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EMBEDDING A GENERIC E-PORTFOLIO/PDP TOOL IN A BASIC SKILLS MODULE FOR ECONOMICS AND BUSINESS STUDENTS – WHEN SAY’S LAW DOESN’T (NECESSARILY) HOLDDEE CONFERENCE – CAMBRIDGE, SEPTEMBER 2007

Paul L. Latreille

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The agenda: impetus

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And response…

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It’s true!!

83%

56%

Strivens, 2007: 4-5

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So just what are they?

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The literature – a pocket summary

• See reviews by Butler (2006) & Beetham (2005)

– Putative benefits (esp. reflection) – evidence?

– Evaluation in terms of:

• Practitioner/student experiences

• Technological perspectives

– Focus on use in teaching & medical & nursing

training/CPD

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Motivation

• Little work exploring how these might be used

& received specifically by Economics &

Business students…

• Report findings from an EN Miniproject to

embed a generic e-portfolio/PDP tool in module

EBG102: ICT & Study Skills for Business and

Economics at Swansea

www.swansea.ac.uk

All aboard! The Swansea platform

• Local installation of Elgg platform = Oremi

…a learning landscape which supports users in their social and

academic networking, personal and career development and

lifelong learning. Oremi is a solution provided for all, it allows the

user to create communities of friends that previously existed

offline or not at all. It allows users to join communities of sports,

recreation, work, study and every other community that one can

conceive.

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All aboard! The Swansea platform

• Local installation of Elgg platform = Oremi

Apart from communities it allows users to develop their learning

through social interactions with others through the sharing of

resources, expressing of opinions, presentations, personal

development planning, demonstrations, working collaboratively,

podcasting, mobile blogging, customisation, personal reflection,

and profile creation.

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The Oremi timeline

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The Oremi timeline

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The early interface...

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Methodological evaluation issues

• Issues/caveats

– Conflation of pedagogy, design & platform

(concept, use or system)?

– Platform limitations (scope (cf. Brighton))

– Positivist vs. constructivist issues (ownership)

“If you build it, [t]he[y] will come”

“If you build it, [t]he[y] will come”

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Results

• N=115 (32% response rate)

– 65% male

– c. 80% UK (education/language)

• Chinese (7%), Welsh (3%)

• Mainly Business (85.5/25.5 FTEs)

• Sample selectivity?

– Ubiquitous use of social networking tools (87% - almost

half >3) cf. PDP tools (<6%)

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Usage

• High usage (96%) – but ‘compulsory’

– c. 20% used prior to requirement to do so

– c. 60% used system ‘only when required to do so for

assignments’

– 20% of those using the system indicated they did so

more frequently than once a month

– Almost 30% had used it since last requirement to do

so

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Perceived benefit of PDP assignments

Skills audit

& action plan (%)

CV (%)

Helped me reflect on my previous learning, capabilities and experience 42.9 57.1 Helped me plan what I need to develop personally in the future 56.3 27.7 Encouraged me to adopt a more reflective approach to my learning 34.8 14.3 Helped me reflect on what aspects of planning I really enjoy in a way that might help with career planning 24.1 25.0

Helped me articulate knowledge and skills in a way that will help with job applications / interviews / career development 19.6 67.0

Other 0.0 2.7 Not at all beneficial 9.8 1.8 Did not attempt 0.9 0.9 N 112 112

Notes: 3 observations had missing data. Multiple answers allowed.

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Using Oremi’s features

0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80 90 100

Your Tasks

Your Presentations

Your Profile

Your Resources (RSS feeds)

Your Netw ork (Friends/Communities)

Your Pages (Wikis)

Your Files

Your Blog

Your Dashboard

Ease of use

Usefulness

Have not used

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Oremi and PDP processes

0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80 90 100

A CV builder in oremi (Elgg) w ould be useful

A built-in facility in Oremi (Elgg) enabling assessment ofskills and planning of improvements w ould be useful

Oremi (Elgg) w as helpful in recording my skills

I like the convenience of the feeds feature in Oremi(Elgg) for keeping up to date w ith w eb page changes

Wiki feature in Oremi (Elgg) is useful for team projects

Blog facility in Oremi (Elgg) has helped me reflect on mylearning

Oremi (Elgg) has helped me find other people w ithsimilar interests

Found using Oremi (Elgg) interesting

Oremi (Elgg) encouraged me to think more carefullyabout my learning/personal development

Have not used (%) Disagree or strongly disagree (%) Agree or strongly agree (%)

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What students least liked about the system

Layout is boring and basic.

Don't like names given to some of features - some are

confusing as to what they do. Also some features

difficult to use which means I didn't use them….

The layout. Very hard to

navigate

The page itself was not

appealing

Not enough interaction

with other members

Unless everyone uses it,

it will never work

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What students least liked about the system

Too similar to FACEBOOK and

MYSPACE. This similarity made

people not want to bother to use

Oremi…

It’s not as good as other things

like FACEBOOK. It’s only good

when you need it for work.

(Eh, what!!)

Not the most user-

friendly site compared to

others like Friendster and

Facebook.

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What students most liked about the system

It’s kinda like

FACEBOOK. It’s like BEBO.

It’s a social network.

Ease of use. Easy to upload files for people to see.

Easy, user-friendly.

Appearance.

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And there’s more…!

Communicating with friends (communities).

Having specific communities and blogs. Private.

It benefitted (sic) us greatly for the group project as we were able to communicate effectively.

Fact that we can upload files and everyone can access it. It cuts out having to e-mail the files to everyone else.

That I was able to upload files just for my group to see.

Like blogs.

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What lessons have been learned?

• Motivational issues (not unique)

– Transparency of purpose (SAFs/adverts?)

• ‘Badging’ – beyond Facebook!

– Skills audit/action planning tool?

• ‘Scaffolding’ (TiddlyWiki? CJC?)

• Benchmarking statements

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What lessons have been learned?

• Using the new features...

– Showcasing (WebFolios), wikis

• And the old ones better

– Blogs, RSS, Communities

• Induction arrangements

– Hands-on sessions & worksheets

• Getting them in – seeing how & why!

– CamStudio ‘how to’ clips

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Conclusions

• My own (steep) learning curve

• Supply does not (necessarily) create its own

demand

– Compulsion vs. ownership

• “For work” and “for them”

• Moving the majority beyond the strategic/superficial

• So...

Source: http://www.flickr.com/photos/danjlove/53644838/