8 Digital portfolios as flying containers with open windows

What is this about? Well, when I think about digital portfolios, the word “container” comes to mind. Abrami and Barrett (2005) have used the term “container” in relation to digital portfolios long before I did… Today, I would like to attempt stretching this metaphor a little bit further to start reflecting on the purpose, process, people, and product dimensions of digital portfolios.

While containers feel rigid, dark, hard, and super heavy, they can be so much more for learning and assessment in higher education.

Digital portfolios as containers store stuff

They resemble elastic, super-stretchy and expandable storage boxes that live and grow in the digitally interconnected ecosystem or a personal device, not always shared with others. The purpose of such digital portfolios may vary. It can be for documenting, gathering, reflecting, curating, collecting, and stitching together things we have grappled within a module or a programme and other things that interest us more widely. We can also capture what we have done to showcase outputs and products. Also, what moves us. The process. We can also, based on the purpose, gather reflections in, on, and/or for action (Schön, 1983; Carr & Kemmis, 1986; Schön, 1992). We write about our experience and reflect, draw it, say it with a song, a poem, a story, a model, or a cake even. Some would argue that GenAI can do all that for us. Yes, it probably can. Even cake I suspect… But what is the point? This question takes me back to something I wrote recently about rethinking assessment in relation to its value, volume and variety (Nerantzi, 2024)

The plurality and diversity of formats of digital portfolios to share our learning-in-progress, stories, document, and showcase our work have been enabled through participatory multimedia (Quinn, 2024). We are all natural storytellers and makers. It is true that a portfolio can be varied, a rich patchwork indeed, inclusive and equitable when we know how to harness the power of digital and multimedia for our learning and assessment! Creative and arts-based approaches help us notice and express our lived experience and associated reflections with greater richness and diversity (Younie, n.d.). Digital media provide additional opportunities in this area making our work sharable more widely. It also helps those at the margins. Remember the drawings, poems, songs, stories, and models we just mentioned? See applications of LEGO® SERIOUS PLAY® in higher education, for example (Nerantzi & James, 2022). Reflective practice is so much more than just writing. Check out some of the creative activities included in the guide by Harvey et al. (2020) for inspiration.

Digital portfolios as containers with windows

Windows that open and through which we explore (im)possibilities. The open windows could indicate exchange, connection, and cross-fertilisation.  Windows lead us to expansive playgrounds to question, experiment, explore, try, fail, try again and again, and learn. Questions remind me of Socrates (Wikipedia, n.d.), Freire (2011), and hooks (1994). To reflect! To capture the process of learning. A landscape of messy challenges, a “swampy lowland” as characterised by Schön (1983, 42), emerging ideas, worries and dilemmas, things we tried that worked, and things we tried that haven’t worked yet (… and may never work). Things that feed our imagination, curiosity and journey. The eureka moments, the breakthroughs! Things that  illuminate the critical and creative thinker and maker in us, the doer. The problem poser and problem solver. Does all this happen in isolation from others? The world?

The recipes we often use to develop reflection are predominantly cyclical ones and seem to portray reflection as a highly individualised experience. An experience that is followed by reflective writing in a linear way, in prose using academic writing conventions. Too much structure and rules can be problematic. What about poetry? Could this give us more freedom to express? To make words and meanings dance on a page? How about drawings, pictures and artefacts?

Asking students to reflect and reflect and reflect can also cause fatigue. Reflective models as recipes have been questioned (Cowards, 2011; Fallin, 2021; Seaman, 2008). However, we continue using many of them routinely. Reflection is messy. Reflection is not just reflective writing. It definitely isn’t! Reflection is interconnected with others and the world. We know this. James and Brookfield’s (2014) reflective model provides an alternative to the dominant linear and cyclical approaches. Their model aims to awaken imagination, creativity, criticality, and playfulness within what they call “the whole person” and illustrates interconnectedness among academic, work, personal, and social life. Connections among people, perspectives and ideas. The whole learning ecosystem! These dimensions mean that the windows in our container are open and that the container can and will travel, which takes us to the next point.

Digital portfolios as travelling containers with windows

Containers are built to store and to travel. Not travelling may trap us in our own thoughts. While negative and positive thoughts and emotions provide insights, they can cloud our judgement if captured in isolation. There is a need for dialogue, debate, and connection. In networks and communities. With people. We are social beings, remember? James and Brookfield’s model shows this with clarity (see earlier). Furthermore, Brookfield’s Four Lenses (1995), with a focus on developing critical reflection in teaching, also emphasises the importance of voices and practices of others. He speaks about lenses and the role they play to aid reflective thinking. I think that Brookfield’s Four Lenses are useful beyond developing reflective practice in teaching, as they illuminate “others” and the key role they play in our own development, therefore framing reflection as a social and situated practice.

If creative and critical problem-solvers, active citizens, and lifelong and lifewide learners (EUA, 2021; Jackson, 2021) are what our world wants and needs, how can we transform digital portfolios into travelling or even flying containers with windows that accompany us beyond the boundaries of a course, a module or a programme of study as lifewide and lifelong learning companions? The advantages of digital portfolios for students’ learning, development and growth have been recognised (Lu, 2021; Mogas et al., 2023).

What is the role also of educators using portfolios for their own development and how can we encourage them to share these with their students? Can we really expect our students to do something we want them to do if we remain distant observers and don’t engage ourselves in practices we encourage them to engage in?

Can thinking about the purpose, process, people, and product dimensions of portfolios help us design for truly meaningful engagement with these?

Note: An earlier version of this article was published as

Nerantzi, C. 2024. Digital portfolios as flying containers with open windows. Media & Learning Association, 4 July 2024, https://media-and-learning.eu/subject/av-technologies/digital-portfolios-as-travelling-containers-with-open-windows/

References

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Brookfield, S. 1995. Becoming a Critically Reflective Teacher. San-Francisco: Jossey-Bass.

Carr, W. and Kemmis, S. (1986) Becoming Critical. Education, knowledge and action research. Lewes: Falmer

Coward, M. 2011. Does the use of reflective models restrict critical thinking and therefore learning in nurse education? What have we done? Nurse Education Today. 31(8), 883-886. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.nedt.2011.01.012

European University Association 2021. Universities without walls. A vision for 2023. Brussels. https://eua.eu/downloads/publications/universities%20without%20walls%20%20a%20vision%20for%202030.pdf

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Mogas, J., Cea Álvarez, A. M. and Pazos-Justo, C. 2023. The Contribution of Digital Portfolios to Higher Education Students’ Autonomy and Digital Competence. Education Sciences, 13(8), 829. https://doi.org/10.3390/educsci13080829

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