Using portfolios and open badges for student engagement – the good, the bad and the indifferent [185 Home : Annual Conference 2017

Public Group Active 5 years, 6 months ago

Theme: Empowerment in Learning Technology

Description

Over the last two years, the Pathbrite project has been in operation at the University of Southampton. Piloting the Pathbrite Portfolio tool, the project was originally conceived to be supporting reflections and the development of digital literacies skills of Humanities students as well as a small number of spaces for the Innovation and Digital Literacies Champions (iChamps). The project ran for two years, from September 2015 until July 2017 and funding was secured through the internal Education Enhancement Fund and the Southampton Opportunity Programme.

Purpose of the Project

This presentation will focus on the development of the project from design, implementation and final outcomes.

The Pathbrite Portfolio tool offers a flexible, easy to use and visually appealing web based approach to reflective practice, combined with the use of open badges, through the use of Open Badge Factory, the project has delivered some interesting and unexpected results. The use of open badges was to provide students with specific sets of skills and to allow them to manage their online identities through authentic learning experiences (Casilli and Hickey, 2016). Originally, the portfolio tool Pathbrite was identified as an ideal repository for capturing evidence for the iChamps, and so the model was to be extended for Humanities students, however, as plans changed and reorganisations happened, the tool was mainly adopted by Geography students (N=200) over two years, as well as a cohort of Audiology students within the Faculty of Engineering and the Environment. Based on the combining technology, pedagogy and content using the TPACK model, (Koehler, 2011) this project became more than a way of managing students online identity and developing digital literacies skills. It showed us more about our teaching practices, how technology does in fact enhance learning and how we can use technology to get feedback from students as well as give feedback to students (Jovanovic and Devedzic, 2015).

This presentation will talk about student engagement with the module, how the students we supported to engage with the platform and to explore and create using a variety of online tools to create videos, infographics and other non-text based media. It will also explore how by using a combination of portfolio tool and the badges students who were not so ‘engaged’ in their studies (unlike the iChamps) participated and provided us with insights into the details about their reasons for choosing Southampton, and for choosing their subjects.

It will also provide an outline of issues arising from the use of the tools, including what it told us about using these tools effectively, who does and doesn’t participate as well as the frustration of re-educating students who have spent years being strategic learners, playing at education for exams and coursework.

References:

Casilli, C. and Hickey, D. (2016) ‘Transcending conventional credentialing and assessment paradigms with information-rich digital badges’, The Information Society. Routledge, 32(2), pp. 117–129. doi: 10.1080/01972243.2016.1130500.

Jovanovic, J. and Devedzic, V. (2015) ‘Open Badges: Novel Means to Motivate, Scaffold and Recognize Learning’, Technology, Knowledge and Learning. Springer Netherlands, 20(1), pp. 115–122. doi: 10.1007/s10758-014-9232-6.

Koehler, M.J. (2011) What is TPACK http://tpack.org

retrieved March 28^th 2017

The Open Badge Factory http://www.openbadgefactory.com

Pathbrite Portfolio: https://pathbrite.com/

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