By David O'Hagan | Published: Monday, June 04, 2012
My brilliant reflection
The act of reflecting on one's educational studies, work, successes, and challenges is highly valuable for everyone. Regular reflection often illuminates patterns and themes that can aid one to make better decisions about career paths, areas of study, and life in general. This practice, however, has long lacked the encouragement and attention it should rightly have, especially during one's younger years - the ripe time of one's life, where they establish and engrain practices and habits.
Reflecting on one's past is nothing new and has been going on for centuries, be it on parchment, in a notepad, on a computer, or a tablet. I know many people that regularly journal and obtain a great deal of value and enjoyment out of the process. (Personally, I journal somewhat irregularly, however when I do reflect on my past thinking, decisions, and ideas, I not only get more clarity into my own thinking, but gain valuable insight into my own life.)
Over a period of years, the multitude of events in one's personal and spiritual lives, as well as changes in one's career, health, and perspectives, alter the ability to recall small details, which could provide all with greater awareness and powerful ingredients to make better and more informed decisions. Unfortunately, reliance on the brain for these finer details and specifics puts one at a significant disadvantage.
Desire2Learn® ePortfolio is having a powerful impact on education and learning in a variety of ways. It offers users a manageable method of compiling their ideas and work, sharing those with others, and capturing valuable feedback. In the ePortfolio toolbox, two complimentary tools are available that make reflection simple and extremely functional. The ePortfolio reflection, and its more sophisticated cousin, the ePortfolio form, are both user-friendly, have no learning curve, and are powerful, in that they pick up where our brain begins to falter.
The reflection tool allows for open-ended composition of thoughts inside the HTML editor. Rather than limited to basic text, the editor enables users to explore and incorporate links, images, tables, and embedded objects. Conversely, the ePortfolio form is far more structured, and a variety of fields can be used, including dropdown menus, checkbox lists, rubric evaluations, formatted text, and the linking to other files and objects.
Reflections take advantage of the Insert Stuff™ framework
In addition to the variety of fields available, the creator of the form, typically an instructor or teacher, can add additional prompts to trigger ideas or have students expand on their thoughts. This feature is especially useful for younger students or those that are new to the process of reflecting.
Desire2Learn ePortfolio forms can be built with a range of type fields
These simple to use tools offer immense value to all ePortfolio users:
- Easily captured reflective thoughts and ideas all in one single easy-to-access location (using a computer, tablet, or smartphone)
- Easily organized with the use of tags, as well as ePortfolio collections
- Easily presented in the form of a story with ePortfolio presentations
- Easily shared with others for both peer feedback or formal assessment in a course of study
Reflections and forms are just two components inside the ePortfolio toolbox. In addition to the reflection functionality, ePortfolio allows users to easily capture a large variety of one's work, assessments, and ideas that can span years, as well as share items with a classmate, the entire class, or a grandparent, all the while easily capturing feedback from others on their work.
On top of all this existing powerful functionality, the newly released version 4.0 of ePortfolio includes, among other things, the ability for users to tie in, share, get feedback, and reflect on learning objectives structures. It is for these reasons that more and more organizations are using the Desire2Learn ePortfolio to truly enhance the learning experiences of students, teachers, employees, and staff.
Posted in: ePortfolio
2 Comments:
Julia Satov said...
Distinguishing One’s Brilliance by Reflection They say hindsight is 20/20. I love this saying because it captures both a what a reflection is and why it is important. We could relate reflection and its transformational work to Friere and Meizrow , but when we talk about community college, vocational learning and career paths, we need to now contextualize those theories into practices. Reflection is the practice or praxis of critically engaging in one’s own journey that journey often asks learners to consider themselves as part of the equation by witnessing what that means to be affective and affected - and how one can develop from this. For instance, in post-secondary courses, reflection is the tool for students to truly consider themselves as a stakeholder in the assignment. In a business course, upon application of a business model, the ive is that students make meaning from their decisions and applications. However, a learner’s perception changes if they had to considering the perspective from a consumer verses themselves as that consumer. This is where reflections become meaningful. Reflections flex critical and analytical skills necessary to innovate, articulate, understand and create ideas, solutions, and alternatives in a fast-paced global world. Reflections are not only in regards to ‘getting the job’. Under Centennial’s Signature Learning Experience: Global Citizenship & Equity, reflections are an integral part in a learners understanding of their roles and responsibilities in a global sense. This is a distinguishing feature in a Centennial graduate because they have the analytical skills to connect how global issues affect their industry, profession, and society at larger. Centennial graduates are global citizens who seek to address issues of inequity with future opportunities. It is what distinguishes our students. D2L’s ePortfolio provides students the canvass to compile and evidence these distinguishing features. Through reflections that demonstrate acquired skills specific to industry in assignments, as well as through various accomplishments, extra-curricular work, volunteerism, art, websites etc. all within D2L’s learning management system LMS. In the age of ever advancing technology, students who are able to present themselves virtually with a well-presented ePortfolio will have an edge in a competitive career path. They will also have witnessed their growth as an integral part of a global network, and hopefully continue to reflect on their learning journey. An impressive ePortfolio can open many doors of opportunities, but it is in the brilliant reflections that we discover those future opportunities. Thanks David! Julia Satov
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Joe said...
Good thoughts David. We've enjoyed seeing our teachers reflections on PD more than just tracking there PD like we used to.