introduction
The potentialities of the information (or Internet) age have somehow exceeded many of our current calculations in education (Brown, 2000; Cornford & Pollock, 2003; Duke, 2002). Imagine a student attending a class waiting to be taught mostly in lectures or direct training from the instructor. The same student as a learner has at hand many an on-demand (or just-in-time) ubiquitous high-quality learning environments with learner-friendly support, such as the Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia. org). Today’s numerous virtual communities, including the WELL project (http://www.well.com) or the Blacksburg community networks (http://www.bev.net), have demonstrated to our inquiring students the possibility of fostering their own learning initiatives, with the comfort of an electronic personalized space in the form of customizable information system (IS) support (Vat, 2005) guarded by privately assigned identifier and password, to experience and make sense of their worlds of learning. The message to the education community is clear: we need to inject more flexibility (Khan, 2007a) in support of learning; namely, learners now must be empowered with more say in what they learn, when they learn, and where and how they learn. This position of providing educational services might sound a bit bizarre, but it is actually entering the mainstream (Her-rington, Oliver, & Herrington, 2007) be it concerned with undergraduate or postgraduate education today. An example is the electronic portfolio (e-portfolio) model of learning (Jafari & Kaufman, 2006) over the Internet, which has now been receiving attention from many universities around the globe (Aalderink & Veugelers, 2006; Dalziel, Challen & Sutherland, 2006; Henry, 2006; O’Brien, 2006; Paoletti, 2006). Simply put, a portfolio is a running record demonstrating the performance of an entity, such as a company or a person in a specific field of work. An electronic version of such a portfolio carries with it the element of being reliably and swiftly updated, as well as easily accessible in terms of the data being tracked. Thereby, an e-portfolio model of education (Herbert, 2001; Vat, 2008) implies a system of empowering the individual to learn and to demonstrate his or her learning acquired over a period of time through an electronic medium of ongoing services, preferably recognized by a chain of accredited institutions. This article serves to explore some of the issues underlying the e-portfolio scheme of providing flexible online learning to individuals who are interested in pursuing his or her learning desires at a recognized institute well prepared to fulfill such learning needs.
background
The issue of flexibility in education was brought up by Moore (1972) in his paper “Learner autonomy: The second dimension of independent learning.” Moore wrote (Moore, 1972, p. 81): “for every program, we seek to identify the relationship between learners and teachers, and where control of each instructional process lies, by asking: Is learning self-initiated and self-motivated? Who identifies goals and objectives, and selects programs for study? Who determines the pace, the sequence, and the methods of information gathering? What provision is there for the development of learners’ ideas and for creative solutions to problems? Is emphasis on gathering information external to the learner? How flexible is each instructional process to the requirements of the learner? How is the usefulness and quality of learning judged?” The search for answers to these questions deserves our thinking both at the course design and instruction level and at the institutional organization and policy level, if the issue of flexibility should be well elucidated.
The Renewed Mindset for Flexible Learning
In contrast to the traditional “direct transfer” model in which the instructor is assumed to be the sole source of knowledge and skills, the flexible learning model (Khan, 2007b) comes mostly in the form of an interactive, collaborative knowledge building process (Harasim, 1990, 1999). In the linear model of education, learning design proceeded in a linear fashion from defining objectives to lesson planning to course delivery. Associated with this linear approach was a set of teaching strategies, which are characterized by being predominantly one-way, centralized, and broadcast-oriented. When students appeared bored and unengaged in this type of program, the solution was to find ways to use new media to make the one-way broadcast more entertaining. Today, we need a renewed mindset for education. Teaching and learning must be seen as an ongoing process rather than a program with a fixed starting and ending point and the importance of widespread participation by learners in the design of their own learning must also be properly recognized (Kimball, 1995). ICT (information and communications technologies) are particularly well suited to this dynamic approach to managing education. The adoption of online learning tools in higher education must be designed to demonstrate evidence of more authentic student work, show student progress over time, and represent collections of best work (Herrington, Oliver, & Herrington, 2007). In order to support integration, synthesis, and re-use of formal and informal learning experiences, the challenge for educators is to develop new pedagogical approaches (Vat, 2000, 2002) to encourage students to recognize and extend the value of online learning support beyond simple course applications. Good teachers have always been open to changing their lesson plans based on student input. New media makes it easier and online environments can provide space (Vat, 2001) for continuing conversation among students and teachers about what is working and what is not working in the course. The idea of participatory course design is also an important element in flexible learning. The online environment should provide an opportunity to support this type of collaborative learning in ways we have not been able to do before.
The New Roles for Teachers and Students
Instead of performing as the sage on the stage transmitting knowledge to a class of innocent students, in the flexible learning environment, teachers’ roles (Vat, 2004) are often defined in terms of mediating learning through dialogue and collaboration where knowledge is created in the community of students rather than being transferred from the individual. More specifically, the idea of mediating could include such aspects of facilitating, modeling, and coaching (Chung, 1991). Facilitating involves creating rich activities for linking new information to prior knowledge, providing opportunities for cooperative work and collective problem solving, and offering students a multiplicity of authentic learning tasks. Modeling serves to share with students not only the perceived content to be learned, but also the important meta-cognitive skills of higher-order thinking, in the process of communication and collaboration. Coaching involves giving hints or cues, providing feedback, redirecting students’ efforts, and helping them use a strategy. A major principle of coaching is to provide help only when students need it so that students retain as much responsibility as possible for their own learning. In fact, we need to teach students to rely less on teachers as the source of knowledge. We need to help them learn to learn as self-directed groups of active, autonomous, and responsible individuals. In the flexible learning settings, students are expected to assume their new roles as collaborators and active participants. It may be useful to think how these new roles influence processes and activities before, during, and after each episode of learning. For example, before learning, students set goals and plan learning tasks. During learning, they work to accomplish tasks and monitor their progress. After learning, they assess their performance and plan for future learning. In practice, students constantly need help from the teachers to help them fulfill such new roles. Students must learn to become teachers of their own. Indeed, a frequent formula (Dilworth, 1998) that action learning proposes to constantly remind students of their new role in the flexible learning scenario is this: L = P + Q + R, where L (learning) equals P (programmed instruction) plus Q (questioning) plus R (reflection). Here P represents the knowledge coming through textbooks, lectures, case studies, computer-based instructions, and many others. This is an important source of learning but carries with it an embedded caution flag. That is, P is all based in the past. Q means continuously seeking fresh insight into what is not yet known. This Q helps avoid the pitfall of imperfectly constructed past knowledge. By going through the Q step first, we are able to determine whether the information available is relevant and adequate to our needs. It will point to areas that will require the creation of new P. R simply means rethinking, taking apart, putting together, making sense of facts, and attempting to understand the problem. Following the use of this formula, action steps are planned and carried out with constant feedback and reflection as the learning takes place. It can provide for the mature students elevated levels of discernment and understanding through the interweaving of action and reflection.
Such an exposition is quite consistent with Moore’s 1972 description when he used the term “learner autonomy” to define the learner’s flexibility in deciding and directing what to learn, how, and to what extent. Technically, programs offering greater flexibility were often described as having less structure, greater opportunity for dialogue between teachers and learners, and giving more control of the teaching-learning process to the students. Indeed, this context of flexibility was derived from a sound tradition, a pedagogy referred to for several decades as “independent study” (Moore, 1980).
Main Focus: The E-Portfolio context of online Learning
As online technologies and information resources rise in salience with the advent of the Internet, we are witnessing the emergence of a multi-faceted techno-pedagogic reality in the development of online learning. The e-portfolio model of education could be considered as one example phenomenon as a result of several important converging forces. Such forces are causing the education community to re-examine where learning takes place and how it could be assessed, how work and knowledge should be managed, who we, education practitioners, really are as we present ourselves to the world, and how we use technology for teaching and learning. This idea of the e-portfolio is said to be a flashpoint “at the converging of imperatives and opportunities in the management of learning for human and social capital development” (Jafari & Kaufman, 2006, p.xxvi). Technically, its context ranges from the simple conceptualization of e-portfolio as a means of capturing student progress through a program of study, involving student work, student reflection, and faculty comments related to activities of teaching and learning (Henry, 2006), to the technological potential (Plater, 2006) which allows faculty and institutions to actually enable each student to have a personally man aged, meaningful, coherent, integrated lifelong record of learning that demonstrates competence, transcends educational levels, and is portable across institutions of learning. In fact, e-portfolios are more than storage devices of the learner’s best work (O’Brien, 2006). They provide the means for students to set learning goals, monitor and regulate their progress toward these goals (a form of self-directed learning), as well as develop their self-assessment skills. Practically, e-portfolios should serve as the student’s pathway from classroom to career.
The usage Scenario of E-Portfolio
As life-long learners, we are always looking for tools to transform our learning experience, to enable us learners to become autonomous and enjoy a truly personalized development path. It is believed that the e-portfolio is one of the most significant tools for achieving this goal. It should support the realization of a portfolio-based career, and act as an instrument for social inclusion, allowing us to “tell our story” and celebrate our achievements (Flanigan & Amirian, 2006). In fact, the e-portfolio could facilitate a continuum in the learning space where someone starting an e-portfolio at school, college, university, or work would not have to throw away the investment of several years when moving from one episode of life to another one. This e-portfolio should be our faithful digital companion, reflecting our digital identity and supporting our learning, and enabling transactions with others in a variety of social networks. For instance, in the professional circles, e-portfolios could become the indispensable tools for reflective practitioners extracting learning from the workplace, sharing their reflections with their peers to contribute to the development of learning communities.
The Working Aspect of E-Portfolio
Within a typical learning environment, there are many roles the e-portfolio can play, examples of which include the means of assessing student achievement, the means of showcasing outstanding student achievement, and the means of ensuring learner accountability (Acosta & Liu, 2006; Sherman, 2006). Yet, whichever role an e-portfolio might play, there is one aspect that all e-portfolios have in common, namely, the learners must create portfolio elements or artifacts to be presented within the portfolio itself. As instructor or facilitator of e-portfolio learning, the design of sample e-portfolio requirements to document and communicate the learning of skills reflected in the learning process becomes critical. Examples include a learning contract with specific lesson plan detailing what the expected learning should be and the way to demonstrate the acquired learning. Such e-portfolio requirements should delineate the specific artifacts to be created by the learners to complete the process of learning. Indeed, this act of “creation” would necessitate the learning and/or application of a variety of skills related to the learning episode. Importantly, using the e-portfolio requirements as an aid of setting personal learning goals becomes a form of instructional scaffolding. Oftentimes, learners need to articulate clearly the goals of every piece of new learning experience by demonstrating the series of created artifacts to be included in the e-portfolio as evidence of the lessons learned. In this regards, examples of similar works from different learners could be collected into the e-portfolio repository for comparison and evaluation.
The Philosophy Behind E-Portfolio
The advent of Web technology has brought about the e-portfolio, which can not only be considered as an effective way to assess student learning, but also a vehicle for knowledge development for career building (Napper & Barrett, 2004). The key behind the e-portfolio movement lies in the empowerment of the learner to take charge of his or her learning (Barrows, 1988; Ramsdon, 2003). Specifically, the e-portfolio scheme of learning shifts the locus of control from being teacher-centric to student-centric (Acosta & Liu, 2006); namely:
Enable Students to Determine What They Need to Learn Through Questioning and Goal Setting
It is believed that students should work to identify their knowledge and skill deficits, and to develop strategies in the form of personal learning goals for meeting those deficits. The emphasis is to foster a sense of students’ ownership in the learning process. In particular, e-portfolios emphasize analysis and reflection, and the process, not just the product of learning. This process perspective not only raises the cognitive bar, but also shifts the focus of control from not so much what the instructor is doing, to what the student is doing to meet learning objectives. Moreover, the student can reflect on his or her learning and can demonstrate learning to persons outside of the immediate learning environment with the production of relevant electronic artifacts. For example, interested employers could review a student’s resume, group project contributions, and other items of interest the student wants to make accessible. Likewise, if teachers, through the e-portfolio support environment, can guide the students in identifying what they already know and what they need to learn, then knowledge gaps and mistakes can be viewed in a positive way such as another opportunity to learn. And students can assume more responsibility in addressing their own learning needs during any instructional unit.
Enable Students to Manage Their Own Learning Activities
It is believed that students should be enabled to develop their learning plans, which should describe priorities, instructional tactics, resources, deadlines, roles in collaborative learning situations, and proposed learning outcomes, including presentation and dissemination of new knowledge and skills, if applicable. Traditionally, these instructional events are arranged by teachers to be obeyed by students, in order to accomplish a specified set of pre-determined objectives. Yet, it is not advantageous for students to learn to be self-directed. To manage their own learning activities, students must be guided and supported by the teacher, through the e-portfolio environment, slowly taking on more and more responsibility of their own learning. For example, collaborative learning, inside and outside of the academy, is another feature of the new portfolio model, which should document such efforts as peer-to-peer projects promoting teamwork and communication skills, student-mentor projects (say, internships in the industry) giving students the opportunity to experience the world of work for better understanding of their future profession and workplace culture, student-community projects offering students first-hand understanding of societal issues and problems. Whichever type of project the student is involved, he or she should maintain control of his or her e-portfolio and allow peers, mentors, and the community to give input, while the instructor at school provides the opportunity for the interactions, and assess the final outcomes.
The curriculum update Through E-Portfolio
It is anticipated that the e-portfolio, as a tool to transform teaching and learning, should become a catalyst for curriculum change (Ravet & Layte, 2004) as a new model of assessment, which should connect the educational mission and objectives with the needs of society. It should bring students closer to their future profession, and it carries learning into graduates’ careers and, possibly, into their lifelong devotions. Thereby, the e-portfolio review process should serve as the feedback mechanism to update the academy on the skills required by students as they enter society. Put it simply, if students are immersed in projects that extend into the dynamic workplace and community (rather than the limitations of the campus) then they must demonstrate not only applicability of knowledge, but also flexibility and adaptability. The pedagogical challenge then is to set up connections between academic objectives and societal needs that will update the curriculum by incorporating current global perspectives. It is also expected that faculty members will then be in discussions with interested parties in the community to determine student outcomes. Therefore, the assessment of a course, program of study, and the related discipline will be somehow influenced by persons outside of the academy. In this regard, the deliberation of an e-portfolio scheme of online learning, including its elements of flexibility, should always be an important area of concerns.
future trends
The essence of e-portfolio lies in its support of deep learning (Barrett, 2004; Salomon & Perkins, 1989; Weigel, 2002) by facilitating the making of connections among learning experiences, which occur in various contexts and environments (Tosh, Werdmuller, Chen, Light & Haywood, 2006). In fact, the idea of a portfolio has long been used to demonstrate progress over time, to represent samples of best work, and to prepare for job or career searches. Yet, advances in Web technologies as well as the availability of higher capacity memory storage at lower cost, have increased the opportunity and potential of electronic portfolios to support student learning in a variety of courses, environments, and experiences, both inside and outside the classroom. Through e-portfolios, we are witnessing the emergence of intentional learners who are able to adapt to new environments and situations, synthesize knowledge and experiences from a variety of sources, and seek out opportunities for continued learning throughout their lives (Huber & Hutchings, 2004). Research on student engagement with learning (Ramsdon, 2003; LaSere Erickson & Weltner-Strom-mer, 1991) suggest that when students perceive that they have choices in how to learn subject matter, they are more motivated to move beyond just information acquisition to gaining a deeper understanding of the subject (Entwistle, 1998; Marshall, 1996). E-portfolio tools could be characterized by a focus on learner control, a customized learning environment, and the ability to digitally represent and share formal and informal learning experiences with others. Such features can be used to enhance both social and intellectual interactions in various learning contexts, including academic, workplace, and community. Likewise, at the core of the emerging landscape of e-portfolio is an emphasis on integration and synthesis of learning, irrespective of where that learning occurs. According to Tosh, et. al. (2006), the learning model of e-portfolio can be characterized by three working elements: reflection, meaning the learner maps out his or her thoughts on a course, a piece of work, or more general experiences; communication, meaning the learner communicate s his or her reflections to other students, staff, tutors, and instructors; and sharing, meaning the learner gives selected others (typically knowledge users) access to his or her material including reflections, artifacts, and other tangible and intangible resources. The mutual interactions among these working elements exercised in the overlapping domains of academic, workplace and community, become the dynamic forces to transform students into active participants in their learning rather than the passive recipients of information (Batson, 2002). Yancey (2001, p.83) reiterates that “the engaged learner, one who records and interprets and evaluates his or her own learning, is the best learner.” It is expected that tools and practices that comprise the emerging landscape of e-portfolio should support such activities not only on a personal level but also on a social level. The result is naturally a heightened intentionality to learn through an enhanced self-awareness acquired through reflection, communication, and sharing in the learner’s domains of concerns.
conclusion
This article investigates the context of flexible learning under the umbrella of e-portfolio, targeted for learners in an online support environment which aims to develop their abilities to learn to learn, to engage in collaboration, to appreciate multiple perspectives, to evaluate, and to actively use and construct knowledge (Barrett, 2004; Weigel, 2002). The discussion aims to underline the emerging landscape of e-portfolio in the process of integrating and synthesizing knowledge scattered among different life episodes of learning. In fact, e-portfolios are just one component of the digital landscape in this Internet age that we learners inhabit. It is worth noting that the technology does not define the learning landscape, and the context allows substitution of emerging technologies as and when they become available. The essence of e-portfolio is meant to enhance a learner-centric approach, encouraging learners to look holistically at their learning instead of arbitrarily compartmentalizing these experiences. Thus, the e-portfolio scheme of online learning should facilitate the promotion of conceptual thinking about learning as an ongoing process; one which does not start or stop with the traditional classroom experience. Yet, creating an environment where learners engage in the process because they want to rather than they have to, is a powerful way to tap into the enormous potential of e-portfolios. The challenge will always rest on the side of the pedagogy behind the use or implementation of any e-portfolio-based tools. It is necessary to clarify to all potential stakeholders the purpose of the specific tools and activities, and to give careful thought to how these ideas are presented subsequently to induce student motivation and engagement in learning, becomes the primary emphasis.
KEY TERMS
Assessment: Measurement of the degree to which a learner acquired the skills, knowledge, and/or attitudes that a learning experience was designed to facilitate.
Deep Learning: Learning that goes beyond a surface level and promotes the development of meta-cognition through communities of inquiry.
Flexible Learning: A teaching strategy designed to empower students to learn, to learn fully, effectively, efficiently, and with rewarding satisfaction. It is the responsibility of our profession as teachers or faculty to study ways of maximizing the potential of our environments to support students’ learning and to minimize those elements in their environments that may impede it.
E-Portfolio (electronic portfolio): An electronic space to reflect upon a person’s or an organization’s digital identity, including relevant working experiences in terms of artifacts that relate to his or her professional career, or the organizational profiles detailing the mission, history and achievement of the enterprise. In an instructional context, the nature of e-portfolio often carries two connotations: as a means of assessing specific student performance, and as a showcase for outstanding student accomplishments.
IS Support: An information systems (IS) function supporting people taking purposeful action. This is often done by indicating that the purposeful action can itself be expressed via activity models, a fundamental rethinking of what is entailed in providing informational support to purposeful action. The idea is that in order to conceptualize, and so create an IS support which serves, it is first necessary to conceptualize that which is served, since the way the latter is thought of will dictate what would be necessary to serve or support it.
Online Learning Support: An electronic learning management system which facilitates individuals’ learning through an electronic medium, typically the Web, provides for personal renewal, keeps an open attitude to the outside world, and supports a commitment to knowledge.
Learning Landscape: A situation of concerns whose resolution aims to bring about improvement in specific areas of social concern (how people could learn better, in our case through a proper instructional context of e-portfolio) by activating in the people involved in the situation a learning cycle which is ideally galvanized by an iterative process of action and reflection.
Reflection: Related to teaching based on an assumption that students do not receive information from the teacher and slot it straight into an empty place in their knowledge base. Instead, learning involved activities related to specific experiences in which learners think about what they are learning, how new things being learned relate to their pre-existing knowledge, and how they are personally learning the new skills, knowledge, and /or attitudes.
