Artefacts: the content of eportfolios

Collecting

The critical question in creating an eportfolio is what to include within it? The content pieces of an eportfolio is referred to as artefacts.
"...'e-portfolio' is the product created by learners, a collection of digital artefacts articulating experiences, achievements and learning ..." Source.

One place to begin the collecting phase is to see what others have collected as their artefacts - see Dr Helen Barrett's collection in her eportfolio wikispace. There are some examples of student eportfolio artefacts at the eport in the TAFE Virtual Campus. You can view these in this sample from Andrew.

Activity 2a: Your artefacts Create your own list of collected artefacts using the spreadsheet file provided as an attachment at the bottom of this page. Attach this to your own wiki page.

What, so what and what now?

Here's how Dr Helen Barrett describes her Eportfolio Goals and Mission

I believe that all portfolios need to include three forms of reflection, focusing on the past, present, and future. These questions are:

- What? (the artifacts that I have collected from the past)
- So What? (what these artifacts show about my learning at the present time)
- Now What? (my future learning goals)

Activity 2b: Your opinion Reply to the discussion forum topic called: 'What, so what and what now?' Share your opinion on how your collections of past achievements will influence your selection process for sharing.

Selecting

The selection of which artefacts to share will depend upon the purpose of your eportfolio and the people you want to share it with. A scenario example of this is available at the JISC E-portfolio Project. In this example an academic working at a UK Higher Education institution has many intellectual outputs relating to lifelong learning achievements that s/he has collected so far.

In his prolific blog Graham Attwell refers us to the MOSEP project - More Self-esteem with my ePortfolio. You can register to use their Eportfolio repository built on the Mahara system.

Activity 2c: Your process Access Module 3 in the MOSEP project and make your own notes in your own wiki page about: Purpose and content of a presentational e-portfolio Compiling a presentational e-portfolio Organising an interview or presentational situation Delivering a presentational e-portfolio Review, Reflection and Action Planning

Creating

There are many tools available for creating digital artefacts from the simple to the complex. Let's consider how some of these tools can be used to create some of your artefacts listed in your 'collected artefacts' spreadsheet. Check this representation of Dr Helen Barrett's eportfolio artefact matrix:

Activity 2d: Your tools Add columns to your eportfolio artefact spreadsheet to describe your artefacts, the software used to produce them and a space for the URLs where they are located. Select one of your artefacts suitable for presenting in PowerPoint or Movie Maker.

A story is a great way to share some achievements and a digital story or movie can enhance your achievement story. Using tools like PowerPoint or Movie Make etc. can help you to create some engaging artefacts for your eportfolio.

To bring your story to life you'll need great images and of course you'll be shown how to capture, manage and use your own images in Jon Bowdery's workshops. In the meantime let's use some images that others have taken to practice making an artefact as a digital story. For the next activity you may like to search from suitable images from Flickr.com or use the ones that I have captured and stored in the Flickr Photos Album of the Photo Gallery.

Activity 2e: Your artefacts Create a set of PPT slides containing your images or images from flickr.com to illustrate your 'journey' into teaching. In this task you may wish to add some text and/or narration to your file. or Create a Movie Maker project and movie containing your images or images from flickr.com to illustrate your 'story' about teaching. In this task you may wish to add some narration and/or music to your movie.

Multimedia files are often too big to share conveniently with others, for instance, you cannot attach anything larger than 2mb in this wiki space. A great work around for this issue is to upload the finished multi media files to another server and to create a link to them or to embed them in your page as a widget. Two useful free tools to explore for this function are: Slideshare and Teacher Tube.

Before you can complete the final activity of this workshop you will need to create an account at Slideshare or TeacherTube.

Activity 2f: your artefacts uploaded Create an account for yourself at Slideshare and/or Splashcast . Select one your multi media artefacts and upload to one of these sites. Create an introduction to your artefact in your wiki page and add a widget (use the Other widget) Copy the embedding code for your slides or movie and paste into a widget in your wiki page.

ON COMPLETION OF ALL ACTIVITIES OF THIS WORKSHOP YOU'LL BE WELL ON YOUR WAY TO CREATING ARTEFACTS FOR YOUR EPORTFOLIO AND HELPING YOUR STUDENTS DO THE SAME.