Sharon Zivkovic, Roger Harris & Peter Willis Centre for Research in

Education, Equity and WorkUniversity of South Australia

Using E-portfolios for active citizenship, lifelong learning and

community resilience

Our argumentCommunity resilience - requires diverse

community stakeholders collaborating on addressing community issues and opportunities

Requires a trans-disciplinary social learning approach – but difficult to implement

A more integrated and holistic approach to assessment of education for sustainability programs required

Tilbury et al. 2005: 38… competency-

based training and industry-dominated training packages tend to …… fragment the knowledge and skills required for sustainability into compartmentalised, decontextualised and measurable units.

… the current TP model may prove inadequate to engage stakeholders in the learning required for change towards sustainability. This would suggest that policymakers should not rely solely on Training Package reform to secure sustainability outcomes. Other integration and intervention strategies beyond Training Packages could be developed and explored.

Our approachAn e-portfolio system for active citizenship

and community buildingCommunity Capacity Builders (CCB)

Community Leadership Program (CLP) Participants:- acquire skills and knowledge for developing

collaborative community capacity-building projects

- bridge their projects to strategic plans of governments

- participate in community governance activitiesProject of state and national significance – fits

many priorities

What are e-portfolios?‘dynamic, developmental spaces representing

your professional "self" on the Web’ (PSU)Challis (2005) highlights their features as:- selective and structured collections of information- gathered for specific purposes and

showing/evidencing one’s accomplishments and growth which are

- stored digitally and managed by appropriate software- developed by using appropriate multimedia and

customarily within a web environment, and- retrieved from a website, or delivered by CD-ROM or

DVD

Our researchSmall seed grant from UniSAPartnership with the City of Onkaparinga Desktop research, and interviews with

12 participants trialling e-portfolios through 2012Research activities:- identifying the most appropriate software and

host- developing a user guide- piloting the e-portfolio- surveying participants and City of Onkaparinga

staff - reporting and disseminating the findings

7 Community Capacity Builders’ Hats

In groups, select a community issue/opportunity to work on

Develop a trans-disciplinary strategy for addressing your issue or opportunity by looking at the issue through 7 perspectives: welfare reform; learning; health; business; sustainability; decision-making; collaborative planning

Identify what digital files and other features you could include in an e-Portfolio to showcase your proposed project to a potential stakeholder, or to use your work in a recognition of prior learning (RPL) process

Report back to the main group