The Inspiration

I was really inspired by a presentation I attended at our very own e-Learning Conference back in April. Helen Keegan from Salford University ran a workshop entitled 'Web 2.0: An Interactive Workshop'. She demonstrated how she had run a module with media students which introduced them to how they could promote themselves online using a range of social networking tools. She also poised the question as to why these tools weren't used to support ePortfolios and, if they were, whether they would be successfully adopted by students outside of the creative industries? Intrigued, and aware of the importance of developing graduates' employability capabilities through our 'Skills Plus' agenda, I applied for, and was awarded a TFA - Skills Plus: a web 2.0 approach.

Drawing from Helen's work my proposal is two-fold. Primarily I aim to develop a generic resource to educate students on how best they can promote themselves online. This will include advice about security; copyright & IPR; accessibility; web design basics; netiquette; etc... It will also give a brief overview of current social networking tools so that non-geeks have an awareness of what's out there...

The second part of the project aims to identify whether such tools could be used to develop an ePortfolio. I can see the immediate appeal for creative students but am not sure about those from other disciplines. Having said this, it seems we are yet to find a ePortfolio system here that students actually engage with - and that contributes to 'lifelong learning'.

As my project is about using social networking tools I thought I'd better start using them myself - hence this blog. Hopefully through this I should a) learn quite alot about using these tools (although I have done spurts of blogging before) and b) save a bit of time when it comes to writing up reports :o)

Had an interesting chat today with Dave who is leading the University's PDP project. Apparently a system needs to be in place by September 2009 - not too far away in the scale of things. According to Dave's draft user needs for a UoP ePortfolio:

• WBL support has to be embedded - learners, academic support & organisational host must have equal access
• All data is student/ learner owned

Current plans aim to embed e-Portfolios within SharePoint. The idea is that students considering studying for further qualifications will choose those that UoP are offering when they access their ePDP. Does this not take ownership away from the student? And what if we don't offer an appropriate course - how easy will it be for them to transfer their portfolio?