Ownership is tricky. What do we really own? Do I own my car or my house if I still have payments remaining. If someone can tell me what to do with the things that I think I own or even lawfully take them away, do I really own them?
I've been learning about ePortfolios and what constitutes ownership. Ownership of an ePortfolio is not really about money or payments, it is about the control over what goes into it, how it is assessed and why.
Teachers would have students create these electronic portfolios and then tell them exactly what to put inside of it. Not only that, there also would be strict guidelines on how it should look and how it would be graded. This isn't ownership, it is copying the teacher's model while adding a little bit of individuality. That definitely isn't true ownership and it definitely isn't true learning.
Gardener Campbell, a Director of the Academy for Teaching and Learning, stated that "students must be effective architects, narrators, curators, and inhabitants of their own digital lives". He stated that "students with this digital fluency will be well-prepared for creative and responsible leadership". (Campbell, 2009). Students need to be in control of their learning in order to create meaningful, worthwhile connections.
Obtaining ownership of an ePortfolio also means letting students have
flexibility in how they are assessed. If a teacher gives a rubric to a student that details exactly how a project or assignment is supposed to look, does
that student really have any intellectual freedom? Probably not. There are times when a student can feel that their ideas have to fit inside of a small box due to a
rubric because it tells them exactly what to think.
In a 2015 post by Andrew Rikard it was stated that “We don’t really own our ideas if our ideas are controlled by a grading entity.” (Rikard, 2015). Students must be guided in the right direction, but not completely controlled. We have learned that the COVA model (choice, ownership, voice, and authentic assignments) and CSLE (creating significant learning environments) can give us control over the design of entire learning environments." (Harapnuik et al., 2018, pp. 43).
In Dr. Harapnuik's article "It's About the Learning: Who Owns the Eportfolio", it was stated that we should "effectively model what we expect our students to do with their ePortfolio by showing them ours, then the feedback we can provide to our students will be much more valuable and more openly received." (Harapnuik, 2019). It is okay to guide them by letting them see examples of prior students work as well as the teacher's work. This idea will still lead to authentic student output because they have recognized the direction in which they should be headed. This is ownership.
When students feel the freedom to express themselves in the capacity in which they feel comfortable, then they will be moving towards ownership. It is the teacher's job to give them the opportunity to have intellectual freedom in their education.
Sources
Campbell, W. G. (2009, September 4). A personal cyberinfrastructure. Educause. https://er.educause.edu/articles/2009/9/a-personal-cyberinfrastructure
Harapnuik, D. (2019, May). Who owns the ePortfolio. Harapnuik. http://www.harapnuik.org/?page_id=6050
Harapnuik, D., Thibodeaux, T., & Cummings, C. (2018). COVA (0.9 ed.) [E-book]. http://www.harapnuik.org/?page_id=7291
Rikard, A. (2015, August 10). Do i own my domain if you grade it? EdSurge. https://www.edsurge.com/news/2015-08-10-do-i-own-my-domain-if-you-grade-it
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