Learning isn't fun. Learning is painful. Well, it is painful when a person isn't engaged or they aren't excited about what they are learning. I would be willing to assume that the majority of our learning takes places in the first 18 years of our lives. As babies we have to learn through experience. In the school system we are beaten down with facts, stats, and stories that we are forced to memorize for a test that will prove you are good at rote memorization. Students endure this process all the way through high school up to the point where they are done with school (You ever hear of senioritis).
Finally, the counselor tells the seniors, "Congratulations! You are ready to graduate!". Maybe this is why high school seniors are so happy, why they cry when they graduate from high school. Maybe they feel like they survived the school system.
What if I told you that acquiring an education didn't have to be an arduous task that made students hate school? What if I told you that students would no longer forget what they learned as soon as the quiz or test was over and they could retain the information they recently absorbed? What if I told you that schools could become a place where students wanted to go to enjoy learning just as much as they enjoy the social aspect of it? Well, its possible.
For all of the people that enjoy the movie "The Matrix", I'm pretty sure you have picked up on the quote that is falsely associated with Morpheus's (Laurence Fishburne) speech to Neo (Keanu Reeves) involving the blue pill and the red pill. (https://screenrant.com/matrix-meme-what-told-you-not-in-movie/)
The blue pill gives Neo the option to forget the truth of the matter and go back to his regular ordinary life. The Red pill will let Neo break free from the matrix and live with the true state of existence forever.
Learning doesn't have to be painful. Learning in school can be fun and challenging at the same time. Learning can be rigorous and engaging while students retain the information longer than a few days after the test. It begins with the elements that make up an ePortfolio.
Dr. Dwayne Harapnuik defined an ePortfolio as "A learner's digital evidence of meaningful connections." Students have a collection of their projects and assignments that they have gathered over the years. What stood out to me after reading his post was the words evidence and meaningful. I always thought that when I could provide any type of evidence of my accomplishments, they were similar to trophies. We put trophies on a mantle or in a case and leave them there for people to admire. This is our pride in our accomplishments.
Being meaningful means something is worthwhile. Ideally, learning should be worthwhile. If I am working for 8 hours a day for 5 days a week for something that isn't necessarily meaningful, I have to ask the question of "Why?". Why would I waste this time? Is there a better, more efficient way to go through the process? Yes, there is. An ePortfolio.
When researching why an ePortfolio was necessary, I found that students tend to gain real understanding that lasts compared to a superficial short term memory. Dr. Harapnuik's article stated that there were three main ideas that demonstrated why using an ePortfolio was necessary.
Students potentially had active and deeper learning.
ePortfolios had an opportunity to present the COVA concept. (Choice, Ownership, Voice, and Authenticity in assignments)
21st Century assessments were now available.
My interpretation, or summation was that when students are actively engaged in learning, they begin to search for and want to know the answer to "why"? They aren't just simply doing worksheets and packets in a classroom. The University of Minnesota's center for educational innovation stated that active learning is "when students are commonly engaged in small or large activities centered around writing, talking, problem solving or reflecting."
Learning about COVA was very interesting. To me it was about taking the shell of the educational system out and throwing out all the things you didn't like and then adding the better pieces to get the best results. It was almost like taking a regular old car and getting rid of the engine, transmission, alternator and brakes, and then updating it with 2022 parts and functions.
It will look good and potentially run much better. Even if you can't drive very well, the car can do most of it for you. The car now can start on its own, pretty much drive on its own, and even park if you need it to do so.
When students have the option to have Choice, Ownership, Voice, and Authentic lessons, they feel they are in control. We, as teachers, just have to make sure they are still headed in the right direction every now and then. "The ePortfolio is also an example of collaborative technology tool that fades into the background as the learners use it to share their voice and collaborate and communicate with their peers in and out of their classrooms."(Harapnuik et al., 2018, pp. 87).
Using an ePortfolio is very important because rarely in life will an adult face a do or die situation when all the work they have done comes down to one test or one grade. Let's be honest. It happens, but not as often as we think. If this is the case, why do we base our students success off of one test. If a student's SAT score isn't as sufficient as a University would like, they could lose any scholarship opportunity they had as well as potentially not being admitted to the school. An ePortfolio could document all of the trophies, or more specifically, all of the accomplishments that a student has created over a four year period. I would much rather judge a student over a four year period, a full body of work, compared to one test. That student could have test anxiety, lack of sleep, sickness that day or anything else that could result to a poor test score. An ePortfolio is a more accurate representation of how a student will perform once on campus.
If a student understands why an ePortfolio is beneficial they will usually be more motivated to fill it with their achievements and put it on the "eMantle" for everyone to see. The students will be more likely to start and finish their projects. If the students know why they are doing what we are asking them to do, we have to focus a lot less on discipline and a lot more on guiding their learning. Now, when high school seniors graduate from high school their tears won't be those tears screaming that we've endured the stats and facts that we will never use. Those tears will be tears of joy because they have tangible proof that they have collected enough information that validates them for their next step in life, whatever that step may be.
Now we all have options. I'm not endorsing doing drugs by any means so I will stress that I am metaphorically holding a blue pill and a red pill. The blue pill says that you can forget that this blog post ever existed and you can never hear about ePortfolios again. The red pill gives you the option to push for a change in education, a change in the students' lives, and a change in our future, by simply asking to implement ePortfolios in school. In Morepheus's words "Remember, all I am offering is the truth. Nothing more." (The Matrix. Dir. Andy Wachowski and Larry Wachowski. Warner Bros. Pictures, 1999. DVD.).
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