Great Expectations or Entitlement?

The overriding theme in anecdotal discourse and the literature of, and surrounding, teaching to a net generation is expectation.  For a generation beginning life less than two decades ago, Negroponte (1996) observed a change from ‘atoms into bits and pixels’.  Andone, Dron and Pemberton (2009), as Tapscott (2009) advocates of ‘grown up digital’ and ‘digital students’, reported on digital technologies integrated as a feature of everyday life and acknowledged that digital students use technology differently from previous generations, that is, fluidly and simultaneously.  They tested the desirability and future development and evaluation of learning spaces informed by digital students’ attitudes, posing the question: What is now a learning space?  And challenging the leap of correlation that use equals learning use.

A practical rationale for, and experiences with integrating [video games] into K-20 curriculum was presented by Annetta (2008).  Wang Wu Wang (2009) expanded on this purporting that acceptance of m-learning by individuals is critical to the successful implementation of m-learning systems, and therefore identified a need to research the factors affecting user intention, including a study on age and gender variables.  They found age moderated effort expectancy and social influence, where gender differences moderated the effects of social influence and self-management.  Kazlauskas and Robinson (2012) began with the premise that 21C students are expected to utilise emerging technologies but their findings reinforced the observation that [podcasts] were not embraced by everyone, despite flexibility and mobility of learning opportunities.  Significant numbers of learners preferred face-to-face and read or listen study environments.

Our relationship, as teachers, with technology determines how we teach to a net generation.  This is articulated by Tapscott (2009) who tells us technology is only technology if you’ve never seen it before.  Maushaus (2011) gives us the ‘fish in water’ analogy:  Whoever invented water, it wasn’t fish.  Fish inhabit water.  They live in it.  The net generation, is unable to step back from the technology and comment on it.  They don’t acknowledge it.  It is a given.  This phenomenon can be observed with any change at any time in history; with any technology and any generation.

Donnison (2009) asks, ‘Who’s teaching the teachers to teach?’  She argues Gen Y’s understanding of lifelong learning has been influenced by their engagements with digital technologies, and that while they may have appropriated the discourse of change, this does not indicate overall capacity for change agency.  Teachers in Gen X and beyond, as adopters of change will have a different relationship, entitlement and expectation of learning with technology than their students at any time in history and constantly evolve and move to align pedagogy with curriculum.  We are concerned with the use of technology in an ‘art for art’s’ sake manner?  Also where do we divide the generations?  Is there an overlap?  Are there anomalies that are a moving target in a 3D space? We see these same concerns from Wang, Wiesemes and Gibbons (2012) who raised vital questions about what constitutes a meaningful mobile learning experience, taking into account differing biographical and life stage factors.  They challenged the ongoing tension of generation aligned with use of technology and expanded this to a discussion of digital fluency of all learners.

 In 2010 Gupta and Koo observed that the acceleration of mobile device use among consumers is exponential.  They queried whether the parallel of mobile devices as expected learning tools displayed any consequent effectiveness as learning tools, or was the use in learning and teaching just a form of communication.  Kim, Jain, Westoff and Rezabek (2008) examined if teachers’ perceptions of faculty modelling of technologies affected their intent to use and found that on actual use interaction was insignificant.  This disconnect between intention and action leads us to consider critical mass and contemporaneous need to bring about change in the learning space.

Monahan (2007) observes that continuous enhancements and literacy have resulted in a generation of students who expect increasingly more from their e-learning experiences.  This has seen radical change from text-based environments to more stimulating multimedia systems, now extended to mobile platforms, always more available and more convenient for users.  She reminds us that providing truly collaborative and interactive mobile learning tools is still a challenge.  These thoughts are pursued by Hardy’s (2010) concept of practice architectures framing the social world and considering political, material and cultural pressures supporting increased use of new technology and stimulating productive teaching practices, but concerned by the availability of resources inhibiting delivery to a self-described entitled population of students.

But I think Thomas and Brown (2011) understand and articulate contemporary learners best when they describe, not a new process of learning, but a new culture in which organic learning grows, adapts and questions.

ePortfolio - a portfolio that is electronic, but with more ...

In a teaching environment where there is always a new tool promising to enhance student learning, and expected in the teacher’s repertoire, ePortfolios are a recent entrant.  Rather than just accept that this wonderful new resource will aid in your teaching and deliver elevated results, we must ask, ‘Where’s the teaching and learning?’  Without this foundation, today’s new tool quickly ends up on the scrap heap with yesterday’s discarded fads. However, research to date has concentrated on ePortfolios as an assessment tool attempting to solve assessment and accountability issues.  To establish where and how the teaching and learning occurs in ePortfolios, let’s look to literature which reported on ownership and sharing with ePortfolios.

Studies have identified ePortfolios as an important learning and assessment tool because they encourage students to create individualised knowledge, rather than demonstrate knowledge through exams, essay, and research projects (Goldsmith, 2007). Research has further identified that students enjoyed creating the portfolios and were encouraged to think about what they had learned, as well as the professional knowledge, skills, and abilities they acquired. Evaluation of the rubrics for portfolio assessment showed that students scored either on-target or acceptable on all criteria being assessed by the rubric (Buzzetto-More, 2010).

One study outlined three steps for making electronic portfolios more meaningful to students (Ayala, 2006):

1)      Slow down the development process to allow broader participation by students and faculty.

2)      Democratise the development.  Building on a constructivist knowledge paradigm instead of a top down mandate will motivate key users to proceed.

3)      Be open to discuss why electronic portfolios are right for the institution.

Of particular note, another study emphasised students’ perceptions of ownership and social learning throughout the process. It reviewed students’ comments with respect to students’ enjoyment of the process, how usage is incorporated into knowledge, and the reflective process.  It identified three levels of reflection.  The first level comments on content, the second comments on self as a learner, and the third level is illustrated with comments on evaluating the quality on their own work.

Although all these studies describe improving student learning, very few illustrate this with students’ voiced concerns or needs.  The student’s role in electronic portfolios is portrayed as something done unto them, rather than by them, with administrators doing most of the planning and designing. 

A University Needs Assessment Case

At Bond University, we carried out a needs assessment as an exercise for discussion about how both students and lecturers used ePortfolios for learning and assessment, rather than as an assessment tool.  We looked at students’ voiced concerns and needs for learning and how they described ePortfolio use for improving their learning.  Our focus was on what the students were doing (Kember & McNaught, 2007), and then how the lecturers were interacting with them, via ePortfolio.

We expected examples of student use of ePortfolios where they asserted their own intellectual property, and used the ePortfolios for collaborative purposes.  We hypothesised that learning would emerge as a theme in the discourse of participating students.  The provision of an ePortfolio is intended to promote ownership of a contextual (Ramsden, 2003) professional online identity and deeper engagement with content. 

To best assess the feasibility of the ePortfolio platform as a learning tool, three volunteer groups representative of departments and faculties across campus participated and experienced various levels of immersion in the capabilities of the ePortfolio.  This ranged from not doing much at all and being overwhelmed by what to do, through muddling through some sort of peer and lecturer feedback for iterative formative assessment items, to creating ongoing portfolios in which to accumulate a body of work and give personality and philosophy to the learning experience.  The groups were surveyed at the start of the semester and again at the end, to allow us a window into their thinking, feeling, use and engagement.

Our research to date has uncovered avenues we weren't expecting, but are excited by.  One lecturer has developed a plan for her students to accumulate three exemplary items of their work over the year, for feedback, comment, and then inclusion in their portfolios of learning for future professional use.  Current conversations with other participating lecturers are revealing other instances where renewed focus on assessment for learning and interactive process has occurred.  Creativity and critical thinking has happened, not just as a graduate attribute for students, but in continuing professional development for the teachers.

At this point in our research journey, have we backed ourselves into a corner and do we find ourselves unable to make a recommendation of a definitive ePortfolio platform?  The answer is no.  Open conversations with the lecturers to determine their goals for their students and how they think these can be best achieved will reveal how ePortfolios need to be woven into our Blackboard LMS, iLearn.  Further investigation into the workings and accessibility of available student portfolio tools may prove one avenue.  Existing Blackboard advanced tools may, with training, complete the picture.

The real question about ePortfolios is, 'Where is the learning?', and in the midst of the administration, we as educators, can't lose sight of this.  Points to consider are: How can I use it?  How does it enhance student learning?  How else can we achieve the same thing?  It is also prudent to ask ‘What’s in it for the teachers?’ because adoption of teaching tools and commitment to the integration into curriculum design and alignment with assessment and learning outcomes is paramount (Biggs & Tang, 2007). 

Take-away lessons

When deciding whether to use an ePortfolio in your teaching, start by assessing student needs and concerns.  This needs assessment will help you to identify the variance between the existing situation and the desired learning environment.  Then decide how, or if, an ePortfolio will fulfil that need.

An ePortfolio is most often utilised as a means of student assessment, and in doing so, keep in mind that it must have the following attributes.

It must be:

a)      Authentic so that students are able to use ePortfolios beyond the educational institution;

b)     Creative and multimedia;

c)      Across subject platforms to demonstrate learning across whole of degree;

d)     Context-specific;

e)     Professional and polished;

f)      Accessible for peer-review; and

g)      A tool for formative assessment.

There are numerous ePortfolio choices available in the market place.  As an educator, you are looking for a platform as a means to enhance student learning and engagement.  This is coupled with the capacity for timely and iterative feedback on assessment and collaborative group work with internal and external partners and educators, templates for reflective practice, and ongoing access for alumni.  A further overarching 'selling point' may be the ability to launch seamlessly from your learning management system. In any respect, the decision to implement any ePortfolio platform pivots on its capacity to enhance learning, its relating operation as a perceptual and formative tool, and the stakeholders’ engagement in the organic process.