Thanks so much everyone, its been thoroughly electrifying.. now all we need is that tool Alex calls for that can bring it all together for us again in a few years time. I wonder if this exchange has altered the Google search results for the words ePortfolio, Leigh Blackall, Graham Wegner, Alex Hayes?

I’m finding it so important to realise where your coming from, where your headed and I tend to think that your ‘primary teacher’ bit does actually give you credibility. My CV dosent show how many houses I renovated or how many ditches I dug.

That portfolio of evidence is best tested on a hot day, in the scrub finiching with a cold ale or two.

Where teachers and educators are at these days with e-portfolios is also one of my primary and daily interrogations. I suspect that some teachers are requesting students to ease up on the laughter and give them a chance to catch up.

forget the quals, drop the i’m just a primary teacher thing – you’re where its at

I’ve cruised your musings for a while now and it’s a pleasure to figure in your prose.

Onto e-portfolios.

Leigh dropped into The Centre For Learning Innovations TAFE NSW a while back [ http://moblog.co.uk/view.php?id=123451 ] and sprung a bombshell on the least suspecting.

Patch this audio into your mental picture of a boardroom filled with senior educationalisms.

” Portability and access are the only elements of e-portfolios that make sense to a student. Construction of such [ e ] is non-chronological, re-hashed and re-worked as many times as it takes to make it true in any given moment and as needed ”

” Mlearning is anything , anywhere, anytime…..provided I’m given permission to access it. Staistics say otherwise.”

” I disagree with you…not because I have to but because my students prove that I need to do so”

Given that these are re-collections of a heated discussion and are renditions and trackbacks to whats been coined as sleight-of-mouth or stream of conciousness from Leigh Blackall ( I’ve got the tapes to prove it ) I’m now firmly of the opinion that e-portfoloio’s have resonance when considered as a verb.

E-portfolability.

“Small pieces, loosely joined” rings true. Leigh’s game is no name fame. It’s heartfelt and horribly real.

I’m personally finding snippets of memory tucked away in the crinkly concoids of the machine [www] far more maleable than the letters after my name.

What make it all real is coming to the conclusion that power genre’s are fast flailing and failing.

Students need to take memory of learning with them, not wrapped up in someone elses slick ‘certificate’ that tells them what made the outcomes tick. The aggregation and distribution of this portfolio should be ( in my humble opinion ) a students choice – blog, wiki, moblog, youtube, myspace, flickrsticker you name it.

It’s not something you can wave in the air in a thumbdrive or tuck under your arm and complement the spit that shines your shoe in an interview.

E’s are back with the birds and the bees. Lets avoid making wiki’s wack.

All anyone’s asking students these days is their cell number – inside and outside. I’m all for e-portfolios provided we acknowledge it’s “our” term not theirs.

Cheers…for now.

Maybe you, Leigh, Alex and I got keep this ball rolling in the TALO meeting next Thu?

I designed and had built a personal development planning (UK) /eportfolio (North America) system in 2001. I have since abandoned it for a number of reasons – partly to do with other apps coming on stream… but then the current web 2.0 apps don’t do part of what I designed. I think a key point here though is to talk about purposes first … and purposes vary with stakeholders. I am still convinced about the need for SOME of the purposes behind this, but maybe in part what troubles Leigh is that instituional systems probably get accountability/assessment driven, even if that wasn’t the original purpose of the designer.

I would very enjoy revisting this with you all on Thu.