RAPPORT
Volume 3 Issue 1 (2018)
As regards advantages or added values
of Learning ePortfolios, students reported
that:
“the Learning ePortfolio makes you
think about what you’ve learnt and I
think that reflecting is very important
to become aware of your learning.
There are thousands of situations on
a day, you can learn thousands of
things, but if you don’t reflect on them
you aren’t aware of what you’ve
learnt. So you start reviewing your
day, because maybe there are very
interesting things for your Learning
ePortfolio: ‘oh, this helped me doing
that, and besides, it’s related to what
we are working at university’. So, it
helps you make connections explicit”
(S1, G2).
Thus, Learning ePortfolios are perceived
as helping students reflect and be aware
of what they have learnt, both outside
and inside university.
In addition, Student 4 (G1) stated that:
“it is a long term tool, it helps you
evidencing your own learning
development and as it is shared with
the teacher educator, it is a way for
the teacher to get closer to us,
because actually we share who we
are in the Learning ePortfolio”.
Teacher educators also agreed with the
students participating in this study.
Indeed, one of the teacher educators
(G2) mentioned that:
“the Learning ePortfolio is a very
interesting tool to get personal and
learning-related information about
students that you could not get from
other tools”
And the other teacher educator (G1)
added that:
“in the Learning ePortfolio we can
see clearly students’ interests and
motivations. And that provides us the
opportunity to mentor students’
learning processes in a deeper way”.
All participants proposed aspects to be
improved. In fact, both teachers and
students, reported that understanding
what artefacts are was really complex.
Teacher educators thought that the
Learning ePortfolio was implemented
without sharing basic aspects:
“we started using the Learning
ePortfolio process quite fast and I’m
not sure if we all understood in the
same way the aims of the Learning
ePortfolio, strategies to mentor the
students’ learning process... Then,
we’ve seen ourselves planning and
mentoring throughout the process”
(T, G2).
However, students believed that:
“it’s important to understand the
Learning ePortfolio from the
beginning as a non-compulsory task,
similar to a diary; even though being
a compulsory task for us. Yes, it’s a
university task. But it’s a useful thing,
it’s a tool that we can use it and it will
be useful for us. It’s better to consider
it in that way. In that sense, we
should be more conscious that we
can use it, if not we just see it as a
university task” (S3, G2).
Students realised that they lacked
awareness regarding to Learning
ePortfolios’ usefulness.
Some changes in the process were also
identified. According to students the
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