wobble: eportfolio

Showing posts with label eportfolio. Show all posts

Thursday, 17 February 2011

ePortfolios Conference

For those training providers who are currently using e-portfolios or are interested in finding out more about how they are currently used in education, there’s an ePortfolio Conference taking place this month (28th February) in the South West at Taunton School. This event costs just £40 to attend.

The South West Regional Support Centre is offering this cross-sector event which aims to:

* Raise awareness of the range of eportfolios available
* Showcase innovative use and good practice in the application of eportfolios
* Share new ideas and solutions in addition to established successful practice

The event will focus on how organisations have successfully employed these technologies to improve and enhance the learning experience for their students (and the teaching experience for staff).

The programme includes speakers from the University sector, from Further Education Colleges, and from the Adult and Community Learning and Work Based Learning environments.

JISC Consultant experts will also be presenting, giving insight into the national picture and potential future strategies to encourage usage of e-portfolios.

Bookings can be made online at the cost of only £40 per person or for more information contact Lyn Bender.

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Related wobble links:

E-Portfolios for Starters
E-Assessment Online Toolkit
Use Of E-Portfolios In Assessment

To read more of Wobble click here.

Monday, 16 August 2010

Free Web Based E-Portfolios for You

The Development Manager are now offering free, open source e-portfolio solutions that are available for both learners and staff to use online. Their new e-portfolio project, Portfoliofor.me is built on the award-winning Mahara software, which provides learners with their own free e-portfolios, hosted on the web.

With portfoliofor.me, learners have the freedom to create their own e-portfolios away from the restrictions usually imposed by institutional e-portfolio systems. They also take ownership of that e-portfolio, much like they do now with email and many other web services. As part of this project, educational institutions can also have a dedicated branded e-portfolio area hosted on the web that their learners can also access when they leave their course of study. In this way the institution no longer maintains responsibility for the learners' work once the course has finished. (Please note - that particular service does have a nominal charge).

Portfoliofor.me now also makes use of a Mobile Upload application which allows people to make recordings, take photos and upload files from their smartphone straight into their e-portfolio. This makes maintaining their e-portfolio extremely easy to do on the go, as well as capturing useful evidence of the learner voice along the way.

The four minute video below offers a quick demo of some of the capabilities of the Mahara e-portfolio platform on which this project is based. Certainly worth a look at what this e-portfolio option offers, for free.

For more information on how you or learners can benefit, please contact the TDM team.

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Related wobble links:

E-Portfolios for Starters
E-Assessment Online Toolkit
Use Of E-Portfolios In Assessment
Midlands E-Portfolio Group

To read more of Wobble click here.

Friday, 15 January 2010

Moodle and e-Portfolios – Try Before you Buy

RSC West Midlands can now offer you your own externally hosted, learning platform for free, for a six month trail period. What better way than to try before you buy?

An increasing number of learning providers are now using e-learning platforms and e-portfolio systems, with this number growing as providers realise the many benefits that they offer. (This includes the ability to share resources online, access documents 24/7, offer learners the chance to present evidence electronically, and more).

To support this growing area of e-learning, Kevin Brace has set up a West Midlands based initiative which now offers work based learning providers (amongst others) the chance to use one or more of five open source e-learning platforms/e-portfolio systems completely for free. In simple terms, this is a chance to ‘try before you buy’; it offers a great opportunity to try out some of this very popular software before you commit to either securing a hosting arrangement of your own, or to buying commercial systems for your e-learning.

As part of the project, the following hosted e-learning platforms are now available for you to trial (with complete functionality). Applicants can choose to pilot one, two, or all of these platforms simultaneously.

Moodle (including specialist ILP blocks)
Wordpress
Mahara
Mahoodle
ELGG

Providers will be able to access the hosted e-learning platform for a period of six months during which time they will also receive the help of selected members of the RSC team for getting the system up and running. In return, Kevin would appreciate a short evaluation highlighting the benefits/shortfalls of each platform piloted.

Interested applicants should get in touch with Kevin Brace who can be contacted by email.

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Wednesday, 26 August 2009

E-Assessment Online Toolkit

In a previous wobble post I mentioned the publication, “E-assessment: guide to effective practice” which covered the management and delivery of e-portfolios and e-testing. A new online toolkit has now been developed which builds on this guide and provides the same level of practical information in a nicely presented online format.

This new website is very informative and offers lots of useful tools and resources including templates and case studies. It should make a useful resource for those already using some form of e-assessment as well as anyone thinking of adopting e-assessment in the future.

(Thanks for the information Brian; a good site to note).

To read more of Wobble click here.

Thursday, 5 March 2009

Next Generation Learning Award Winners

Last year I told providers about Becta’s Next Generation Learning Awards which intended to reward learning providers who are confident in the use of technology. Winners in six different categories of learning provider were set to receive a cash prize as well as the opportunity to share their practice regionally and nationally.

Winners of these awards have now been announced by Becta at an awards ceremony that took place last week. Winners in each category are now noted on the BECTA website.

In the Work Based Learning sector the award went to Lifetime Health and Fitness Limited for them having achieved efficiency and effectiveness through their use of a Learner Management System and bespoke e-portfolio system.

They noted several improvements to their business processes including:

* “The induction process is shorter and more accurate.
* Progress and performance criteria can be better measured and evaluated.
* Learners can now view their portfolio and see their progress.
* Tutors can plan their visits online … and more.

What’s more, they estimate that… “A cost saving of approximately £20,000 per annum has been estimated by accepting digital signatures and reducing paperwork….and success rates have steadily increased from 30 per cent to 60 per cent over the last two years”.

Sounds impressive and it will be great to see some of the lessons learned shared with the wider community, particularly with so many providers now taking first steps in this area of integrating learning systems with e-portfolios.

Great that the awards were set up for this and congratulations to Lifetime (and the other winners) for their achievements!

To read more of Wobble click here.

Monday, 16 February 2009

E-Portfolios for Starters

This short animation shows the benefits of owning and using an e-portfolio. I think its a nice introduction outling some of what an e-portfolio can do. It refers to a learner based in a university but the same could easily be applied to a work based learner.

Thanks to Derrin Kent for sharing it with me.
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