konektednes

• select from their collections to present to prospective employers or for entry into other educational institutions
• manage their learning path throughout their formal education, but including learning from informal and non-institutional contexts
• shape their understanding of what it means to be a professional in the context they have chosen, and hopefully if they have access
  to an ePorfolio throughout their working lives, to manage their professional capabilities lifelong.

There are, though, many unresolved issues at educational institutions in giving their students access of any substantial duration once they graduate.
Whether ePortfolios are commercial solutions, open source or custom made, overall ePortfolios seem to fall into two categories:

• those that primarily enable the presentation of the final products or assets to a wider public (eg. Mahara)
• those that equally enable the learning process as the presentation of the learning product (eg PebblePad)

All systems, including applications such as wikis and Google Docs, can be used as a personal e-Portfolio and can be scaffolded by a teacher to meet the development of critical reflection or professional reflection, as well as for collaborative projects and assessment. There are challenges though in the successful implementation of ePortfolio practice, namely:

1. plug our devices in overnight
2. live with the tangled mess of wires under our desks
3. ensure we had enough batteries, and
4. the right adapters/chargers specific to a brand – especially when we are in transit?

What if we had a wireless charging through a small device that could safely transmit resonant electric power in our surroundings to our computer, our mobile phones and iPods?

Such a technology exists as MIT physicists have invented “WiTricity” which basically captures ambient electricity, turns it into a magnetic field and then changes it back to electricity in your device. As this process is a magnetic field transfer it is safe.

The capture coil oscillates at the same frequency as the power source coil. Image from: http://www.ted.com/talks/eric_giler_demos_wireless_electricity.html

In practical terms we would use a small capture device on the back of our mobile phones or under our desk, in the ceiling or in our purse: wherever we operate.

Imagine, no more plugging in devices to keep them going; no more cord jungles under our desks, and no more environmental damage through the billions of used batteries. In the future this may extend to the charging of electric cars and medical devices such as pacemakers.

Eric Giler in TEDTalks explains the technology:

1. this was the only power supply in the classroom
2. the cassette recorder was bought on route to the country

And the other technology?

1. chalk(not dustless) on a blackboard that shuffled around on an easel.

I was teaching at Xiamen University in China in 1983. It was a very different China then, just emerging from the Cultural Revolution and the above were the technologies available to me. This does not mean that the learning-teaching exchange lacked potency or richness. What it meant was a greater reliance on teaching technique such as elicitation skills, situating the learning in local contexts and using role-play somewhat like jazz: the learners co-constructed the situations and outcomes with subsequent “interrogation” by their peers as to their decisions and outcomes. It was a moving feast of language development in a technology poor situation.

So two key questions teachers in an increasingly technology mediated learning environment:

1. What does it take to create a fully engaged learning exchange?

2. How do we ensure that the technologies we use in the new millennium are not props to poor learning methodology and its channel; weak teaching technique?

One answer to these questions is for teachers to go “naked” ie. without technology in the classroom. Dean Jose Bowen of Southern Methodist University hit the wire this year with his views on the boredom being imposed on learners because teachers were over-reliant on technology to do their job for them – which technology can not do as the learning conversation is dynamically between humans.

See the video below for Jose Bowen’s argument that PowerPoint and other technologies are being used for the wrong purposes. He is not anti technology; to the contrary, but espouses educators think about the best use of the time and space to maximise the engagement during the learning exchange, and to use technology mainly out of the classroom.

This video, The Twitter Experiment – Bringing Twitter to the Classroom at UT Dallas, is a great example of working more dynamically with large classes in a higher education setting.
Dr Rankine, professor of History, worked out a way to involve more than a few of the brave extroverts who would speak up in such a large class. This technique involved many more students and forced them in the 140 words to get to the core of their idea. It was somewhat messy but changed the whole learning dynamic. The Twitter contributions were projected up on a screen for all the class to see and comment on.

So I take it that these projected tweets could be the launching pad for in-depth discussions where learning took place as everyone had to clarify and validate their meanings. This also provided a rich opportunity for those involved to appreciate a range of perspectives on an argument or issue.