Whose world is it? OSP/Sakai, Moodle and Web2.0 in Further and Community education

This paper addresses issues arising from trials of Sakai/OSP-based eportfolios in smaller institutions: colleges of FE, community learning, ALT. These trials raised wider process issues that should be of interest to all people working with portfolios in post-compulsory education, particularly with "adult returners". The paper challenges the notion that institutional systems are useful for reflection. The paper is aimed at teachers, learners, learning technologists and course organisers in the collaborative spaces between universities, FE Colleges and community centres.

This paper reports on trials of the Open Source Portfolio (OSP) in post compulsory education in Southern England. As a result, two very different learning designs incorporating e-portfolio processes into personal development planning have been developed:
- A foundation degree module incorporating Web2.0 social software tools "out there" with a VLE-based walled garden for private discussion and group reflection
- A Moodle "activity": CV builder.

The project involved real users doing real tasks from the outset. “Petal” adapted and trialed OSPv1.5 with 10 learning technologists. “myWorld” trialed the adapted OSPv1.5 in 13 sites in HE, FE, Community Learning and Professional institutes. “Petal2” migrated the application to the Sakai/OSPv2.1.xx platform and “myWorld continuation” trialed the new tools in three sites. It is clear that SAKAI has a considerable following however it is not clear what the uptake of OSP tools has been. A major concern for the FE and Community Education sectors is the weight of the technical infrastructure required for SAKAI. Far from being a thin layer, a SAKAI installation means implementing the full environment and then disabling tools that aren’t required. Issues discovered once the systems had begun initial roll-out included load and locking problems on the database (MySQL) and what could be considered show stopping issues concerning fragments of data being left in the system after a user requested a delete. For the UI and user experience the scale of work to be done on Sakai and OSP is significant.

Despite the challenges presented by the platform there were many valuable unexpected outcomes. For learners, the understanding of e-portfolio processes was surprisingly well articulated. End users clearly distinguished between the potential of e-portfolio processes and the sometimes buggy software. For learners, the "CV plus" is qualitatively different from a paper CV, but we noted that "e-portfolio literacy" issues exist for assessors as well as compilers and presenters. Perhaps most importantly it was recognised that ePortfolios are about process, not a tool or a product. ePortfolio processes can be generalised as: collect, reflect, select, and present, and of these the most significant across the studies was reflection. It was evident that when institutional concerns were removed from the equation and the focus placed on the learner and their reflection, the processes might be disaggregated with different tools serving different processes.

We conclude our paper with illustrations of two different disaggregations of e-portfolio processes. Learners on "Personal Development Planning and Reflective Learning" are required to seek out and explore Web2.0 social learning tools: Flickr, Elgg and Wordpress. They use of online tools to collect, categorise and appraise evidence of events from their life for reflection using the social software of their choice. In a different context, Oxfordshire Community Learning Support Unit developed a module for their Moodle VLE. "Let's go to work on it (CVBuilder 101)" is used for tutor facilitated workshops in community ICT centres using the construction of a CV to introduce reflective personal development planning.

Comments

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