I found a couple very interesting blog posts…one being a sort of manifesto against the inroads of educators portfolio’s in one educator’s life. The subtext here is that this article could be seen as a diatribe against the need for many to amass and to display credentials as a means to justify one’s employment or to get a job.
The reply is from another blog, where the responding writer seems bent upon deconstructing the first article’s points. First off, as an aside to this very civil flame war, the second post refutes some of the first post’s claims in such a manner as to miss most of the points (context was lost here…). But irrespective of my own opinions, I find this fascinating, in that you see so very few rebelling against the increasing use of credentials as a replacement for knowledge and judgment…
No matter what, these two articles are worth reading, and I would love to see more in this topic…
E-portfolios – 7 reasons why I don’t want my life in a shoebox
http://donaldclarkplanb.blogspot.com/2011/03/e-portfolios-7-reasons-why-i-dont-want.html
E-portfolios have taken up more conference time and wasted effort than almost any other learning technology topic I can recall. The idea’s been around since the nineties but isn’t it odd that no one seems to have one? Never has so much time been devoted to something with so little real impact. An army of researchers, academics and vendors have been touting the idea that everyone should have a shoebox of ‘stuff’ which they fill up as they go through life as ‘lifelong learners’. Politicians and educators of the ‘control freak variety’ love the idea, but like identity cards, the rest of us seem to be completely indifferent. So why have they not taken off?
4. People are not learners
People do not see themselves as ‘learners’, let alone ‘lifelong learners’. It’s a conceit, as only educators see people as learners. Imagine asking an employer – how many learners do you have? People are individuals, fathers, mothers, employees, lawyers, bus drivers, whatever….but certainly not learners, that’s why an e-portfolio, tainted with ‘schooling’ will not catch on. By and large, most adults see school as something they leave behind and do not drag along with them into adulthood.
E-portfolios – taking learning out of the shoebox: a reply to Donald Clark
http://www.pontydysgu.org/2011/04/e-portfolios-taking-learning-out-of-the-shoebox
Of course he is right, but there are two ways to look at the idea of lifelong learning. And I do not think this new paradigm of the lifelong learner is a conceit of educators but rather is a policy directive. In a fast changing economy and a period of rapid changes in technology and working practices the drive of such policies is to say that we should all be involved in learning for all of our lifetimes to ensure we are employable and have up to date skills and knowledge etc. etc. This is part of a longer term debate over who pays for education and whose responsibility is it for maintaining our ability to find jobs. In this scenario, unemployed people only have themselves to blame for having no job. If they had maintained their skills they would now be able to find employment. It is indeed a conceit – or rather a deceit – but one which is ideological in intent. But of course educators are being coerced to make this happen.
