There are different facets of ownership when it comes to an ePortfolio. First, there is the question of who owns the work – the instructor or the student. As Dr. Harapnuik discusses in his post “Who Owns the ePortfolio?”, it is not enough for instructors to give students assignments that they merely store online. Students are still seeking to give the instructor what they want, and the ePortfolio becomes just a newer, perhaps sleeker, version of the old-fashioned hanging folders in a bin. They essentially become the “$1000 pencil” that Alan November discusses. Harapnuik quotes Andrew Rikard, “Promoting digital ownership is different than assigning work in publicly accessible spaces.” Students have to own every aspect of the ePortfolio from the choice of tools to the formatting to the connections made. They have to be solving real-world problems. It is only through choice, ownership, and voice through authentic learning experiences that students truly make meaningful connections.
A second area of ownership with regard to an ePortfolio is the digital space in which it is housed. According to “The Web We Need to Give Students,” the question of who owns the digital space where the ePortfolio is housed is being addressed by several forward-thinking universities. They are providing students with a domain that they are able to take with them when the leave their respective institutions of higher learning. They are learning technical skills and building a product that they will be able to use later in their careers because they own it. It will take some time for this practice to become commonplace in secondary education , however, so in the meantime teachers will have to be innovative.
References
Harapnuik, D. (n.d.). Who owns the ePortfolio? [Blog post]. Retrieved from It’s about Learning website: http://www.harapnuik.org/?page_id=6050
Madda, M. J. (2016, August 15). Alan November on the ‘$1000 Pencil’ and why edtech companies aren’t pushing the envelope. Retrieved from https://www.edsurge.com/news/2016-08-15-alan-november-on-the-1000-pencil-and-why-edtech-companies-aren-t-pushing-the-envelope
Watters, A. (2015, July 15). The web we need to give students [Blog post]. Retrieved from https://brightthemag.com/the-web-we-need-to-give-students-311d97713713
Growing my Classroom 