EDUCON 2011 Conference – Amman (Jordan)

Web2.0 as an e-Portfolio tool Silvia Rodriguez-Donaire Beatriz Amante April 6th, 2011 Silvia Rodriguez-Donaire & Beatriz Amante, 2011

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Content 1.  Collaborative tools context 2.  Benefits of collaborative tools 3.  What’s an ePortfolio? 4.  Research Questions 5.  Methodology 6.  Preliminary results 7.  Conclusions Silvia Rodriguez-Donaire - Beatriz Amante

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Collaborative tools context

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What is collaboration?

Collaboration is referred to planning, sharing, coordinating, decision-making and general communication between two or more members working together on a task.

Silvia Rodriguez-Donaire - Beatriz Amante

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Web2.0, collaborative tools •  Web 2.0 offers many collaborative tools like blogs, wikis, Social Bookmarking, social networks, forums, micro-blogging, etc. •  Through them we can construct knowledge as well as share information among partners (academia and firms environment)

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Students Collaborative tool uses Currently, students use... –  Blogs to think, –  Wikis to collaborate, –  Social bookmarking (e.g. Delicious) to share links and information, –  Forums to foster their critical thinking and contribute with new knowledge, –  …

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Content 1.  Collaborative tools context 2.  Benefits of collaborative tools 3.  What’s an ePortfolio? 4.  Research Questions 5.  Methodology 6.  Preliminary results 7.  Conclusions Silvia Rodriguez-Donaire - Beatriz Amante

EDUCON 2011 Conference – Amman (Jordania)

Benefits in educational context... •  Collaborative tools have caused many changes in the traditional methods, since they: o 

reinforce information sharing and knowledge creation

o 

aid university teaching practice

o 

are complementary learning methodologies

•  The use of these platforms encourages and facilitates project and classroom students’ and professors’ participation Raman et al. (2005) and Richardson (2006) articles argued that all these tools simplify the access, sharing and creation of new knowledge and increase the productivity and flexibility of collaborative work.

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Silvia Rodriguez-Donaire - Beatriz Amante

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… reinforce students’ learning •  Collaborative tools reinforce the students’ critical thinking, autonomous learning and they support students’ learning (e.g. Richardson, 2006 and Barrett, 2005) •  Collaborative tools foster accessibility, sharing and creation of new knowledge in a group, and foster the productivity and flexibility in a collaborative environments (e.g Raman et al. 2005 and Richardson, 2006) As a result... Collaborative tools can be used as complementary tools to help us developing and assessing students’ skills and creating new teaching methodologies. Silvia Rodriguez-Donaire - Beatriz Amante

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Content 1.  Collaborative tools context 2.  Benefits of collaborative tools 3.  What’s an ePortfolio? 4.  Research Questions 5.  Methodology 6.  Preliminary results 7.  Conclusions Silvia Rodriguez-Donaire - Beatriz Amante

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What is an ePortfolio?

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Summing up, what is an ePortfolio? •  ePortfolio stems from the written version of traditional portfolio. •  An e-portfolio is a collection of electronic evidence assembled and managed by a user. As a result… e-portfolio shows users’ capabilities and are self-expression platforms  reinforce communication competences, critical thinking, auto-learning, innovation, … •  These evidences can be used to enhance learning and assess the achieved skills.

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Content 1.  Collaborative tools context 2.  Benefits of collaborative tools 3.  What’s an ePortfolio? 4.  Research Questions 5.  Methodology 6.  Preliminary results 7.  Conclusions Silvia Rodriguez-Donaire - Beatriz Amante

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•  R.Q. 1 Can the ePortfolio be used as a complementary tool to improve students’ learning? •  R.Q. 2 Can the ePortfolio be used as a complementary tool to assess students’ skills?

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Content 1.  Collaborative tools context 2.  Benefits of collaborative tools 3.  What’s an ePortfolio? 4.  Research Questions 5.  Methodology 6.  Preliminary results 7.  Conclusions Silvia Rodriguez-Donaire - Beatriz Amante

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Strategy activity design •  Not overloading students with homework, •  Being aligned with the objectives of each course and degree, •  Adapted to every student’s curriculum, •  Being completely accessible and zero cost, •  Being easy to use, •  Suitable for any content and need of each subject.

Strategy activity Design

Platform Selection

Activity Design Silvia Rodriguez-Donaire - Beatriz Amante

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Platform selection: Google Sites Key aspects of the platform: • 

easy to create, use and manage without asking for a license, installation or maintenance for software or hardware.

• 

allow online collaborative work with other users,

• 

free access from anywhere in the net without duplicating contents, and

• 

integrating collaborative tools, such as blogs, videos, wikis, etc.

• 

students’ autonomy

• 

professors can assess contents and provide students virtually with constant feedback which, at the same time, helps them develop their critical thinking and improve their generic skills’ achievement.

Lack: • 

However, forum discussions among students are not allowed. Strategy activity Design

Platform Selection

Activity Design Silvia Rodriguez-Donaire - Beatriz Amante

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Activity design

1.  Personal section – students develop their curriculum and write a presentation letter. 2.  Introductory section – brief description of the subject. 3.  Application section – students describe the implementation of one explained method in his/her own study case based in his/her professional field. 4.  Concluding section – brief reflection on the usefulness of the ePortfolio.

Strategy activity Design

Platform Selection

Activity Design Silvia Rodriguez-Donaire - Beatriz Amante

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Content 1.  Collaborative tools context 2.  Benefits of collaborative tools 3.  What’s an ePortfolio? 4.  Research Questions 5.  Methodology 6.  Preliminary results 7.  Conclusions Silvia Rodriguez-Donaire - Beatriz Amante

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The following results are stemmed from… 1.  Voluntary questionnaire sent to all UPC professors. Sample: 40 answers. 2.  Student skills assessment through a 23 criteria rubric. Sample: 68 students’ ePortfolio.

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Preliminary Results Can ePortfolio be considered as a complementary tool to: H1: improve students’ learning H2: assess students’ skills

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H1: Can ePortfolio improve students’ learning? •  According to Chun (2002), ePortfolio: 1.  gather, assess and reflect students’ evidence; 2.  students’ own reflection on learning and skills acquisition; 3.  implementation of new concepts •  These allow us to identify students’ level of skills development throughout students’ learning process. This evidence reinforce the 1st RQ Additionally, our students have developed the three needed ways of learning according to Kolb (1984): autonomous learning (64%); critical thinking (51%); and decision making (84%).

Silvia Rodriguez-Donaire - Beatriz Amante

EDUCON 2011 Conference – Amman (Jordania)

H2: Can ePortfolio assess students’ skills? •  According to Beck et al. (2003) and Klenowski et al. (2006), ePortfolio use simplifies the learning of formative goals and assesses all what the student has learnt throughout the academic course. •  Our experience shows… 77% of the teachers that use collaborative tools inside their classroom notice the usefulness of collaborative tools as a very effective teaching methodology to develop students’ skills. This evidence reinforce the 2on RQ Experience shows us a successful way to use ePortfolio tool as a complementary tool to assess students’ skills: 1)  Professors have to teach students’ how to use it, 2)  They have to provide them with a specific rubric. These will help you to assess and develop successful students’ skills

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Content 1.  Collaborative tools context 2.  Benefits of collaborative tools 3.  What’s an ePortfolio? 4.  Research Questions 5.  Methodology 6.  Preliminary results 7.  Conclusions Silvia Rodriguez-Donaire - Beatriz Amante

EDUCON 2011 Conference – Amman (Jordania)

To take into account…

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To accurately measure ePortfolio efficiency 4 factors are highly recommended: 1.  A very precise strategic planning to fit the needs, objectives and level of skills for each subject, 2.  teaching staff’s motivation toward the implementation of this methodological innovation, 3.  the development of generic rubrics for each level of competency that could be generalized and applied to all subjects and, finally, 4.  the constant support from the teaching centre and/or school.

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Summing up… Results seem to indicate that the e-Portfolio can be viewed as: 1.  A complementary tool for student’s assessment, since it allows us to follow up student’s skills development. 2.  A complementary tool for student’s learning, since it reinforces self-reflection and improves decision-making among others (communicative skills, team work, IT usefulness, social collaboration, etc.) These validate our hypothesis in considering this methodological innovation as a possible teaching tool to foster students’ skills development assessment.

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Limitation •  Our experience is only based on 2 subjects (69 ePortfolio students) at similar stages of the different degrees. •  Some skills were not highly motivated, this is the reason to get lower scores than the average.

Silvia Rodriguez-Donaire - Beatriz Amante

EDUCON 2011 Conference – Amman (Jordan)

Thanks for your attention! Questions or suggestions?

Silvia Rodriguez-Donaire & Beatriz Amante, 2011