Excellent talk by Julie Hughes – CELT / School of Eduation UoW – a passionate eportfolio teacher for the past two years researching the use of ePortfolios for teaching, learning and assessment to support reflective learning and development. Educational theory: Learning situated in landscape / social context (Lave & Wenger 1991); Belonging and identity important and dialogue is key in creating meaningful reflection (Brookfield, Bolton, Gagne). University needs to adapt not students. Risk taking essential. Process rather than product.

Creating a PGCE learning space

Stressed the importance of putting work in at the beginning to create a warm, supportive, collaborative space (use texting metaphors eg smileys). Learners have the freedom to set up their own shared areas and for some this was the “turning point” from “why bother” to “this is cool”

Metaphors and pictures

• All students are asked to create a metaphor – an image to illustrate what (learning) is like
• Comment on it
• share it to allow others to comment on it

Group size appears to be critical in this environment – small groups (?6-8), everyone knows each other and notices if someone is not contributing – they may comment on this in the discussion to try and encourage participation.

Here’s a Word doc written by the Julie and the students (28kb)