the question was raised about how reflective commentaries or reflective writing can be assessed.
It is obvious that the criteria for assessing formal writing can be clearly formulated, but when one wants to assess reflective writing it becomes more difficult. In her paper Crème gives guidelines as to how one could assess reflective writing.
“How can one assess  what’s in my head?”, is a valid question. Not only should students be taught how to write reflective commentaries, but tutors should be guided in this process as well. In my opinion reflective writing only succeeds if reflective activities are designed (prepared).

Moon makes a valid comment about reflective learning. She describes various theoretical approaches to reflection and in describing the Kolb-cycle, she makes the following comment: “While the cycle does have has value, it may say more about how we manage the learning of others, than about the process of learning per se (ie. it is more about the teaching process).”

In my opinion, this supports the OU’s position of including reflective commentaries in the assessment of formal assignments:”...it deals with knowledge that is constructed during the course”.

Reflective commentaries/activities/learning is thus all about the learning process and how the learner reflects on their own learning and evaluates development.

I also found it interesting to read how Moon explained how reflective learning can support the deeper approach to learning. She describes the following 5 stages of learning:

 

Noticing, Making sense, Making meaning,  Working with meaning and Transformative learning.
The last three stages play a role in the deeper approach of learning (New Ideas are filed carefully and integrated).

When I first started this course I tried to find a proper definition for e-portfolio. After reading Reese & Levy (2009) I found a definition that was very useful to me:”a digitized collection of artifacts including demonstrations, resources and accomplishments that represent an individual, group or institution”.
Beetham (2003) stated that an e-portfolio is simply a collection of documents relating to a learner’s progress, development and achievements”. In my opinion the Reese & Levy definition is somehow broader and makes it more understandable for me to work with. However, I have focused on the Aalderink & Veugelers (2005) paper because it is in my opinion, a good example of implementing an e-portfolio in Universities. The project provided an integrated learning management system (LMS) and an e-portfolio system (N@tschool). 7 Universities in the Netherlands worked together on a toolkit (website) with information and documents to be used at the start of portfolio implementation.

The anticipated learning outcomes were:

• to realise an environment for learning and teaching in which student centred and competence based learning becomes possible and which supports the transformation in which the students will direct more than before the learning and teaching processes.
• It should make learning and teaching more efficient and effective.
• It should support and improve students’ acquisition of competencies
• it should also bring about and support a more transparent and flexible workflow for the different stakeholders involved

Aalderink & Veugelers argue that there were differences between the two Universities, but wrote some mutual challenges regarding the implementation project:

• How to keep the different perspectives of involved stakeholders in line with each other? This concurs with the Reese & Levy paper in 2009 in which they say that the different stakeholders have different roles in the institution and that this might be an obstacle.
• Sharing of outcomes with each other is also an important element. Keep stakeholders involved
• Management support is crucial: lines of development bottom up and after decision support and facilitation must go top down. This also concurs the findings of Reese & Levy when they say that support staff needs to be trained to handle different types of problems and requests.
• Technical challenge: work with integrated architecture approaches. Give attention to open standards and interoperability.
  This concurs the findings of the Becta Report (2007) as well. The authors argue that “students are becoming familiar with other repository software as well (MYSpace, Flickr, YouTube) and  expect a high standard of functionality.” They continue to quote another author (Demos, 2007) who claims  that “schools need to value the learning that goes on in these spaces and enable students to recognise and transfer those skills in new situations, even into formal learning.”  Reese and Levy say that insufficient integration with other information technology system may inhibit e-portfolio use.

By using an integrated Learning Management System, the project tried to help the students organising  and managing their learning content. The Universities acknowledged the fact that students are very well able to direct an important part of their learning. Teachers become facilitators and coaches of their learning processes.

After reading some messages in the tutor group forum for Unit 2, I have noticed that when my fellow students tried  to choose an e-portfolio, they try to look for one that is either easy to use, accessible with other tools they use or meets the course demands. In other words, the choice of an e-portfolio is very personal, but is preferably an application which can be integrated with other tools and can be personalised as well.
This concurs with some of the findings of the various papers, but Beetham already made a comment about this in 2003 when she said: “There are considerably more complex requirements if the e-portfolio system is to interoperate with other systems such as learner records, virtual learning environments or assessment systems, and if it is to allow learner data to be shared with other organisations (e.g. for accreditation, transition or presentation)”.

Write a short personal reflection commenting on your experience of the task
The activity is in my opinion quite useful. Now I have a quick overview of the drivers from the different papers and I can use this as a reference if I want to know more about the specific papers/drivers. I haven’t participated in the discussion on the forum (I’m a bit behind), but have read some messages posted by fellow h808 students.
I’m not sure whether discussing the relevance of the drivers and agreeing which should be in the table is a useful task. In my opinion this takes too much time and in the end we might end up with nothing. I’d rather just fill in the table and see what others have to say. I can always read the paper myself if something strikes me as odd, relevant or interesting. If someone else doesn’t agree with me then a discussion about these drivers might occur.

Could this completed template be considered as evidence of your department in the technology competency area (because it is about e-portfolios)?
Yes I believe so. Using a collaborative tool, like a wiki, is in my opinion a technological competence. However, just because the subject of this activity is e-portfolios it does not mean it is necessarily a technological competence. The activity could also have been about our favourite pets or our favourite calendar girls. The point I’m trying to make is that adding content in a table through a wiki is a (useful) technological competence because we use this tool to achieve a specific learning outcome (adding drivers in a table). In my opinion the content is not relevant. Using the tool is.

Could it also be evidence of your pro-activity (because you have created it collaboratively)?
According to the H808 course guide pro active means: “leading, informing, or otherwise motivating your fellow learners in collaborative work”.
In this activity, Thomas was clearly pro active because he split the task into bits and gave each of us in group a task. I wouldn’t consider myself as particularly pro-active in this activity. I contributed to the task and fulfilled the role I was given, but due to time constraints I wasn’t as pro-active as I hope to be in the future!

It looks like an advert. An advert with interesting key points which describes the essence of how a good e-portfolio should be.

A reflection and a summary of my notes:

Aim: e-portfolio needs coordination. In the past many projects were uncoordinated. Europortfolio wants to “engage upon an orchestrated effort involving both educational and corporate institutions to define, design, and develop digital portfolio systems that meet the needs of all stakeholders”.

 

Europortfolio mentions interoperability. From what I’ve read on the forums and the papers so far I am really interested in how this works…to design such an e-portfolio which integrates and communicates with other applications…is there someone who can design a standard for this (xml, html, )..or am I talking nonsense here? Is Europortfolio the answer??

 

“ and encourages the adoption of technical standards that will enable interoperability, between a range of ePortfolio systems and with other information systems. Interoperability will be the key to maximising the number and quality of services offered to ePortfolio owners.

Europortfolio describes its mission and two of the bullet points caught my eye:

 

“ use of the ePortfolio as one of the foundations of a learning economy and society. The link between the different dimensions of learning: individual, organisational, and community learning, based upon a lifelong and life wide repository and celebration of achievements”.

 It caught my eye because it wants to integrate the different aspects of learning into one application. Students use, in my experience, more than one application, their own PLE.  Must we store everything in one place? Is this the concept of e-portfolio....one application, many integrated aspects (doc reader, blog reader, curriculum vitae, reflection forms etc. etc.)

 

The other one that caught my eye was:

 

“An ePortfolio is a personal digital collection of information describing and illustrating a person's learning, career, experience and achievements. ePortfolios are privately owned and the owner has complete control over who has access to what and when”.

 

This contradicts the Beetham paper in which she says that there should be shared ownership…the learner and the institution; the institution because it can authenticate the information and the learner simply because it concerns them.

 

Interesting….

 

Cheers, Eugene

When it comes to ePortfolios in higher education, I am quite a newbie. In our school we have gradually shifted from a portfolio system to an ePortfolio system. It is called CITO (Centraal Instituut voor Toets Ontwikkeling = Central Institute for Test Developing). When we asses children we save all the results into a computer program called LVS (Leerling Volg Systeem = Pupil follow-up System). When a pupil leaves the school we have an overview of 8 years of assessment. I am not only collecting assessment results but I also add my learning support reports, general reports and general notes I make of the child’s progress. So our ePortfolio is very focused on the "Learning Tracker" side of ePortfolios.

Beetham (2003) has written an interesting paper in which she describes the potential of ePortfolio systems. I have focused on chapter two (potential applications and purpose of ePortfolios) and chapter four (Organisational, management and regulatory issues).

Chapter two describes the different processes which ePortfolios can support. Beetham mentions the following:

Summative Assessment
"Demonstrating competence according to criteria set out within a programme of study or by an accrediting body". This process is quite alike with what I'm collecting from my students as well at this moment. The assessments are integrated within my ePortfolio for the children.  However, other relevant assessments can't be imported by this software, which is in my opinion, a big negative.
Ideally Beetham suggests to have an ePortfolio which has both, built in assessments and a way to import external assessments.

 Learning and ‘learning to learn’: “enabling the learner to identify and reflect on their strengths and weaknesses, making use of formative feedback, and enabling professionals to support learners in ways appropriate to their achievements and preferences, by drawing on information in the profile”; Another aspect which applies to my use of our national ePortfolio for our children (did I mention it is semi-compulsory by our national Inspector??). I can add information into the file about their progress of learning. Beetham questions, however, that there is little consensus on what constitutes useful information.

Another useful aspect of this process is described by Beetham as pre-course diagnostics and on-course learner tracking. On-course learner tracking is an aspect which I have described in the intro, the pre-course diagnostics is new for me. I have to be honest that I don’t add this information into the ePortfolio but it makes sense. Beetham says: “Evidence of previous achievements can be used diagnostically: a simple search of the profile will identify records of pre-requisite subjects and key skills”.

A recent trend has been to see the e-portfolio as a ‘digital space’ or a ‘personal learning space’ within an integrated e-learning and assessment environment. Learners can carry on a range of activities in this space, some of which will later be presented for assessment.
Collaborative Learning can be a key issue here: “Siemens (2004) foresees the inclusion of collaborative tools within the e-portfolio to allow contact with peers, mentors, tutors, experts etc, as well as interaction with external resources.”

 

Presentation: showcasing the learner’s best or most relevant achievements in the context of a specific learning or career opportunity, for example on application to a university or during a professional development review;

This sounds all very nice, but how many CVs are entirely truthful nowadays…I might be touching a sensitive subject here, but how can one authenticate if the information in ePortfolios is accurate?
Beetham argues: “Using e-portfolios for presentation at transitions raises some of the same issues as using them for summative assessment. Accredited qualifications require authentication from an institution or awarding body, and the reviewer (employer or receiving institution) must have confidence that such records are secure and authentic”.

Personal and professional development planning: supporting the general process of reflection, self-evaluation and action planning for lifelong learning, including guidance on educational and/or career pathways.

 

In my personal and professional career, portfolios have been a good asset to gather useful material to present to my new employer. Over the years my 3 band Ring has been growing quite a lot: certificates, professional career evaluations, self evaluations, followed courses, reports about job responsibilities, reflections etc.
An ePortfolio is, in my opinion, an electronic version of this but I think has much more to offer.
Beetham mentions in her paper another insightful aspect of using ePortfolios: “Higher level and professional learners might be expected to become relatively self-sufficient in the exercise of these skills, but learners with less confidence and experience are recognised to need structured personal development opportunities. This support could be provided by an electronic service – even by sending reflective prompts in text messages27 – but most commentators regard this as an area in which human interaction remains the gold standard. There are at least as many examples of best practice with paper-based as with electronic systems, all of which will need to be drawn on if learner profiles are to be used successfully for personal development”.

 

Finally I would like to mention the ownership issue. In Unit 1 I asked myself “who owns the data which is stored by the student/learner/employee?  I was asking myself this question as I was looking at different ePortfolio applications. There doesn’t seem to be a general format. Is the information exchangeable, what happens with the content if I stop studying at the OU and want to export my “My Stuff” materials?
In chapter 4, Beetham argues that these issues still remain relatively untested: “For some organisations there are political concerns over the management and authentication of data. Institutions and awarding bodies must retain ownership of qualifications data which only they are in a position to authenticate; at the same time, however, learners must be able to access that data, and to grant others access to it. What responsibilities does an organisation have with respect to these learners and their information? These issues remain relatively untested”.

Beetham’s paper gave me a good insight in the use of ePortfolio systems…and it was a good way for me to get into H808 again. I would recommend this paper to others as well.

 

The ownership question keeps haunting me and as this paper is written in 2003, maybe this issue might have been tested in the meantime.

 

Next:  the Aalderink-Veugelers Paper from 2005.

Cheers, Eugene

Thanks Thomas for trying to devide the papers amongst us. My focus is on the following:

Core Papers: Beetham, H. (2003) & European Institute for E-Learning (EifEL)

Supplementary resources: As I'm Dutch, this paper caught my eye: Aalderinck, W. and Veugelers, M. (2005).

Get back to you soon with my reflections on the three papers.