ePortfolios

I am trying to open up discourse on the possibility of implementing PDP based eportfolio's for students (and lecturers?) within the institution and would appreciate input from interested parties. The main issues I would like to discuss are:

Like Luther King 'I believe' that participation and contribution are tantamount to the success of this initiative. Some lecturers are already supportng the current paper/tutorial based ILP/PDP within the institution... is it such a large step to propose that they could contribute formative feedback and guidance using the technological affordances of web spaces instead or as well as f2f meetings. The beauty to me of the web medium is that this contribution is permanently accessible to the learner, (after some tutorial sessions that I have attended the conversation has been lost/fogotten or misinterpreted..) and that students might continue to use this vehicle to reflect further, provide evidence of or enhance their learning knowing that they have an audience and that they are likely to gain some advantage from it's use....... Postings can be made private or public as required and artefacts and reflections can be assimilated for different audiences: assessed pieces of work, mentors, employers etc. Can we thrash out here the issues that will affect real particiaption from the learner and the tutor?
 * 1. Participation and contribution**

Here are some ideas on how participation could work ... [It might be a good idea to break up Maxine's section #1, above, into sub-topics, like the one below, no?]

Just-in-time writing/editing is one of the most attractive affordances. It might be because it suits the way particular people think (aka: their 'cognitive style'). The way this affordance works is by exploiting: .1 Being able to write up thoughts-in-progress. This is useful, as you can use it as an up-date-able jotter, so that you can capture thoughts as they occur (they often occur, or are triggered by, other [and even unrelated] work and activities. .2 Being able to share, and get feedback on, thoughts early on in the process, and during the process in which they settle down into something that is not only interesting, but useful.
 * Just-in-time Writing**

This is one of the ways in which participation doesnt work. Its probably what happened with this wiki, which attracted a lot of views, but very few posts and edits at the start - could have done with more upfront 'priming'. But that looks like it is starting to change.
 * Cold-start**


 * 2. Ultimate system?**Other institutions have successfully implemented and evaluated the use of ePortfolio's for PDP.