Edition 63, December 2008

E-portfolios set to shake up RPL

Imagine if you could zip up all your life and work experiences, list your education and skills histories and provide multimedia examples of work all in a few megabytes. Impossible? Think again.

Resumes no longer need to be 2D, formulaic and unengaging. E-learning technologies such as e-portfolios, are opening up a world of convenience to both employers and employees.

To help explore the full potential of this technology, Adult Learning Australia (ALA) and Brisbane North Institute of TAFE (BNIT) are embarking on trials to investigate how e-portfolios can support current recognition of prior learning (RPL) processes.

Funded by the national training system's e-learning strategy, the Australian Flexible Learning Framework (Framework), the trials will focus on the most efficient ways of tracking learner's skills across different organisations and platforms, with two distinct trial objectives:

  • ALA's Evidence of Learning for ACE: an E-portfolio for RPL Project will be trialled in Victoria and New South Wales across three Adult and Community Education (ACE) providers. The project will work with Indigenous learners, young entrepreneurs and adult learners to measure and evaluate how e-portfolios can support ACE in an RPL process for learners.

  • BNIT's RPL Support System's Trial Project will explore the use of the Desire2Learn e-portfolio tool by a group of IT workers from Mincom Australia, who will use the tool to track and document the RPL progress. The trial will also help them explore career paths and individualised learning plans to best prepare them for future careers within the industry. Their experiences will also become exemplars that are transferable to other vocational and education training areas.

Allison Miller, the Framework's E-portfolios Business Manager believes the outcomes of the trials will assist learners in presenting what they are learning and planning in their personal, academic and professional life, to give employers a 'whole picture' of potential employees.

'Teachers and trainers from the trials will also have the opportunity to develop new skills and knowledge about how e-learning technologies can compliment and support the needs of their learners.'

'These trials will also help review current methods of collecting learner information across organisations and possibly even discover alternative uses for e-portfolios,' she says.

For more information on e-portfolios and the results of the trials as they become available, visit the Framework's E-portfolio blog at www.flexiblelearning.net.au/e-portfoliosblog

This page was generated on 23 December, 2009