Action Research
FE1: Developing digital portfolios for students at Bishop Auckland College
Author: Lucy Hutchinson, Web Developer, Bishop Auckland College, County Durham
Date: 2005
Lucy's account offers insight into the process of initiating the use of e-portfolios by students and tutors in a College of Further Education. The portfolios presented mainly still and moving images.
She suggests that e-portfolios are most effective in areas with strong visual outcomes to capture, such as demonstration of skills in hairdressing or handling complicated equipment.
Lucy identifies two critical ingredients to building capacity for the development of e-portfolios. Firstly, it was essential to provide personal technical support to staff and students. As they develop skills, they are then able to pass them on to others personally, creating a gradual skills cascade. Secondly, it was valuable to take a year-on-year approach. In the first year, tutors drove the gathering of documentary evidence for the portfolios, which the students assembled at the end of the year. This process highlighted the value of the portfolios but the paucity of evidence, motivating the students to take far greater ownership of documenting their work in following years.
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