Can an e-portfolio really help?

I have been Chair of Governors at a large High School for the past five years. One of the initiatives we have introduced is for Governors to have direct access with departments in the school. This week I had the priviledge of listening to an revealing discussion between two of the more experienced teachers in one department. They have been responsible for helping develop study and thinking skills across the school. Their reflection was that having done this for a couple of years, they prehaps had disadvantaged their students because whilst they had really become engaged in learning, they may have unwittingly walked out the classroom without the information they needed for their exam.

There were real echoes here with the e-portfolio debate, around the question of just how useful they really are. Is an e-portfolio something that encourages individuals to discover and capture using multi media a variety of learning experiences or is it a means for individual's learning to be assessed for a specific purpose.

Of course there had can be elements of both however if an e-portfolio is being used for assessment there has to be a real sense that records should be opened to others for external scrutiny. There are of course questions about how this is done, but in all the systems we have designed there is always the fundamental pedagogical question that needs to be addressed, which is who owns the portfolio. If it is fully owned by the individual then how reliable is the assessment?

I can imagine the cries for those that espouse the benefits of livelong learning portfolios who will argue the importance of holding your learning documents in one place. However how many of us really need this and furthermore when do we actiually look at work we created in our various historical learning episodes.

If you don't face this fundamental question of ownership then e-portfolios creators will be constantly haunted by the So What question. Is this all about just creating a more interesting storing space than an attic.

We are very clear e-portfolios are there for a purpose. To actively support people with their learning journeys through the provision of interactive learning plans; an easy means to gather evidence and where required to put permissions in place for others to interact with the portfolio.

If they are not we might be reflecting like the teachers about whether we have actually missed the point. Like it or not examinations and assessments exist and well designed e-portfolios can help.