Education Investigation

Lately I have not been able to keep on top of the many RSS feeds that come into my Netvibes account so I have created another tab and entitled it “First reads”. These RSS feeds are to blogs that I consider priority reading and ones I find enriching, challenging and informing.

A blog I would encourage you to watch is an independent educational consultant by the name of Angela Maiers. Angela lives in Iowa and has a PASSION for education. Passionate people do a good job of what they are passionate about and this is what caught my eye when I first read her blog. Have a read of one of her latest posts entitled “Passion - A Difference Maker“.

What bloggers would you recommend?

Through my readings I had been informed (and warned) that for ePortfolios to be truly effective they must remain the student’s. Ownership = greater motivation and use. Therefore ownership is paramount or it can become another “task” for the student resulting in the teacher becoming the slave driver.

When my class found out that they could finally login to their new ePortfolios a jubilant “HOORAY” erupted from the students. For us the rubber was finally hitting the road. :+) We had discussed the ePortfolio concept together as a class from the beginning of Term 1. During this preparation period we put together a written list of the samples we thought would be good to share with our Parents or peers and that would show what we are learning. I was impressed with the discussions and samples the students were suggesting. The list of samples looked like this:

• Special Things About Me: 
  • X-Factor movie
  • Our “Smarts” (a pictorial representation of our Multiple Intelligences)
  • Power points I have made about me
• Term Goals
• Maths Basic Facts tests
• Reading (audio recordings and comprehension activities)
• Writing:
  • Audio recorded or published Pirate narratives
  • Accompanying assessment rubrics
• Handwriting
• Topic Studies:
  • Pictures of our Pirate projects or the Pirate project powerpoints and their accompanying assessment rubrics

Over the last 3 weeks we have been busy setting up our ePortfolios and archiving our work samples (listed above). I continue to offer suggestions and guide my students. While I do this I have to be careful not to “take over” otherwise I rob them of the ability to own the ePortfolio. This is not an easy task. 

I have found the following ways to be effective in building student ownership:

1. Allow students to upload things that are of interest to them eg: sport pictures, power points they have made or to create links to other pages they enjoy visiting.
2. Show students how to design their own ePortfolios so that they become personalised eg: the different ways they could create an avatar, change the layout of their portfolio, colour schemes, etc.
3. Always include the students in discussions about their ePortfolios. We all contribute, then discuss ideas and finally solutions are arrived at together.
4. Give options for the different ways you can come to the same conclusion eg: in Term 1 we wrote Pirate narratives together as part of our Pirate topic. Together we discussed the different ways we could publish these. Some students choose to type them while others choose to record them orally.

I have been off the “radar” for sometime since becoming a Dad and so am adjusting to this wonderful change. As well as this I have been busy trialling the different Learning Management Systems (LMS) that I mentioned in my previous post.

Below is my final platform analysis. Before you view it please keep in mind the following points:

1. eFolio is not an LMS but a smaller product compared to the others I trialled. It was built primarily as an ePortfolio platform. However because my trials have focused on ePortfolios I included it in the analysis.
2. Spike@School has since removed itself from the party of Vendors the MOE had previously identified.
3. I was unable to trial the MyClasses platform. At first they replied to my initial request but then did not get back to me again until yesterday (9th April). At that stage they informed me that I had contacted their overseas office and that they do not sell directly to NZ schools. They then directed me to contact the NZ SchoolZone Helpdesk. Unfortunately I needed to make a decision before school finished for the Term so time has run out. I would still be interested in reviewing their platform in the near future and will contact them later.
4. I realise that within months my analysis will quickly go out of date. Vendors are working hard on developing their product to meet the guidelines the MOE has set for them as Development Partners. I therefore strongly encourage you to talk to individual vendors before making your own personal decisions.

Here is how I rated the following products:

Update (7.5.09): There has been some confusion on my behalf in relation to SMS-LMS interoperability versions 1.3 and 2.0. To clear things up, no LMS-SMS at this stage has been approved by the MOE for Version 2.0.

There was more to eFolio’s V2.0 than what I saw when trialling their beta version. I have therefore updated the “Multiple Spaces and Views” to meet this. My apologies to eFolio for missing this.

So what does this mean for my school?

We have chosen Ultranet as our preferred LMS in our ePortfolio Pilot for 2009.

Why?

• Ultranet is not the perfect ePortfolio option but it came the closest to meeting each of my criteria. I hope to work with them and help them develop their ePortfolio module.
• I believe Ultranet has the cleanest and simplest interface, which I can see 5-18 year olds being able to navigate.
• It was in my school’s best interest to go with a product that is one of the 3 development partners the MOE is supporting. This way I knew for sure it was going to be a sustainable option and one that would meet the MOE’s guidelines.
• I was impressed with Ultranet’s social networking functionality. Entitled “uSpace”, I believe this feature will be a location my students will use regularly to interact and share their learning with others. It will be a gateway that will lead to greater collaborations and peer assessment.

Each of the platforms were measured against the criteria I set earlier. I have repeatedly gone back and fine tuned my purpose and criteria. The final product is included below for your interest (or click here if it does not display correctly):

Where to from here?

• Run the ePortfolio pilot until the end of December 2009 with 4 classes; in Year 1, 5, 6 (my class) and 7.
• Organise and plan for Parent meetings to inform and teach them how they can partner more in their child’s learning eg: commenting on their child’s work and interacting with them though Ultranet. Within these meetings we can address Net safety and other concerns they may have.
• Watch the Ministry of Education’s moves as they are undertaking some research in June into forming one ePortfolio tool for NZ schools. The MOE have indicated a possible date for this launch in January 2010. Stay tuned!

Is there anyone else that uses Ultranet and would like to become a buddy class?