It is raining outside. I took a Bart to get to the downtown SFSU center for the CSU ePorofolio conference, Guess who was greeting at the registration table. Angie and Alex from ITEC 830 class they work for SFSU Academic Technology. Our ITEC program is trying to implement ePortofolio, and I noticed there were other department chairs came for the conference, so everyone is trying to implement.
I thought presentations that made by people from UK and other countries were interesting. Their approach for using a portofolio is more process oriented and student-centered than product-oriented.
During the day, I thought about several things that I want to remind myself often.
1. I don't want to call my student blog as a ePortofolio. Once we call it an ePortofolio or something like that, teachers expect students to showcase their work rather than using the tool to think with and to think about their learning process.
2. When a teacher gives more freedom to students to explore their own interest, they become more responsible learners. I experience this all the time in my class.
3. My job as a teacher is to empower my students, not manage their learning, they manage their own learning. I want them to learn more on their own than what we discuss in the class.
4. Modeling is important -- If I expect students to write their blog, I need to do it for myself too.
Alex and Angie are going to write about the conference in more detail in a wiki page.
Thursday, February 26, 2009
ePortofolio conference
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2 comments:
Kim,
This quote got me thinking/spinning about my readings and thinkings on LMS':
"3. My job as a teacher is to empower my students, not manage their learning, they manage their own learning."
I've been reading a critique of LMS' by George Siemans (here's the link: http://www.elearnspace.org/Articles/lms.htm). He starts off his critique by talking about how the LMS is great for managing and administering learning but (and here I'll quote)" Learning itself is different - it is not a process to be managed. Learning is by nature multi-faceted and chaotic."
He also admits that LMS' can be efficient in the teaching more basic and technical information.
I'm afraid that many instructors/teachers/professors do see themselves as "managers" of people's learning. That the priority of LMS' is to create better or more automated ways to manage and assess learning. I also think that the idea of managing learning fits into a system of hierarchical organizations where management is deemed necessary to get people to do their jobs...and education does not necessarily create people who don't need management..
I truly appreciate your attitude toward teaching as opposed to managing.
And finally, one thing this class is pointing to me is that if a class is to incorporate alot of web 2.0 technology and methodologies, it would be helpful to have a hub or platform to support this. I envision an LMS that's more like a mashup--let's call it a LMP (learning mashup platform). It contains the ability for an instructor to utilize and open the doors for her/his students to wikis, blogs, vlogs, digital storytelling, twitter,social bookmarking organization and repositories, etc, in modules. These modules would allow an instructor to design the kind of learning environment they want for their course. I could go on, but I'd like to try my hand at designing this LMP in this class. Maybe it exists and i just need to find it...
Hi,
I wanted to comment on point #1. I think it was one of the things that I really liked about Darren Cambridge's presentation -- he said (or I interpreted what he said to mean) that blogs were useful in ePortfolios in that you can take a step back from your immediate mind go back over your reflections and see what direction you have been or are heading. That it was a useful tool for taking stock of yourself in preparing to make your ePortfolio. I really liked that concept.
I think that if I thought my blog would be part of my ePortfolio, I'd totally clam up, instead of actually thinking "out loud" ("in type"? how does one say this?)
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