Case Studies
Well this project is coming to a close and there is much to report.
Liam did a handy home page to link to them. I have made this image active so if you click you will go there (for as long as it remains live. Read the continuation of this article to see a brief summary and shots of the other studies.
The project filestore is here.
Abingdon and Witney College
The first of the new case studies was at Abingdon and Witney College
Three different groups at the College had a go with the software, two on the Abingdon Campus and one on the Witney Campus.
In total approximately 40 students were exposed to the system and attempted to use it.
I reported on my visit to the Abingdon campus here.
It was possible to produce a basic portfolio:
Ellen Lessner, case study leader, has a strong interest in accessibility issues and Abingdon and Witney College makes good provision for IT access. It was intended to produce a specific accessibility statement for the system, but as it is, the "out of the box" statement stands:
Plumpton College
Plumpton came next.
I launched the case study with Chris Foss, the Course Leader, to a group of about 15 participants. The presentation is here (1Mb ppt). This simple presentation was linked to a mind map, which I used to navigate the discussion. Links in the map lead to resources. Clicking on the image will download a larger .png file. For those with FreeMind, the .mm file is here.
After the presentation I used the Message of the day facility to welcome participants and to guide them on setting up their systems.
This led them to "Collect and Reflect"
A procedure guide (1.5Mb doc file) was written to help participants create portfolios.
And... some very good portfolios were produced. Screen shots of two are below:
by Jody Scott
by Charlie Holland
However, unfortunately, many participants still found the application difficult to use and to work. Making problems worse, it emerged that using the "free-form portfolio template" caused multiple database connections to remain open, grinding the service to a halt: repeatedly. According to Murphy's law, this happened the weekend before the participants' assignment using the system was due.
I used the message of the day to close out this phase of the study and solicit feedback from participants.
Blackbird Leys CV Builder in Moodle
Based on the Petal 1 experience it was decided to develop a "Lightweight CV Builder" application to run in Moodle.
The OSP "overhead" was too great for a community learning context, and the Sakai/OSP v2.1.x exacerbated the big institution feel. The problem is that there are tensions inherent in the motivations of the various actors in the adult community education field. Institutional funding is based on recruitment, retention and attainment and learning management systems thinking invades e-portfolio thinking. While we do not dispute that their may be mutual institutional and individual benefit to basing learner portfolios and reflection on institutionally-centred systems, learners who are not engaged with educational institutions are not likely to be attracted by institutional systems. In discussions about portfolio practices it is recognised that the four key components of any portfolio-like practice are:
- collection
- reflection
- selection
- presentation
Nevertheless, there is a perceived need among returning learners to have a CV to help improve life prospects. Therefore it appeared as though a CV builder might be a way into collecting, reflecting, selecting and presenting. Oxfordshire Adult Learning Service is adopting Moodle, therefore it makes sense to develop portfolio practices through this medium.
A view of the database admin interface:
A view of the Community Learning Moodle Site
A view of CV output the document can be printed direct or passed through a parser into Word.
CV learning resources in Moodle.
Comments