E portfolios

As the educational landscape is gaining traction in digital platform, the relevance of ePortfolio systems are becoming more prevalent in higher education [1]. E-portfolios are digital record to show the skills , competencies , experience and certificates and licence secured .The ePortfolio is a web-based tool that enables everyone to create and keep evidence of their experience, competencies etc. Different types of ePortfolio are professional portfolio are used to showcase the highlights of a student’s academic career, Learning portfolios are created by a student as part of a course work as a way to demonstrate learning and the learning process. These portfolios are often shared with other students to elicit peer feedback. Learning portfolios support the idea of formative feedback as an essential part of the learning process. Academic portfolios or assessmente portfolios are used as an assessment tool for reflective learning. This is created by students to show their course-related work, like essays, posters, photographs, videos, and artwork. Researchers believe that organizations are using ePortfolios to serve students in three ways, known as the three “R’s” [2, 3, 4]: representation, reflection and revision.

Academic eportfolios plays significant role in the assessment of educational outcomes. ePortfolios generate learning because they provide an opportunity and virtual space for students to critically assess their academic work, to reflect on that work, and make connections among different courses, assignments, and other activities, such as work experience, extracurricular pursuits, volunteering opportunities, and more. ePortfolios are effective learning tools because they support students’ own knowledge construction, make otherwise invisible aspects of the learning process visible, and place agency in the hands of students, which fosters learners’ motivation.

ePortfolios fall within a learning theory known as social constructivism, which proposes, in part, that learning happens most effectively when students construct systems of knowledge for themselves, rather than simply having information presented. Social constructivism also proposes that another determinant of effective learning is that it happens in a social context – that is, we construct our knowledge through dialogue and interactions with others. With ePortfolios, the process of reflection originates as a solo activity, but becomes social through a feedback loop, as the student’s instructor, peers, mentors, and even family members respond to and provide commentary on those reflections. Making and then sharing an ePortfolio with others is somewhat like telling a story: the story of one’s learning journey.

References

[1].Batson, T. (2004). EPrtfolios: What’s behind the hype?. iNews. Retrieved April 28th 2006 from http://istpub.berkeley.edu:4201/bcc/Spring2004/eportfolio.html.

[2] Acker, S. (2005). Technology-Enabled Teaching/eLearning Dialogue: Overcoming Obstacles to Authentic ePortfolio Assessment. Retrieved June 25, 2005, from Campus Technology Web-site: http://www.campus[1]technology.com/news_article.asp?id=10788&typeid=155.

[3]. Lorenzo, G., Ittelson, J. (2005). An Overview of EPortfolios. The Educause Learning Initiative. Retrieved

November 15, 2005 from: http://www.educause.edu/ir/library/pdf/ELI3001.pdf.

[4]. Singh, O., & Ritzhaupt, A. (2006, June). Student perspective of organizational uses of eportfolios in higher education. In EdMedia: World conference on educational media and technology (pp. 1717-1722). Association for the Advancement of Computing in Education (AACE).

ePortfolios Explained: Theory and Practice | Centre for Teaching Excellence | University of Waterloo (uwaterloo.ca)

The What, Why, and How of ePortfolios | Clemson University, South Carolina