[LINK] Australian E-portfolio Plan

[stephen at melbpc.org.au]

Tom, and Dr E, write,

> > The report also contains the following recommendation:
> >
> > .. cross sectoral working/reference group that focuses on issues 
> > such as policy, professional learning, standards and advocacy at 
> > national level to support a standards-based approach to e-portfolios 
> > across the sectors..
> 
> Yes, there was also a QUT "AeP ePortfolio Project - Final Project 
> Report"  (August 2008)  from the university point of view, which also 
> suggested university/TAFE cooperation: 
> <http://www.eportfoliopractice.qut.edu.au/information/report/>.
> 
> But I haven't see any sign of this cooperation actually happening. 
> There are genuine differences in the way vocational and higher 
> education people use e-portfolios. This will make cooperation and 
> common standards difficult. This is why I suggest the federal 
> government needs to tell the sectors there will only be funding for 
> work on one common system.


This all makes much sense. It may seem obvious that our Aussie 'education
industry' certainly needs much closer co-operation going forward, despite
sometimes fierce oposition to any perceived threat to 'precious' academic 
freedoms, and in this case, one is using 'precious' in the personal sense.

Perhaps our ALTC appears ONE excellent group to offer just such oversight?

For example ..

EDUCATING THE NET GENERATION: A HANDBOOK OF FINDINGS FOR PRACTICE AND
POLICY (Australian Learning & Teaching Council, 2009, ISBN 9780734040732) 
reports on a collaborative project that began in 2006, between staff at 
the University of Melbourne, the University of Wollongong, and Charles 
Sturt University. Some of the findings of the study included:

	"The rhetoric that university students are Digital Natives and
	that university staff are Digital Immigrants is not supported."

	"Even though young people's access to and use of computers
	and some information and communications technologies is high,
	they don't necessarily want or expect to use these technologies
	to support some activities, including learning."

	"The use of publishing and information sharing tools, such as
	wikis, blogs and photo sharing sites, positively impacted on
	many students' engagement with the subject material, their
	peers and the general learning community."  (and)

"A number of authors have argued that students who are entering the
higher education system have grown up in a digital culture that has
fundamentally influenced their preferences and skills in a number of
key areas related to education. It has also been proposed that today's
university staff are ill equipped to educate this new generation of
learners -- the Net Generation –- whose sophisticated use of emerging
technologies is incompatible with current teaching practice."

The handbook is available at http://www.netgen.unimelb.edu.au/

The Australian Learning and Teaching Council works with 44 Australian
higher education institutions "as a collaborative and supportive
partner in change, providing access to a network of knowledge, ideas
and people." 

For more information, contact: Australian Learning and Teaching Council, 
4-12 Buckland St., Chippendale, Sydney NSW 2008 Australia; tel: 02 8667 
8500; fax: 02 8667 8515; email info at altc.edu.au, http://www.altc.edu.au/

--

Cheers Carolyn
Stephen Loosley
Victoria
Australia

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