Albany Senior High School, Auckland - New Zealand   http://www.ashs.school.nz

e-Portfolio tool: Mahara (using the national web service under the name of MyPortfolio)

PURPOSE:   Personal Development Planning, Showcasing work, Continuing Professsional Development of Staff, Transition to/from the institution,  Assessment

PROCESSES:   Information capture, Information retrieval, Planning, Feedback, Reflection, Collaboration, Presentation

DRIVERS: The main driver for our exploration of e-portfolios was a sense of dissatisfaction with conventional assessment. We wanted a way to collect rich, multimedia evidence of learning, increase a sense of student ownership as well as reinforce the school's vision of ongoing, iterative improvement.

What is unique about this case study

e-Portfolios were introduced into curriculum from the inception of this 15-18 high school which opened in 2009. The introduction was alongside a discussion about the nature of the curriculum and teaching and learning within a  school that had been designed with open-plan collaborative learning spaces.  e-Portfolio use was envisaged as being a means of introducing more effective approaches to assessment and are used within timetabled tutorial sessions, impact (student led projects) sessions and within subject lessons. Video is now widely used to capture learning. e-Portfolios are available for staff use as well and some staff are carrying out inquiry projects into their e-portfolio use as part of their professional development activities. e-Portfolio use is a way of sharing professional practice within the school.  A focus in the school is on the use of open source technologies to support teaching and learning, Mahara fits within this.

Background

Albany Senior High School (ASHS) is a new school located in the rapidly growing suburban area of Albany in North Auckland. The school campus has been designed with a focus on open-plan collaborative learning spaces which can accommodate multiple classes or lessons at a time. The design is intended to facilitate collaborative and student-centred pedagogies with a strong focus on progressive use of ICT technologies to support teaching and learning at the institution. Under Deputy Principal Mark Osborne's leadership of e-Learning at Albany Senior High School, there is a culture of using open-source software and external hosting services wherever possible in order to alleviate the burden and cost of IT support within the school, creating a flexible and comprehensive ICT environment using best-of-breed tools. A useful resource providing an overview of e-Learning at Albany is provided here. This institutional background provides the context for the use of e-portfolios at ASHS.

Key words:  

Albany Senior High School, New Zealand, High School, Open source, Mahara, Learning Plans,  Learning Blog, Assessment, Impact project,

Brief overview of the organisation and its current e-portfolio use: 

The institutional context of ASHS is briefly outlined in the section above. More information about the establishment of the school is available here. At opening the school roll numbered 237 students from the senior years (15-18) in the Albany district. (In 2011 this was 750).The school maintains 220 desktop computers for student use, running a variety of open source software. e-Learning is a strong focus at the school and e-portfolios are used within the school for:

• student learning, to celebrate success, monitor progress and seek feedback
  
• teacher learning, to collaborate on research projects, present findings and discuss learning, and
  
• Impact Projects to collaborate and monitor progress

Two of the main areas in which e-portfolios are used are with tutorial groups and in the impact projects. Follow the links to find out more about the use of these teaching and learning mechanisms at ASHS.

ASHS began using e-portfolios in 2009.

The Ministry of Education's guidelines for use contain more information about the way e-portfolios are used at ASHS: http://www.minedu.govt.nz/NZEducation/EducationPolicies/Schools/Initiatives/ManagedLearningEnvironments/MLEPublications/ePortfolios.aspx  

A number of staff have completed 'teaching as inquiry' research into their use of e-portfolios, but these have not been published as yet.  

There has been an explosion in the use of video to record evidence of learning, both through mobile phones and Flip videos. From Spanish lessons to maths demonstrations to music performances, everyone's using video to record learning. 

Key factors for success 

• Be very clear on the kind of learning you're trying to promote - there was a clear whole-school school focus on using e-portfoilios to change assessment practice
• Have points in the curriculum and the timetable where they are to be used
• Have teachers use e-portfolios alongside students. If teachers use them, they quickly become aware of the best and worst ways to use an e-portfolio
• Have single sign on for VLE and the e-portfolio.  There need to be links with the VLE so students can publish directly to their portfolios
  
• Having enough computers available for use

Lessons learnt  

• Need to talk to students more about what e-portfolios are and why they are of use
• The staff needed to get their heads around what they were and how they could add value to learning, so we didn't start the process off by talking about how they should be used because we didn't clearly know ourselves
• Supporting students early in using the e-portfolio, they then help each other and teachers

Future Plans 

• To involve parents
• Greater integration within subjects