My Online Seminar

Click here to access the website I created for my online seminar on using digital portfolios in education.

Click here to access evidence of forum participation and discussion ensuing from the course activities (Notes 1,2).

1.  For some of my seminar activities, participants contributed ideas through Google Forms, so their contributions are not in Stream.

2.  Access to view PDFs requires my permission.  Please request via email sq.hagler@gmail.com

Seminar Self-Reflection

I hoped to engage my seminar participants in a series of tasks (Site: http://goo.gl/H8SZLV) that would culminate in them developing an argument to use alongside other previously developed materials (notably, the collaborative Google Presentation: http://goo.gl/PPqbMd) which they might use when attempting to ‘convince’ their peers/colleagues of the importance of using digital portfolios (e-portfolios) as part of the learning and assessment processes in their educational institution.  In order to achieve this, learners had to think critically about the opportunities and challenges presented by e-portfolios, and consider the specific tool which they might use situated in their context.  

I attempted to use activities that were not just about posting ideas on Stream (refer Task 2.1: Collaborative presentation and Task 3.1: Arguing for e-Portfolios, which required peer assessment against argument rubric) so as to promote some variety in the activities being undertaken.  Some of the tasks did not go totally to plan in that the technology that I chose to use for the process (largely Google Forms) did not perform as expected, although I recovered from this by creating forum areas within the Seminar forum which the participants could use if they wished to share their work for the tasks.  

I feel that the seminar was successful in that the participants did successfully develop arguments (and supplementary material) to use which they shared with each other via the Stream environment (http://goo.gl/tjn1Mh), which they could now choose to use to argue for e-portfolios in their context.  What was not successful did not hinder the overall progression of the seminar and seminar participants seemed quite complimentary about the selected readings and activities.  If I could do this again, I would likely use different technology to manage the discussions, but I would still aim to use activities that aren’t just about long asynchronous dialogues, but rather promote the creation of meaning collaborative content, such as the presentation in task 2.1.  It would be great if Massey provided its learners with a Google Apps account so we had access to those collaboration, communication, coordination tools within the same domain.  

A final area of concern for me was the pace of the seminar.  I felt that one week should have been enough time for participants to engage, but only one of my three participants kept to the suggested schedule which I had set, which threw out timings a bit and reduced the collaborative engagement value of the course.  Admittedly,  I also had a bad week and felt I was not ‘driving’ the process enough and leading by example.  This is definitely something I would do better in the future as I think it is the facilitators role to at times exemplify the process and at others summarise progress/ideas and progress the learning discussions (although I did summarise throughout to move the conversation forward).

Mohammed's Online Seminar

Click here to access the website Mohammed created for his seminar on e-learning in the primary classroom.

Click here to access evidence of forum participation for this seminar (permission required).

Ange's Online Seminar

Click here to access the website Ange developed for her seminar.

Click here to access evidence of forum participation in this seminar (permission required).