e-Portfolio : A New Form of Encouragement

E-Portfolio: A New Form of Encouragement

by

Nur Fatin Kassiran

            Do we need technology in school? Does technology being a good friend to learners? In my opinion, my answer to both questions is yes. Why did I think so is because technology can be helpful to learners especially nowadays students in school since they are rising up, mostly, with technology. People may think technology will destroy humanities and by implementing technology in learning, or to be specific, in school, world is on the way of producing millions of robots. It is not true at all and why I am agreeing with technology can be friend to learners is because of this one thing called electronic portfolio.

            Electronic portfolio or we called it as e-portfolio is a collection of work that has been devised using different contexts periodically. Recently, e-portfolio is widely used as learning aids for learners for several courses taken by students in university level, in my area of knowledge. It is also a one-way for students to reach information easily, beside of displaying their work compilation to the world. Moreover, the works come in handy with the help of their friend, Mr. Technology where e-portfolio also function as an archive and well-organizer for their works which is accessible for everyone. Though it is still a new way of learning but it is fun and exciting as the learners play with their imagination and technology instead of trapped in between of pen and paper.

            Most people know that playing with technology is also requiring them to play with their imagination, skills and creativity which can enhance one’s thinking skill. For instance, I myself able to develop my thinking skill by the time, every time we were told to submit our tutorial on our blog, which is a new thing to me instead of “submit your assignment by tomorrow at 5!” It cannot be denied that e-portfolio helped me to enhance my thinking skill because of the application provided by a certain websites are really being helpful that made things possible. Normally when students were told to do a task, they hardly are able to present their ideas exactly like what is on their mind. So, with the help of visual aids provided in the web-based tools such as BlogSpot, Tumblr, Wordpress or such can present the picture of students’ mind. Plus, when we as the writers know that the fact that when we published our work online, of course we got bigger audience to handle, thus, giving our best to make it engaging.

            In addition, it is a new kind of assessment of students’ work by the teacher. They don’t simply assess their students’ work by such things like words organization, grammar and all, but also assess their creativity or what I called, the diligent-ness. Besides, e-portfolio is easier to revise, easy to keep and is mobile as long you have the internet connection. So e-portfolio can be called as a new way of encouragement to write for those who lacks of motivation.

            Despite of that, e-portfolio can be a burden for those who did not well-equip with these technology requirement: a computer and an internet connection. Again, in my previous experience, when it is hard to get the internet connection, as the result, I failed to post the tutorial given on time. So there are few things to consider in using e-portfolio in learning. First, like I mentioned earlier, is the equipment: computer and internet connections. Second is the knowledge of using internet. We acknowledged that not everybody knows how to access internet. The third consideration is more to the teachers’ side where they have to consider the total of their students because if they are too many, yes, it is a burdensome to assess the works. Lastly, the interests of the students nevertheless should be considered. Even though there are many of them are technology-friendly, of course a few of them did not. But it is something that can be overcome where the teacher give their best to encourage their students to be friend with Mr. Technology.

            All in all, e-portfolio should be used or implemented in teaching and learning so that it can encourage students to just not write but also put more expression into their writing to make it meaningful. It would not be too much for me to state that e-portfolio is indeed a new form of motivation for students to write more.